[steve s]

Welcome to the world of aftermarket auto parts. It's not a pretty sight. I remember well exactly how you feel--you assume that when you buy something new it will be right or the seller will stand behind it; sadly, it ain't necessarily so, and I'm not sure that your odds are really that much better with a dealer than with an individual seller.

The dealer I bought my first Mark carb from was VERY reluctant to take it back when my car wouldn't run with it on; he said he had a no-return policy on carb because there were so many possible sources of trouble besides the carb. He insisted that the fault must be with my car although it ran ok with other carbs. Finally, when I raised a stink in front of other customers at our swap meet, he relented. The second one he sent me, had a sticky-tight throttle shaft. I worked it back and forth by hand a few hundred times to loosen it up and never had a problem (exept for aforementioned).

On the other hand, early on in my adventure I bought a brand new Tilly X from Snyders. It was a leaker from the get go, and Snyders gave me my money back with no questions asked.

You probably feel you have gone above-and-beyond by having three carbs, so you sort of deserve that one of them be a good one. I don't know what par for the course is, but I believe that I have about 10, only 2 or 3 of which would I actually expect to work useably.

Several years ago I wrote up an article for our club's newsletter about my restoration saga. My subtitle was "Nothing fits". I think that the situation has actually gotten a bit better in recent years: There is actually some quite good stuff now available, like the Aries mufflers. But, there's a reason that experienced restorers all strongly advise you to, if at all possible, find some original parts and make them work, no matter how beat up they look.

Steve