Hi JW51...thanks for the thought. No post or comment detracts from this topic. Many if not most of the Rochester B's problems are the result of rebuilding work through the years. And I have poked fun at "hamfisted" or hungover workers, but if you ever have been inside one of these rebuilding shops you'd know there is absolutely no way the parts of a carburetor can be kept in any way sacrosanct. Many years ago (early 70s) I was part of a team that inspected one of the largest rebuilders in the whole N. Texas area. It kept burning down and the insurance company wanted to know why. The condensed version of their MO was: evening shift disassembled all like carburetors and tossed all like parts into 3 baskets. Tossed being the important word. One for large parts (air horns, throttle bodies, float bowls), one for medium parts (floats, masts, removeable choke parts, etc). and one for screws and small parts. In the case of a Rochester B or BC, everything that fell out of it when it was disassembled. They dropped these into solvent vats and went home. Then early morning the crew would haul the baskets out, let them drip dry and take them over to the assemblers (who are paid based on the number of carburetors they assemble and have minimum quotas per shift). From those beginnings, "rebuilt" carburetors were created...and if any parts matched where they came from it was a pure accident. The floor manager when asked about this took drag from his cigarette, spit and said "oh no...we never try to keep those parts together. No reason to do that. If a carburetor doesn't work we'll just give them another one and rebuild it again."
I tried to find a pristine Rochester B or BC when I was doing this study. I couldn't. I have found about 10 New Old Stock Carter YF models, though. It is getting harder to do, though. The Carter YF is a much better designed carburetor from nearly all angles, however. The Rochester B uses what some people have called a "snatch idle" scheme. That works ok, but only ok. If all stars are in alignment, the Rochester B can be ok. What I found were worn-out power piston bores, bores damaged by attempts to force power pistons out of their bores, knocked-off vacuum ports/damaged passages, throttle body ports rusted shut...all sort of stuff like that. And main jets that had been drilled larger by who knows who. That is something you have to check with each carburetor, I believe. But the bottom line is the Carter YF is a much better engineered carburetor. Even from a common sense standpoint it is better.
