Model B engine, 28 model A.....change carb from Tillotson to Zenith?

[Flathead]

Originally Posted by Ak Sourdough

My dad was a mechanic at the Ford dealership in Sioux Falls in the mid 30's. Sadly, we lost him to cancer 3 years ago at 100 years old. Anyway, he had nothing good to say about Zenith carburetors.



I asked him one time why he liked the Tillotsons, here is what he said.


"I must have thrown more than a hundred of them damned Zeniths in the trash can. By the time you bought a kit and paid the mechanic to put it in, it was cheaper to put on a new carb. Plus a new carburetor had a nice tight throttle shaft. They only cost 3 or 4 dollars and there was only a few cents difference in the prices of Zenith and Tillotsons. Some people insisted on having an original carb, so the parts room always stocked a couple of them, but they usually had 8 or 10 Tillotsons on the shelf."
" A new Tillotson would start easier, idle smoother and make more power than a new Zenith. It wasn't uncommon for a customer to insist on an original Zenith on his car, 'cause that's the way Mr. Ford built them. Then he'd often be back in a couple days complaining that it still didn't run right. We'd put a new Tillotson on for him and that was the end of his complaints."


That's all I know about the Zenith carbs, but my old pop was adamant about the superiority of the Tillotsons from personal experience and that's good enough for me.

Do you know which style of Tillotson he liked or just Tillys in general? I ask because I never hear anything about the F1-B style from "back in the day".
They seem to be kind of the red headed stepchild. Thanks