The Stovebolt Site Forums The Shop Area Engine Shop Gas leaking out the carb gaskets

Well the 216 with Carter w-1 was running fine last night. The Carb has been rebuilt and hass been running fine.

Last night when I went to put it in the garage - I think I flooded it (easilly done it seems)

This am if I crank and pull the throttle cable out at all gas seaps past the float gasket and throttle linkage.

what is that all about?

Thinking of taking the carb off and draining it -

even with giving no gas while cranking gas blows out the gaskets

Gas running out under cranking conditions could be:

(1) sunk float
(2) stuck fuel valve
(3) stuck float
(4) dirt under the float valve

Gas blowing out under cranking conditions can be indicative of a sticking or burned intake valve (back pressure in the intake instead of vacuum).

Jon.

guess i will take it off and give it a look

any easy way to tell if the float is sunk/stuck?

take the top off the carb?

Bill

I will search the w-1 instructions -

I have another carb I know worked and will swap out - I have a feeling it may be more than the Carb.

Should I take the float needle and seat assembly out and clean it?

The float is not shutting off the fuel flow

Jon's given you all the options, the only way to fix it is to,
as Bill says, take the air horn off and find out why the needle
isn't seating and shutting off the fuel flow into the bowl.

Denny G.

Take the float out and shake it. If it's full of gas you will hear/feel it. It does happen and the only real fix is to replace it.

Thought I found the issue - Float was full of gas - I have some spare parts and swapped it out. Seems it was just product of the issue - the valve is still not shutting off. Going to replace float needle seat.

starting me to think it may be a valve

Seems I always need to do things twice to get it right - It was a bad float. When I put the spare on I needed to spread out the two wings where the pin goes so it would move freely.

Runnin like a top now.

Worse thing about this is the carb was a rebuilt from a rather large supplier of Carbs (no names please) and had 5 miles on it.

Thankfully it was in the driveway when it flooded. Well hardtop did not like it.

carry on!!

I got a heckuva deal on an old AMC once because of a similar problem. Car would flood out and stall, gas would be leaking everywhere out of the carb. Owner had rebuilt the carb twice and problem was not solved. I didn't think he knew what he was doing, so I made him a lowball offer on the old clunker and he accepted just to get it off his hands. I rebuilt the carb (meaning it was left off the engine for several days while I waited to get it done). Put it back together and she ran like a champ! I was so tickled...for the first few days. Then, suddenly she began flooding, stalling, and leaking gas out of the carb. I then replaced jets. Same thing...ran great for a few days. Finally discovered that the float was actually a sink. It was not a hollow float like you refer to, but rather some type of solid, plastic material kinda like styrofoam. Seems like it had got old and lost its most important property...being able to resist gasoline. Take it out of the carb (while rebuilding several times)and it would dry out and work fine for a few days. Then, eventually, it would get soaked and become an anchor.

be sure to set the float DROP as well, I had a similar issue but as it turned out this new fuel is a rather effective glue when it dries out and the float was sticking to the bottom of the float bowl. after a little while once the carb got gas in it the float would come free and it would run just fine. I eventually had to just use calipers and measure the difference between the actual float drop, and the available space in the float bowl. I either had the wrong instructions, was reading them wrong, or I had some oddball float.

It was set to the spec I had which was 1/2 inch - and it is the all brass float

The supplier would not send me the part. They wanted the whole carb back - ridiculous