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Old 08-12-2006, 11:19 AM
barry123400 barry123400 is offline
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Join Date: Nov 2004
Location: Nova Scotia, Canada.
Posts: 6,510
Autozen, even when having problems with zeniths I too still preffer them. For one thing the shaft holes do not seem to wear very fast. I have yet to get one with heavy wear but I lead a sheltered life to some extent. An awful lot of people seem to miss the base air leaks that seem to develop over time as well. Proper storage when out of service for a long time is important as well. Just fill the bowl with light oil through the tube is fast and adaquate. It is tragic that a lot of cars are put away or sit with gas in the bowls that becomes a troublesome residue when the gas evaporates over time. Rather than the hassel of cleaning and kitting when I deal with one. I just fill the bowl with laquer thinner to dissolve the residue if this problem is experienced. Run the carb out of gas first though. The thinner seems to dissolve the residue quite fast ( usually less than 1/2 hour soak in average cases) and the engine runs pretty well on the thinner too. If you want to do it properly break the fuel line before the fuel pump and insert it into a container with the thinner. That way you are flowing it by the needle valve as well... Even improves the general condition of carborators in everyday service. An old dirty zenith carb of course is not going to perform very well. That is not the carbs fault really. I never knew there was a special tool to get those back nuts either. Guess I will bend and fabricate something for the next time. The bottom line is I believe a certain amount of negative feelings about these carbs is not really justified. Needless to say the above procedure will not cure a real fault but does work well enough to avoid taking the carb apart on many occasions. Plus it is very cheap to try beforehand if partial or total obstruction of passages by dried gas residue is suspected. You know you need it for sure if you remove an idle jet for example and get little or no flow from the passage. You also use that point to determine when the residue has been dissolved by the thinner. I have seen them go from totally obstructed to pretty free flowing in 20 minutes...Or marginal flow to good flow in less than ten minutes. The proof of the pudding so to speak is after the cleaning the idle jets may require new settings as the passages have probably been somewhat dirty for years before the cleanout.
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