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Quote:
Originally Posted by tubman
A full quarter inch? I'm not doubting you, but that seems like a lot to me.
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Yes, a quarter inch, and yes it is a lot. I run the cheap 87 octane gasoline available in Texas and expect to be able to hot start my cars during the summer.
Long story: I started doing this in 2007 after going through the Stromberg 97 on the 37 sedan I shared with my dad. I was at a friend's house and we went through all my normal carburetor efforts (disassembly, cleaning, inspection, reassembly, measuring the float, etc.) with the result that the car ran great. However, after turning off the engine and waiting approximately a minute we watched gas flowing down the throat of the carburetor due to heat soak. My friend pointed out I could take the top off the carburetor without disturbing the float and see where the fuel level was. Off came the carburetor top and we found the fuel level too high. We soaked up some fuel, lowered the float, and used the starter to spin the engine long enough for the fuel pump to fill the carburetor bowl to its resting level. Too much fuel again. We repeated the process several times resulting in the float being dramatically down from spec, but with the fuel level now correct. The car got driven 10,000 miles in the next decade with the float like that and excellent performance.
I have only had to raise a float once back up a little bit once, on a vehicle that could empty the float bowl during hard acceleration.
The easiest carburetors to see if your float setting is correct are the 52 and later 6 cylinders with the "visiflow" units featuring a glass float chamber cover. As with V8 carburetors, setting the float way down results in fuel at the correct level.