On Wed, 30 Jan 2013 07:01:13 -0600, wrote:

On Tue, 29 Jan 2013 19:42:47 -0500, wrote:

My next truck is going to have a carb, no matter how old it is.
You can have it. Carburetor rebuilds - leaky floats, sticky and leaky
needle valves, bad accellerator pumps, sticky and malfunctioning
chokes, bad fuel mileage and high exhaust emissions, perculation when
hot - all the problems that have been virtually eliminated by fuel
injection

My 89 Caprice has lots of miles and I've never had any carb problems,
aside from the choke being a little touchy. I cant complain about the
gas milage either.

When this car dont want to start (occasionally), it's because the engine
is still warm, weather is cold, and if the choke is closed too much, the
engine will flood. I pop the air cleaner cover, stick a tool in to hold
the choke open and it starts right up. This takes me one minute to fix.
(No starting problems at all in warm weather).

When my F.I. F-150 refuses to start in the same conditions, (partly warm
engine, which was shut off for a few minutes), there is nothing I can
do, other than sit there for 20 minutes or more, or start walking.

Ever try holding your foot to the floor??? Shuts off the fuel and
opens the air - without having to open the hood, remove the air
cleaner and find the screwdriver.

That's what I hate about F.I. if it dont start, or some other problem,
there is nothing you can do. If a carb engine dont start, you can
ususlly screw around with it and at least get home, if not fix the
problem. I've taken the tops off carbs on the shoulder of the road
because of a stuck float, and was driving again in no time.

On top of that, when a carb screws up, a $20 carb kit will fix it right
up. When a F.I. engine screws up, it's off to a mechanic, a tow truck,
and to the bank to get a loan for hundreds of dollars to get it running
again.


WHEN they fail - which is not very often.
I've never worked as a mechanic, but I've done almost all my own auto
repairs since I started driving around 44 years ago. I rarely went to a
mechanic with the old cars. I've spent more to have F.I vehicles
repaired at a mechanic in the last 8 or 9 years (since I got my first
F.I vehicle), than I spent on parts the first 35ish years of driving.
And I've still done all the other repairs myself such as brakes,
u-joints, hoses, radiators, belts, tires, etc.....

I'm not impressed by F.I in the least. It's complicated, costly to
repair, leaves drivers stranded, less reliable,
I'll have to dissagree with you on the reliability. I have put MANY
vehicles over the 250,000km without a fuel injection problem. And
when you add electronic ignition into the mix, I have had less trouble
even there than with standard ignition. I've had a couple coil packs
fail - but not as many as coils on the old point ignition vehicles.
Some cars had issues with the ignitors - but more cars had points burn
out - or ballast resistors - and bad capacitors. Add bad vac advance
units, sticking advance weights, and worn dist shafts and they were
DEFINITELY more troublesom than today's electronic controls.

The emission controls are the most problematic - things like O2
sensors and catalytic converters going bad - but then they still run -
and if you'd ever had to sort out the emission controls on carbureted
engines from the seventies on up - the new stuff, in my experience, is
a piece of cake. They even diagnose themselves.

Driveability problems caused by gremlins in the emission control
valving, hoses, and other trash don't exist any more. If the light
comes on, you put the scanner on, read the code, and if you have any
understanding how things work, the unit tells you what is wrong. Not
necessarily what part to change - but what is wrong and where to start
looking.



and most of the engine
work can only be done by the pros. The backyard mechanic/owner is
pretty much dead these days, at least for engine work.


And would be the same if you had carbs instead of EFI.

Getting parts for anything old enough to have a carb is getting more
difficult by the day - unless you get into collector stuff where
reproduction replacement parts are available - and then the price is
as high or higher than for current "high tech" vehicles.