Let's talk about my carb education

[rangerdoc 22]

If anyone cares to do a search they will see I've started several threads about my carb. It is an Autolite 2100 on a 302.

 

The carb was one thing I was always afraid to touch. I used to live in Washington and a place called Carburetor Connection always got it tuned up and in perfect shape.

 

Now that I'm older, more penny wise and wanting to do more myself I decided to search out the demons that have been haunting my carb for a couple years.

 

During this process I've learned to completely take the thing apart, how the choke is integrated into everything else. How an adjustment on one side affects things on the other side. Cold vs hot adjustments matter. Vacuum matters. Attention to the small details matter (ie. putting the float retaining clip on correctly). Etc.

 

Finally, I learned that just because you think you got it right it is worth checking previous solutions to problems. Today I tackled the last problem. I had slight hesitation upon hard acceleration. Even though the carb had been cleaned and rebuilt (twice) I looked down the carb while pulling the throttle and noticed only one nozzle was squirting fuel. So I pulled out the assembly, shot carb cleaner in all the holes, shot some air in and discovered a piece of rusty dirt or something stuck in the nozzle. After putting it back in the car runs great!

 

The moral of all this. It feels good to tackle a problem that has been bugging you for a long time. Don't be afraid of a car system you're not familiar with. Online research helps. Nothing beats doing it yourself and really getting to understand your car.

[maxum96 32]

Autolite 2100's are simple carbs. Easy to rebuild and easy to tune. Last one I rebuilt was about 5 years ago. It cost me $17 for the rebuild kit.

[zach69grande 25]

it's a great little carb - i run one on my 77 Jeep CJ. Excellent work.. persistence pays!

[rangerdoc 22]

I know this probably sounded strange, especially for what I now know to be a simple carb. But it was one system of the car I always thought was mystical!!! Being able to get through something that severely affected the way the car performed is very satisfying. Especially after I thought I had done everything to it possible.

[foothilltom 33]

I can totally relate to you, rangerdoc. To some folks, this stuff is 2nd nature, but for the rest of us, these things can seem incredibly daunting...until you actually roll up your sleeves and have a go at it.

 

I felt the same way as you when I took on the rebuild of my 4 speed toploader. A year ago, I would have laughed if someone would have suggested I try that, but now that I did, it feels great and makes everything else seem so much simpler.

 

So congrats for taking this on. It feels good, don't it?

 

Tom