Tag: carburetor

Fixed the carburetor

Posted on by nvonada

I called National Carburetor and they were helpful.  My choices were to either send it back to them or take the top off myself and see what was up.  Since I can now remove this carb in about 9 minutes flat I figured that was the better option.

I hit my first problem almost immediately.  The base gasket came apart when I pulled the carb off.  Hope I have another one.

Yup, no way I am going to be able to reuse this.

I took the top off the carburetor and with my keen knowledge of automotive fuel systems I instantly spotted the problem.  Where is the accelerator pump?

Oh, there it is…

This is supposed to be one unit.  The plastic bit one right is screwed up somehow and now the metal part no longer snaps in like it should.  How will I fix this?  Then I had an idea…

This is why I never throw anything away.  I still had the center bit of the old accelerator pump.  I transferred the blue rubber seal, spring, and keeper from the busted-ass new pump and installed them on the core of the old pump.  This looks like it will work.

Here is the pump back in the top of the carburetor.

I even had a new gasket in my bag of tricks.  I scraped off the old gasket, cleaned the fuel filter, installed the carb, and it runs like a new one.

Update:  7/19/2017

I called National Carburetor about the accelerator pump.  They were very helpful and offered to send a new pump.  About 10 minutes later they called back and said that on this carb they don’t have pump assemblies.  They just replace the spring and cup seal on the existing pump.  I am not sure if I buy that story but what I have works and a new pump at the auto parts store is about $8 so it is not worth making a huge fuss over.  Call me a 90% satisfied customer at this point.  I would certainly still recommend them.  By the way carburetors just suck.  Give me a good computer controlled fuel injection system any day.

Carb adjustment

Posted on by nvonada

I filled up the gas tank last week and the weather has gotten hot.  The Jeepster has been running worse and worse.  I popped the spark plugs out and found this sooty mess.  I have been thinking it is running rich and I thing the hot weather and summer blend gas pushed it over the edge.  I cleaned all the plugs and replaced them.

I leaned out the choke a few degrees.  It still feels like there is a lot of spring pressure on the choke but I need to wait until the engine is cold to mess with it.

I can mess with the idle mixture though.  I turned the screws all the way in carefully counting the turns.  The left screw was out 3 1/2 turns and the right 3 3/4 turns.  Considering the “starting point” is 1 1/2 turns that is a LOT.  Don’t know what I was thinking.  I got the engine hot and turned the screws in 1/2 turn at a time until the idle started to drop then backed off 1/2 turn.  They ended up at around 2 turns out so I was really rich.

I also took a look at the heat riser.  Mine turns freely (which is good) and the thermostat spring is intact(also good).  But that spring is supposed to be hooked behind the metal pin on the counterweight and I don’t see how.  The spring does not want to bend over far enough to hook behind the pin.  I am also not totally sure if this is the open or closed position (I think closed).  I will make some inquiries but I might have to take this thing off and debug it.

I was tired of wrenching so I spent a little more time and washed the Jeepster.  Much crap came out of places like the insides of the fenders.  Much water ended up inside the car.  But it does at least look a little cleaner and the top is a little whiter.  I should have taken pictures but I did not.

The next morning I took another look at the choke.  It seemed like I had to turn the choke spring a long way to take pressure off the choke plate.  I thought maybe the rebuilder had put the bi-metallic spring in backwards or 180 off so I took it off.  It sure looks OK but I will check.

This is the lever the spring pushes on to close the choke.  If everything is assembled correctly I would expect the spring to wind up tighter as it warms up.

Lets try it.  Here is the bimetallic spring at room temperature.

And after 30 seconds with a hair dryer on it.  So everything is assembled correctly, I just had too much tension on the spring.  As you can see it does not move far.

I put the spring in the freezer for 15 minutes then put in on such that it just barely pushed the choke closed.  Here is where it ended up.  You can see the condensation from the chilled thermostat.  We will run it this way a little and see how we do.

Update 6/14/2017

So it turns out we are not doing that well.   Maybe freezing the choke themostat was a stupid idea.  I took a look with the engine cold and found the choke was wide open.

I adjusted it to just be closed.  It is a hot day so this might be excessive.  You can see I turned the thermostat 10 or 15 degrees.  Baby steps.

 

Speedometer cable

Posted on by nvonada

It has been a little slow on the Jeepster front  for the last few weeks.  Between the darkness and the cold I have a hard time motivating myself.  But today I was determined to make some progress and replace the speedometer cable.

I got off to rocky start.  The passenger side rear tire was flat.  These tires were remounted on the re-powder coated wheels back around Christmas but it looks like something is leaking.  I will have to go back to the shop and get it checked out.

The cable broke while I was giving Jeep rides over Thanksgiving weekend.  I considered just replacing the core but the entire cable was less than $20 so I just did the whole thing

The new cable uses a plastic sheath instead of the wound steel spring from the original cable.  That should be better at protecting the cable but who knows?  Before installing I lubricated the new cable with cable lube.

I disconnected the old cable at the transmission and pulled out the core.  It looks like it broke right at the speedometer.   This is probably my fault somehow from when I cleaned and lubricated the cable back in early November.

The factory cable runs along the frame rail clipped to the brake line with spring clips.  The clips were pinched between the brake line and the frame so I had to take the bolt in the middle there out so I could move the brake line a bit.

The new cable has no clips and the plastic sheath is too fat to reuse the factory clips so I just used cable ties instead.  It is a cable after all…

The new cable attached to the transmission.

I put another cable tie just below the firewall binding together a wad of brake lines, emergency brake cables, and the speedometer cable.

The speedometer cable and oil pressure gauge tube penetrated the firewall through this split grommet.  I was very careful taking this out because I was not sure if the grommet on the new cable would work.  I got the grommet out intact but it is not in good shape so I am going to have to make the new grommet work.

Here is where the oil pressure tube connects to the gauge.  I just disconnected the fitting and snaked the tube back out through the firewall.

The new grommet is nice and soft.  I was able to stretch it out with a screwdriver and feed the oil pressure tube though the center hole.  This will work just fine.  You can see the firewall hole where this goes in the background.

I tried to connect the cable to the speedometer without removing the instrument cluster again but there was just no way for my fat fingers to get in there.  The good news is that I have the technique down cold for popping the cluster out so it was not really a problem.  I just slid it out an inch or two then connected the cable to the speedometer.  Just to be safe I hooked up the batter and tested everything before snapping the cluster back in.

Finally I worked the new grommet into the hole.   Done!

While I was dirty I decided to adjust the choke.  The choke has been closing when the engine is still warm, especially now that the weather is colder.  Then the engine floods and will not start.  I tried moving the choke plate with the engine dead cold and  there was a lot of tension on it.

This should help.  I loosened the three screws that hold the choke thermostat and rotated it so that the choke was just barely being held closed.  Then  I put everything back together.

I test drove the Jeepster and the speedometer works but still has a “wiggle” to the needle, especially at low speeds.  Maybe it will settle down once new cable gets used its new home.  I will just keep an eye on it.

Painting and carb rebuild

Posted on by nvonada

Work on the Jeepster has slowed to a crawl.  I have been busy, Rach had surgery and can’t help, and it has been hotter than the surface of the sun outside.  But this beast is not going to fix itself.  Sunday I got up early and decided to work until I started to melt.  First order of business is painting the gas tank area.  I knew this was going to be a messy job so I put on long sleeves, wrapped my hair up, and wore gloves and a face shield.  It all helped but I still made a mess out of myself.

IMG_20160731_095539

Continue reading “Painting and carb rebuild” →