On Thu, 31 Jan 2013 14:38:31 -0600, wrote:

On Wed, 30 Jan 2013 16:41:24 -0500, wrote:

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 dont work on my carb chevy, but it's usually pretty well flooded
once it gets that far. What appears to happen is that frost builds up
on the chole plate and sort of glues it shut.

Thats the beaty uf FI. It works every time - no stinkin' choke to
stick

I will try this on the FI Ford truck. I just asked a local mechanic
what might cause that problem, and he told me to put the pedal to the
floor and try it again. But since I'm still waiting for my radiator, I
have not used the truck lately to try it.

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.


And good luck getting a "$20 carb kit" for your average old clunker.
A gasket only kit for a quadrajet is $30 to $50 if you can wait to
order it online. A Holley 4600 is about $60.

A full renew kit for that holley is about $75 for a 77/78 Ford.

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.

I have to admit that after working on that stuff for over 40 years, I
know a lot more what to look for on a carb vehicle. This FI is all new
to me. I will agree that the electronic ignitions on the carb vehicles
was a big improvement over points. I even converted one of my tractors
to an after market elec. ign. system.

I still recall back in the 70s when a vacuum advance weight broke loose
in an old car and cut the top right off the distributor.

Vacuum advance has no weights - that was your centrifical advance.
That time I
wasnt going anywhere. We had to push the car off the road, get a ride
home, and cone back the next day with a new dist. and replace it. That
was a really weird problem.

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.


My Caprice 1989 was the last year they used a carb. It has 16 vacuum
hoses. When I had to change the intake manifold gasket because of
coolant leaking outside of the engine, I spent over an hour just drawing
a chart and putting labels in each and every hose. PIA! Yea, too many
emission things on tht engine. A mechainc once helped me with a
problem, and told me to eliminate several of them. I did, and it ran
better.

And electrically controlled carb on most of them too.

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.

Getting parts for both my 88 F-150 and 89 Caprice are getting harder to
find, particularly junk yard parts and body parts. Brakes and most
engine parts are still available. A lot of guys restore and rebuild
these old Ford trucks around here. Actually mine was partly restored,
with a new box, and the driver door, but the rest was needing work. Whe
I bought it I had to completely replace the entire brake system,
re-mount the cab which was not attached on one side, repair some bad
wiring, and more. Soon after the rear end had to be rebuilt, and now
I'm dealing with the cooling system. Seems that for every day I drive
it, it's broke down for 3 or more days. As soon as the cooling is
fixed, it's getting a "for sale" sign.

You'd likely have gotten the same price without fixing the radiator.
Generally the price can only go SO low!!!

On the other hand, the caprice is as reliable as any car can be. I did
some brake and front end work in fall, and replaced the battery and some
tires. Aside from the choke issues, it starts and runs every time. It
will need some exhaust system work soon, and I know there is a bad rear
shock, but it always gets me where I need to go.

And other than the choke - which is a total non-issue on a car 2 years
newer (with EFI) - so would a fuel injected car. None of what you've
had to do has ANYTHING to do with EFI.
And from 1996 on up, diagnostics is a lot less of a "black art".