Buying Carbs

[denicholls2]

Shop claims old carb is junk. Orders new at owner's expense for going rate plus comfortable shop markup.

Bills owner for disposal fee for old carbs. "Hazardous materials"

Bills owner for usual tuning.

Sells old carbs on eBay for going rate of $150-250 apiece.

Buys Christmas presents for the family.

Go for the new carbs. After all, it's for the children!

Or, for about forty dollars and an hour's time apiece, the old ones can probably be restored to as-new performance by most any shop with Weber or Dellorto experience.

Has ANYONE out there ever heard of a carb casting "going porous" to the extent of unusability? Cylinder heads have an issue here, they need to contain compression strokes of up to 200 PSI and much greater forces on the power stroke. A carb by definition cannot see pressures greater than 1 atmosphere unless supercharged. If the float bowl holds fuel, you can be pretty confident it's rebuildable.

I have a pair of 40DCOE's that have had a very hard life, and when I locate the missing bits I'm confident they will tune good as new.
Real recommendation: RUN AWAY FROM THIS SHOP! THEY WILL ROB YOU BLIND IF YOU LET THEM.

[kenny]

I guess that was my point,but did not put it as succinctly as you

Kenny

[types26/36]

for about forty dollars and an hour's time apiece, the old ones can probably be restored to as-new performance by most any shop with Weber or Dellorto experience.

Dennis, I think I detect a hint of cynicism in your post but isn't this just capitalism or free enterprise ......what the the "American Dream" is based on
.........after all, everybody has to eat

[M100]

After a good vapour blast they are like new

I've often heard vapour blasting being referred to but its name I find is very misleading as it is still essentially a glass bead process and for something like a carb extremely bad news if some gets into the internals. Maybe with custom blanking plates for all the openings you might get away with it.

I'd love to find a really good way to clean old carbs to visually as new as mine are getting really mucky now.

[steveww]

No idea how they did it but http://www.northamptonmotorsport.com/ rebuilt a pair of Weber 40s for me and they looked like when they had finished. The bodies were very dirty before after years of abuse. I think they said something about an ultrasonic tank but I am not sure.

[M100]

A full carb stripdown and complete dip in cellulose thinners removes general grime and internal "varnish" but it won't restore the surfaces back to as new - it's not corrosion I'm trying to remove, it's more like the outer skin in particular is impregnated with a mix of presumably fuel, oil, dust and road film.

I've had an ultrasonic cleaner for years, extremely useful for fuel injectors and the like but having tried a wide range of liquids from water (don't laugh it does work!) dishwasher fluid, cellulose thinners, isopropyl alcohol, acetone and a few others I can't recall right now all seem to do next to nothing on an old carb I've been messing around with.

Chemicals that do work on aluminium also seem to be too agressive (alkali), so tend to erode critical dimensions and also leave a matt type surface behind.