Big opsie with the carburator
Posted: Thu Mar 27, 2008 3:12 pm
Well folks heres a good one for you - it will give you a good chuckle.
Rebuilding my carb, things are going smoothly (we all know were this is headed). Dropped one of the ball bearings in the accelerator pump shaft (drivers left side of carb) and put the little retainer clip in. And then it hit me that I had dropped the wrong ball bearing into the hole. I used the big one not the little one.
Not a problem I said - I'll just tip the carb over and it will fall right out. Nope.
This is were you get that millisecond of panic, followed by the the thought that you know better, and that you are an idiot.
So now I have the bigger ball bearing stuck in the passage way - its a perfect fit in case you were wondering.
I can jam a q-tip into the chamber from the float side (down the slot) and it makes a cool sucking noise and I can see a mixture of lube oil and gear oil (see below) and stuff slipping past the ball bearing.
Looking at my carb it appears that this is the one passage way that doesn't have a plug for it. - am I wrong? I would like to be, that way I could just pull the plug and put a new one in. That part of my carb is dinged and dented so I can't tell. This is the passage way that makes a hairpin turn up towards the float chamber, sort of like a elbow.
Things I have tried:
1. Compressed air via a small hose into the bowl side trying to blow the bearing upwards - nope. I did get hit in the nose with the hose - that was kind of funny. This is the point that I put my safety glasses on.
2. Heat - heated up the carb in hopes the alum would expand and let go of the ball bearing - nope - started the rag on fire though.
3. flooded the carb with 90w gear oil, filled the air hose with gear oil, and tried to blow it all thru via the float side of things - this only covered me and my shop in lube oil - my woodshop now smells like lube oil.
4. magnets - tried a really powerful rare earth magnet - this was Charles idea - I figured that this would work - It just has to....I can hear the magnet go ca'chunk but bearing still stuck. Charles mentioned that we all have one of those days. That made me feel a little better - not much.
5. Tried packing the whole thing with old school rotella grease via a vet syringe - managed to break the syringe I was squeezing so hard. It was also my last vet syringe.
6. Tried using my brake bleeder suction thing with a small hose on the ball bearing - sucking one hell of a vacuum but nope.
My next step is to drill out from the bottom and then have someone tig/migweld the hole shut. Thats assuming that theres no plug for that chamber.
Also had someone tell me to boil the carb on the stove - don't tell the girlfriend that one.
All this because I was bored and was killing some time. This will be easy and fun, haven't rebuilt a carb in a while. The stupid thing ran fine, but no - I had to go mess with it, and take it all apart.
Love any ideas - or maybe some whiskey, or even a good "should have seen what I had done stories"
So does anybody know if that passageway is plugged or not?
Jim Jefferson
www.knockabouttoys.com
1954 M37 Billy minus the carb
1970 Jeep Gladiator
and a work bench covered in carb parts.
Rebuilding my carb, things are going smoothly (we all know were this is headed). Dropped one of the ball bearings in the accelerator pump shaft (drivers left side of carb) and put the little retainer clip in. And then it hit me that I had dropped the wrong ball bearing into the hole. I used the big one not the little one.
Not a problem I said - I'll just tip the carb over and it will fall right out. Nope.
This is were you get that millisecond of panic, followed by the the thought that you know better, and that you are an idiot.
So now I have the bigger ball bearing stuck in the passage way - its a perfect fit in case you were wondering.
I can jam a q-tip into the chamber from the float side (down the slot) and it makes a cool sucking noise and I can see a mixture of lube oil and gear oil (see below) and stuff slipping past the ball bearing.
Looking at my carb it appears that this is the one passage way that doesn't have a plug for it. - am I wrong? I would like to be, that way I could just pull the plug and put a new one in. That part of my carb is dinged and dented so I can't tell. This is the passage way that makes a hairpin turn up towards the float chamber, sort of like a elbow.
Things I have tried:
1. Compressed air via a small hose into the bowl side trying to blow the bearing upwards - nope. I did get hit in the nose with the hose - that was kind of funny. This is the point that I put my safety glasses on.
2. Heat - heated up the carb in hopes the alum would expand and let go of the ball bearing - nope - started the rag on fire though.
3. flooded the carb with 90w gear oil, filled the air hose with gear oil, and tried to blow it all thru via the float side of things - this only covered me and my shop in lube oil - my woodshop now smells like lube oil.
4. magnets - tried a really powerful rare earth magnet - this was Charles idea - I figured that this would work - It just has to....I can hear the magnet go ca'chunk but bearing still stuck. Charles mentioned that we all have one of those days. That made me feel a little better - not much.
5. Tried packing the whole thing with old school rotella grease via a vet syringe - managed to break the syringe I was squeezing so hard. It was also my last vet syringe.
6. Tried using my brake bleeder suction thing with a small hose on the ball bearing - sucking one hell of a vacuum but nope.
My next step is to drill out from the bottom and then have someone tig/migweld the hole shut. Thats assuming that theres no plug for that chamber.
Also had someone tell me to boil the carb on the stove - don't tell the girlfriend that one.
All this because I was bored and was killing some time. This will be easy and fun, haven't rebuilt a carb in a while. The stupid thing ran fine, but no - I had to go mess with it, and take it all apart.
Love any ideas - or maybe some whiskey, or even a good "should have seen what I had done stories"
So does anybody know if that passageway is plugged or not?
Jim Jefferson
www.knockabouttoys.com
1954 M37 Billy minus the carb
1970 Jeep Gladiator
and a work bench covered in carb parts.
I am looking now at that body, mine is a later series carb and it has a plug outside at the bottom of the pump well, but it does not look like it will help extract the check ball as it is offset to the right side. 