I originally posted the following rant, in reply to somebody's
posting about their car running poorly, August 2000...
I think that many carb rebuild kits, especially the cheaper ones, can be
a waste of time. They contain mostly gaskets. Are the gaskets the
parts that tend to fail? Of course not. The kits should be
called "carb reassembly kits", not "carb rebuild kits". The only
real mechanical parts they fix are the float valve and the diaphgram,
and you can easily replace the diaphragm by itself. Sometimes when
I have "rebuilt" a carb, I realized that I was replacing somewhat worn
but well-made parts with new but poorly-made ones. And of course,
a rebuild kit does not fix the serious problems, like worn jets or
throttle shafts. And a typical Stromberg rebuild kit does not even
contain a new needle.
If you need to open up the fuel bowl and check for crud and contamination,
all you need is a couple of gaskets, which you can get for 2 or 3 bucks.
(Since you can drive the car OK once it starts, I doubt that is your problem.)
But blindly taking the carb apart and putting it back together again
(with new gaskets), hoping that you will luck out and fix a problem,
is not a good strategy, IMHO. The next thing you know, you will waste
real $$$ changing the fuel pump, ignition, etc. with no real improvement.
Sorry for my rant,
Doug Braun
'72 Spit
P.S.: For a new Spit owner, rebuilding a carb is probably a good learning
experience, even if it doesn't actually fix anything...
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