[Formulas]

We went from dont piss around with a brass float to nothing wrong with them LOL make up your mind. ... Fact remains this guy doesnt even know if in reallity he needs one he doesnt even know what they look like and the guy with the car hasnt even torn his carb apart it could be inlet seat not controlling fuel...

[carbking]

Tom - since you mentioned floats for boosted carbs, I assume you are aware that Carter inserted expanded metal aluminum baffles inside the brass floats for the Studebaker pressurized AFB's. We found that 7 psi was the "magic" number. Over 7, the pressure would collapse the brass float. 7 or less psi of boost was OK with the brass floats.

Have not had to modify any of these for several years, but did a few back in the day.

Cliff - some of our best "salesmen" for our kits (and carbs) are the cheap imported parts and carbs. There is one coming in from an Eastern country for the Willys 4 cylinder Jeep. Take one off after about 500 miles, and the flange is warped so badly if one sets the carb on a table, it will roll off. Another for the Ford 8N tractors (same quality). But initially, they are CHEAP!

All of the floats we had reproduced (other than for some high dollar classic cars) were for industrial applications. When you have orders for a hundred or more coming in every 6 months or so, you can gamble on the 1000 minimum. Have never had sufficient demand for automobile floats (other than the afore-mentioned classics) to take a chance.

Maybe if enough of you guys that need floats would contact Ames, they just might do it.

FormulaS - the key is the SOURCE of the brass floats!

Jon.

[Tom Vaught]

I am familiar with the Studebaker Boosted Engines. I used to discuss boosting with Ted Harbit concerning his "Chicken Hawk" Race car originally built with a "Ball Drive" paxton Supercharged Engine. He later converted to Turbos so we talked more when he did that.
Unfortunately as the car got much faster vs slightly modified, he crashed and destroyed the "Chicken Hawk". So the boosting we were discussing together was higher boost vs 7 psi.
For that deal we were using modified GOOD Thermo-quad Floats pop rivited to the hinge for the AFB float. As you know Thermoquad floats are Black Nitrophyl floats.

https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...mishap.360723/

Tom V.

[Cliff R]

"We went from dont piss around with a brass float to nothing wrong with them LOL make up your mind"

Incorrect, get your facts straight.

I REFUSE to use anything currently in production made of brass, the failure rate is 100 percent. Kind of funny but on the same subject is that several new brass floats we purchased were assembled with the float upside down on the arms. When more than one showed up this way I knew for sure they were no longer USA made.

Back in the 1970' and into the early 1980's you could purchase an Echlin brass float from NAPA and it would be close to OEM and very, and I mean very few failures with them.

Jump ahead to 2003, we have rebuilt many thousands of carburetors to date and EVERY SINGLE ONE that we installed a "new" brass float in came back to the shop with the float FULL of fuel and sunk to the bottom of the bowl. Not all GM either, even tried a couple in Ford 2100 carburetors and they sank. One has to consider that this doesn't happen overnight, the leaks may take weeks, months or even longer to develop, so it doesn't just end up right back in your lap a few days after you send it out. It actually took several years before we figured out that NONE of this new production stuff is worth two squirts of duck poop and refuse to use them for any reason.

This is what all my comments have been based on since the thread started. I probably see more failures than most others who will post here because I do more of this sort of thing. We also work on a LOT of other types of carburetors besides Q-jets, so the brass float failure thing is consistent across the board and not just the current production POS brass floats they are making for Q-jets.

I was fortunate enough to locate new Nitrophyl floats for the 2GC units and stocked up on them. Nothing out there for AFB's that I know of, (unless Jon has some USA made stuff?) so for sure use your old floats over if venturing in that direction, or locate some USA made parts......FWIW......Cliff

[Cliff R]

"Cliff - some of our best "salesmen" for our kits (and carbs) are the cheap imported parts and carbs. There is one coming in from an Eastern country for the Willys 4 cylinder Jeep. Take one off after about 500 miles, and the flange is warped so badly if one sets the carb on a table, it will roll off. Another for the Ford 8N tractors (same quality). But initially, they are CHEAP!"

Jon, I have had no success whatsoever with any "new" production off-shore knock-offs of any type of carburetor with one exception. We bought a carb from Amazon a while back for an old Tecumseh engine powering a two stage snow blower and it worked fine. It was pretty much an exact copy of the original but still looked "cheap" at a glance.

Just finished up a Mikuni carb for a 1988 Yamaha Warrior Quad. It showed up with the original carburetor broken by a previous attempt to "rebuild" it. It took a few days but I was able to source out two used ones on Ebay and able to build one good one from the three. Funny thing is that they sell "new" ones for about $40 all over Amazon and Ebay.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-CARBURE...%3AWarrior+350

I spent $45 for the two cores and another $29 for a good rebuild kit (yes they also "copy" carb kits as well as carbs, so you have to spend some money there as well to get a good end result), but PERFECT end result, and I know as I'm typing this the Chinese "knock-off" wouldn't have been worth two squirts of duck poop and a complete waste of time/funds from the second I pulled it out of the shipping box.

I've tried on more than one occasion to replace factory Stihl chain saw and small power equipment carburetors with the China sourced copies and NONE of them made the grade. Luckily I found sources for OEM Zama and Walbro carburetors and they work correctly every single time, but still at least 2-3 times the price of the imported copies.

Yes, I work on a LOT of other things besides Quadrajets, and have become known in our area as the place to take your carburetor when no one else can fix it. I'm the LAST option because we charge for the work, instead of taking a couple of used tires with no more than 2 plugs in any of them and/or a 6 pack of beer for payment!

Kind of funny but a local guy bring a Q-jet up here a few weeks ago, looks like it came from the bottom of the farm pond, and wanted a price to get it set-up for his newly acquired 1978 Chevy 3/4 ton truck. I hardly got the words out about pricing when he blurted out that there was a guy over on Howard street that would rebuild them for $40 and he supplied the parts! I kindly told him to take it there and dismissed my self to go back to work.

That's what I'm up against here, so don't get much local work, and when I do it's simply because no one else can get it to work correctly........Cliff