Carburetor Rebuild

It won’t start! Well, it won’t start without a little persuasion. When I first took delivery of the car it would not start. It turned over fine but just would not fire. I thought the car was out of gas. The fuel gauge reading “Empty” was another hint. After pouring a couple of gallons in the tank and a few drops in the carburetor it started after a couple of cranks. Unfortunately, that was not the end of the problem. First, even with gas in the tank, the gauge reads empty. That is another problem to be added to the “To-Be-Fixed” list. And second, it still will not start unless I add a few drops of fuel directly in to the carb.

Using my ace troubleshooting skills, I deduced that I have a carburetor problem. I decided to give the carb a rebuild versus replacing it with a remanufactured model. I ordered up a rebuild kit for my Carter BBS 3678 carburetor (Kit # CRB25500) from Napa Online for about $20. I think the remanufactured carb was around $150.

The first thing I did after removing the air cleaner was to take several pictures of the carb with all the hoses and linkages in place. I always think I will remember how things went but I never do so pictures are a must. I disconnected the throttle linkage, the choke, the fuel line and all the other hoses. Next I removed the 2 bolts mounting the carb to the intake manifold.

With the carburetor on the workbench, I began the disassembly following the instructions that came with the rebuild kit. Surprise, surprise, the instructions were not that good. The rebuild kit was generic for several models of Carter BBS carburetors. Consequently, the exploded view drawing did not represent my carb exactly but was good enough for disassembly. During disassembly I noticed gunk had built up in the fuel bowl and on the floats and that the gaskets were pretty brittle. I cleaned all the parts up with carburetor cleaner.

I did have some issues during reassembly mostly related to the generic instructions. Several times I found myself trying to follow an instruction for a part that was not on my model carb. This led to a few tense moments looking for phantom parts. The rebuild kit contained all the required parts except for one minor item. My carb uses 2 ball checks of different sizes. The kit supplied 2 ball checks of the same size. This required me to reuse one of the old ball checks. When I got to the ball check installation step, I could not find the original ball checks, of course. I had spread all the parts out on the workbench after cleaning but with all the jostling of the workbench the check balls had disappeared. These things are tiny, like 1/8” diameter. After 15 minutes of searching high and low, I finally found them wedged in a hose clamp. Lucky me!

With the carburetor completely reassembled, I reinstalled it on the intake manifold. Then weeks passed before I could get back to starting the car and adjusting the carburetor. Finally last Saturday morning, I found some time to work on the car and guess what? You got it, dead battery. Instead of looking at this as a problem, I looked at it as an opportunity. An opportunity to buy a new tool! So off I headed to the Sears Hardware Store and I purchased a Model# 71222 DieHard 10/2/50 Amp Automatic Battery Charger. The day was shot so I just hooked the charger to the battery and gave it a slow charge overnight.

First thing Sunday morning, I was back out in the garage. The charger indicated the battery was fully charged. I then connected my RPM meter to a spark plug wire and the battery. I then cranked the car, allowing the fuel pump to fill the empty lines, filter and carb. Once gas was flowing, the car started right up. Yeah! In no time at all, I had the fuel mixture, fast idle and curb idle adjusted the car was purring like a kitten.