How many carburetors do you own?

1 chain saw (just got an electric, though, so the old Stihl is going on the garage sale list)

1 dead ATV project

1 dead snow thrower (again, got an electric for my deck, have a guy who plows my driveway now)

Paid my dues with SUs, Holley-Webers, VW and Toyota carbs and single-barrel Rochesters (Corvairs), God I love fuel injection.

1 on the lawn mower and 1 on the generator.

I feel bad owning so few, but taking the FI off my cars and converting them to carb is more work than I want to tackle. Also can't tune a carb (or injection) to save my life.

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

jimbbski said:

I own more carbs not on an engine then on one.  Does that count?

Well I was looking for "how many carbs in use" I guess. A carb in use is a carb that may need maintenance thus increasing the anxiety factor of dealing with them.

 

For those of us with 10 plus, do you feel like you're always adjusting or rebuilding them? At 19, I still really don't feel like I am messing with them much at all.

Of the 25+ that I own, the last one I rebuilt was the one on the LeMans when I bought it nearly a decade ago.  A few years ago my brother gave me a Stihl chainsaw that wasn't running right and it turned out to be the diaphragm pump in the carb, so that counts as a rebuild. People always complain about how you can't let them sit, or ethanol kills them.  Never.  About 15 years ago I cut a Locust tree out of the center of a 65 Scout 80 so I could extract it.  I hooked up the carb to a boat tank with a primer bulb, gave it two squeezes and a jump and it ran.  Not well, but it ran.  Fresh plugs, filed the points, new plug wires, and a quick hose-out with brake cleaner and the carb ran great.

The rings on the locust suggested the tree was 20 years old, which tracked with the last registration sticker being 1982.

When I'm done with my lawnmower, I shove it in the corner.  Same goes for the weed whacker, tiller, pressure washer, all of it.  When I get it out to use it, it runs.  I don't buy non-ethanol gas, I don't use fuel stabilizer, and the garage is detached and not heated.  In the spring I get them out, blow off the mouse nests, and they've never failed to start on the first or second pull.

Also forgot... leaf blower.  That's another carb

Also remembered my 73 Impala wagon.  I bought it in 2004 or so with only 58k.  Owner had died, son never took it out of the barn, and it hadn't been run since the 80s.  I took four tires, (to replace the nylon bias-plys on it) a fuel pump, and 5 gallons of gas.  Took a hundred miles to burn through the half maple syrup/half gasoline in the tank, but I drove it 1400 miles home from TX to CA.  Ended up not needing the fuel pump.

I prefer carburetors

Cars

2 – 1955 Ford Customline

2 – 1964 Chevy C10

3 – 1969 Cass 11 VW Bug

5 – 1972 Fiat 850 H-Production (4 DCOEs)

1 – 1974 Dodge W150 PowerWagon

2 – 1978 Subaru Wagon (1 32/36)

2 – 1981 Toyota Corolla Wagon

2 – 1984 Toyota Pickup

Various Car Carbs in storage (estimated)

5 – Weber DG 32/36

2 – Weber DG 38/38

2 – Weber ID??

3 – Rochester 2bbl (for a tri-power project)

Motorcycles

4+ – 1960s Montgomery Wards

4 – from 1975 Honda CB550 (for Wards swap)

4 – 198?? Honda CB750

4 – 1989 Yamaha FJ1200 (for Sale)

Other Equipment

1 – chainsaw
2 – lawnmower
3 – generators

1 – pressure washer

3 – Injected vehicles no spares

My racing outboards have carbs, and mini bike and mini quad. Also yard equipment is all carbed. No issues per say, but everything with a turbo is fi...because I'm scared. 

Saab - 1

VW - 2 installed, 1 extra

Lawn mower, weed eater, go-kart, and chainsaw 4

Grand total of 8

I have more carburetors than carbureted engines.  One of my injected cars has a carb on it.

I may have also cornered the market on obscure Mazda carb intake manifolds.  Still looking for a TWM dual DCOE setup for a 12A, though!

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

Toyman! said:

In reply to crankwalk (Forum Supporter) :

Anything that gets used regularly just keeps working. Anything that sits needs to be fiddled with. I've taken to running engineered fuels through anything small that sits for most of the time. That solved 99% of my carb issues.  

I think it's the fuel and shutdown procedure for long term storage stuff. Stabil, no ethanol, and leaving the bowls full storing it "wet" with the needle seated have given me no issues with 7+ years of super sporadic use on my 240z.

I agree, shutdown procedure before storage matters.  I don't drain carbs or run them dry.  Outside of a modern EFI vehicle with a well sealed fuel system, any gas I'm not 100% sure will be burned within a month gets Stabil (the blue marine stuff) added at purchase.  If it's going to sit for more than a few weeks, I drown the carb in fogging oil at shutdown, figuring the oil film will reduce gumming up and oily parts don't corrode. 

With that procedure, I've yet to have an engine not fire right off months later and run fine (sometimes with a whiff of carb cleaner to help it fire with all the oil in there). 

I don't worry much about ethanol vs non ethanol.  As long as you don't get water in it, E10 lasts just fine.  The only thing I intentionally avoid it for is the lanwmower, as it's jetted so lean that E10 vs E0 is a noticeable difference (it's even leaner on E10).  For everything else I own, they run the same on either fuel (and the boat lived 15 years on nothing but E10 in CT where there was no choice).  Unless there's crappy non alcohol safe rubber in the fuel system, E10 shouldn't really hurt anything (provided the fuel system is clean and dry when you start). 

GMC Van-1

VW bug- 2

blower/mower/chainsaw/generator-4

VW rabbit -2

random spares- 3

more than I thought or expected -12 total

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

jimbbski said:

I own more carbs not on an engine then on one.  Does that count?

Well I was looking for "how many carbs in use" I guess. A carb in use is a carb that may need maintenance thus increasing the anxiety factor of dealing with them.

 

For those of us with 10 plus, do you feel like you're always adjusting or rebuilding them? At 19, I still really don't feel like I am messing with them much at all.

2 of mine require CONSTANT upkeep. The one on the tiller especially, because despite being a wildly popular motor, I can't get seals that last more than 8 hours once exposed to fuel. Not 8 hours of running, 8 hours from install to the point it's totally useless and needs a rebuild. Need to use it Saturday and Sunday? Rebuild it both mornings. One person is dead set convinced its the ethanol in the fuel absorbing water that berkeleying fast, but ethanol free fuel doesn't make a difference. 

That's why I bought a predator to replace it.

The other one, on a tractor, won't run with an air filter on period, and won't do more than idle until I rebuild it for a fourth time in 2 years. 

Meanwhile, my 40 year old Stihl chainsaw has been rebuilt once, and runs like a champ. My generator sat for 10 years and fired on the second pull. 

I'm not saying they're all bad. Just there are much better options these days.

Too many to count, but one of the reasons I'm pretty much entirely switching to ethanol-free gas for all my small engines, power tools, and infrequently driven classics.

Zero

How many I own, or how many in running cars? 

If the latter, 3.

GT6 - 2 Zenith Strombergs

Spitfire - 1 Zenith Stromberg

Maybe 4 if you count the 7.3 IDI in my E350 which has sort of an odd "not quite a carburetor and and not quite injection" fueling system.

Otherwise, I have a small collection of GT6 carbs sets from various spare engines I've acquired.

I also have carbs for the Spitfire.  A pair of Euro-spec SUs as well as a quad carb set adapted from a 750cc moto.  

I have at least 2 from my karting days (what the heck are *these* doin here!?), one on the chainsaw, 1 on the stupid gas generator, 1 on the stupid propane generator, 1 on a weedwhacker that never gets used, 1 on the Ford 8D tractor, and 1 on the dumb riding mower. 

I don't miss the olde days when they were under every car hood. I followed a Shelvy gt350 in slow traffic once and the exh fumes made my eyes water...

1950 Ford 8n -1

1950 John Deere M -1

1952 Farmall Super A-1

lawnmower / chainsaws -3

In reply to rslifkin :

Actually, the potential for water in fuel is the reason I specifically buy E10 for my gas can.  The ethanol means you can have a lot more water present in the gasoline without separating out.

I fill my 5 gallon can about once a year.  I mix up some 2-stroke stuff from that in a 1-gallon can.  It sits forever.  No stabilizer.   My I/O boat gets stashed in the field at Dad's farm all winter without stablizer and every spring it starts right up.  The 67 LeMans gets E10 too.

I don't think a lot of people know that fuel stabilizer is primarily made of ethanol, so it makes little sense to go buy ethan0l-free gas and then put stabilizer in it.

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

In reply to rslifkin :

Actually, the potential for water in fuel is the reason I specifically buy E10 for my gas can.  The ethanol means you can have a lot more water present in the gasoline without separating out.

I fill my 5 gallon can about once a year.  I mix up some 2-stroke stuff from that in a 1-gallon can.  It sits forever.  No stabilizer.   My I/O boat gets stashed in the field at Dad's farm all winter without stablizer and every spring it starts right up.  The 67 LeMans gets E10 too.

I don't think a lot of people know that fuel stabilizer is primarily made of ethanol, so it makes little sense to go buy ethan0l-free gas and then put stabilizer in it.

In gas cans where monitoring for separated water is easy enough, I don't worry as much.  But in the boat, any time I'm running non-ethanol, I throw a couple bottles of Iso-heet in each tank at fill-up to make sure I don't start accumulating any tiny bits of water in the bottom (bad for the aluminum tanks, and if it were enough water, it could be an issue on a subsequent E10 fillup even if it's not enough water to start getting pulled into the fuel pickups and load up the filters). 

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

I don't think a lot of people know that fuel stabilizer is primarily made of ethanol, so it makes little sense to go buy ethan0l-free gas and then put stabilizer in it.

Im pretty sure most fuel stabilizers don't have ethanol. Are you thinking of fuel line antifreeze stuff like HEET? That stuff is just alcohol but things like Stabil aren't.

Running carbs?  Two- a golf cart and a pressure washer.

Non-running carbs?  A shed full of mowers, blowers, chainsaws, and line trimmers that people gave me for free because they didn't work, and the repair bills that were quoted exceeded the value of the device.  The golf cart taught me that I could rebuild a small motor carb in about a half hour, and that in the worst case the cheapo Chinese carbs on Amazon work pretty darned well if adjusted properly.  So now I have a never-ending supply of lawn gadgets that I just fix as I need them.  Once fixed, they only see ethanol-free gas and the tanks are emptied after use.

Poulan chain saw   

Poulan leaf blower     

Honda powered pressure washer  

Generator

Honda XR 400

Suzuki DR 650

All equipped with a single carburetor.

None on cars or trucks.

crankwalk (Forum Supporter) said:

Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) said:

I don't think a lot of people know that fuel stabilizer is primarily made of ethanol, so it makes little sense to go buy ethan0l-free gas and then put stabilizer in it.

 

Im pretty sure most fuel stabilizers don't have ethanol. Are you thinking of fuel line antifreeze stuff like HEET? That stuff is just alcohol but things like Stabil aren't.

I am not thinking of HEET.  The Sta-bil brand does not contain alcohol, but other popular brands like Berryman, StarTron, Lucas, STP, and some of the proprietary labels like Briggs and Stratton, Yamaha, etc do include varying ratios of Methanol and Ethanol.

And gas line antifreeze is usually some combination of Isopropyl and Methyl alcohols

In reply to Curtis73 (Forum Supporter) :

Wait... there are other brands besides Sta-bil?  

Didn't do a full count but stopped at 30.