Epic mission weekend

Picked up a new project on Saturday and then went back to the old shop to work on some pretty neat things with a buddy. Here is a teaser photo of my new project... more to follow soon

Back at the old shop we spent some time fixing an older tire machine so we could swap tires on a 1940 Ford Pick up. Its a pretty wild machine with a Chevy small block and wide tires. My bud asked if I could come over to help get it going. Pretty standard small block, had a Quadrajet - but it cranked and cranked and not a spit of fire. It had spark, timing was close (no timing light around), but I noticed the accelerator pump wasn't working. Its actually really typical of the Quadrajet to stop pumping when the valving gets stuck. Whacking it with the closed end of a wrench seemed to free it up and it started working. Gotta love carburetors. Anyways it fired up and its LOUD, even with full exhaust. Really exciting to see it run.

Later that night we ran into more carburetor problems when buddy's Suzuki quit on us heading into the city. More or less the same problem, sticking needle and seat and a leaking accelerator pump valve. We fooled around with it until we finally had to call for a bud to give us a tow home. No big deal, a few parts, a little work and its all back together.

These carbs are not so much complicated as they are just silly. Produced in the days when EFI was still kinda a new thing, and auto manufactures were still playing with ways to create emission friendly carbs, it created a lot of excessive vacuum hoses, valves and electronic do-hickies. I won't go into too much detail about it, cause well it will be boring for you.

Next week should be full of projects, as well as a continuation of the Puch moped project.

Keep spinning wrenches,

- SS