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Hello again all;

Thanks again for following along.

I bought a used Holley 4-barrel carb. The model is "Street Avenger" pretty catchy huh? Sounds kinda mean, I didn't know it at the time but I like it none-the-less.
I bought the carb last fall, started the tear-down and got a little intimidated. Lots of moving parts and I found I needed more parts than just a gasket kit. The float bowls were lined with something to improve their liquid-tightness which was peeling away. So, I procrastinated through the winter as my garage at home is not heated, but finally got around to ordering parts. Now that it is nice again ( fair weather mechanic ) I wanted to try to soda blasting the parts and found some plans on the internet. I was able to scrounge up the required parts from stuff I already had on-hand so the cost was zero. Add to that, I used the old fridge baking-soda deodorizers for my blast material and the whole project cost me zip! I used 2 of the small boxes to get everything done. I probable could have used a little more but it worked out good enough.

The soda blasting process worked well; the design was simple and involved using a length of tubing, making a small hole to poke the air nozzle through and going to town. I left about 1" of tubing on the end and cut a 45 degree bevel on the end that went into the baking soda box. I held the tube in the box of soda, moving it around to keep the material flowing. The only advice I would give is to wear a face-shield and shower after you are done. I washed up and had dinner and what-not, it was a couple hours later I noticed my face was burning. It felt like a mild sunburn, nothing serious but worth noting. Maybe a dust mask as the baking soda doesn't taste very good either. Once done blasting you can wash up your parts in water and dry thoroughly, very easy clean up.

I am back at work, but since I am working from home I have been using my time in the evenings to finish up the carb rebuild. Once I got my head wrapped around what I was doing, and with the help of some Youtube videos and online resources, I think I have this thing licked. I will say that I am disappointed in Holley for their obvious lack of real information to help the DIY guy. The only instructions included were a blurry exploded view diagram. The parts included in the rebuild kit are not labelled, so the list included with the exploded view is useless. That said, once you wrap your head around it, it did seem to come together. There are couple of things I am not sure of, the big one is which power valve to use. 3 came in the kit and there are no explanations included as to when to use which so I have some more researching to do. For now I have used the same size as what was in the carb originally.

So there you go. If anyone is thinking of rebuilding their carb, try out the home built blaster, it is cheap and effective. I think I had to hit a couple stubborn spots with a wire brush before going over them again with the blaster to get things cleaned up.

Stay safe,
Steve