[mcgarrett]

old31,
As promised, here is the GAV conversion info you asked about...

Some of the Marvels I was rebuilding did not have a GAV needle housing & needle or a choke driver. A Zenith GAV needle housing is pipe thread and the Marvel is straight thread, so they won't interchange. Marvel replacement parts are unique to that carb and some are a little pricey, so I decided to try to adapt a Zenith choke driver, GAV and needle to see if it would work.

I used a Zenith GAV needle housing (barrel) and very carefully sanded down the hex flats and threads on a tabletop belt sander with a 1" fine grit belt until the hex and threads were gone and the barrel was smooth, round, and uniform down its length. I then took one of the Marvel GAV needle housing nuts and drilled it to the same diameter as the Zenith GAV needle housing (11/32" is a good fit). I fluxed the barrel with a small propane torch and slid the newly drilled nut onto the needle housing (barrel). I slid the nut fore and aft on the barrel until it was pretty close to the same basic location allowing for adjustment travel using another Marvel needle and nut that I had on hand to compare with and then applied some solder to the barrel end opposite the nut threads. The last step was to break off the brass housing "fingers" down near the tip of the needle to allow for clearance down in the needle hole. It was trial and error until I arrived at the correct location of the nut, but it worked nonetheless and I saved a fair amount of $$ for a few minutes work. Here's the finished product...