Why only under load?

I would try blowing air, with your mouth, back through the lines the moment the fuel gets starved, if you can't push the fuel back into the tank easily then the issue is in the tank, or just pull the tank and rule it out


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You said "It feels like the engine does die completely but usually restarts as soon as you back off the throttle". If you have isolated the problem to this scenario, then what is the difference between these two situations?
1. The carb uses different jets/holes between the run position and the idle position. Possibly the run jet is partially clogged.
2. At open throttle, the fuel air mixture is much leaner than at idle position. Possibly you lean out with throttle fully open under load to the point where the engine no longer runs, then when you throttle back, the Fuel/air gets enriched enough to run. If this is true, then it would explain why you don't have serious backfires when the engine restarts. Leaning out at run can also be caused by a vacuum leak that allows more air into the intake bypassing the carb. The old trick to find a vacuum leak is to have the engine idling and spraying WD-40 around the suspect areas and when a leak is sprayed, the RPMs will increase.

Back again
It looks like I have fixed my problem
Made up an adapter to fit the Stromberg carbie today and fitted it late this afternoon
Took it for a test drive of about 20 miles and it ran the best it has ever run
Better acceleration
More power, it even accelerates up hills
I will take it for a much longer run tomorrow, but the way it went today I am fairly confident it is right
I have a few things to tidy up and remove all my diagnostic equipment etc first
All other components are now back to how they were a week ago

It has a small stumble just off idle but I have not adjusted the carb at all since it came off the ford engine

The Carter was Professionally rebuild less then 1000 miles ago

So I did find the timing pointer was out by 10 degrees, The vacuum advance had a small leak, BUT the carb was the main issue

Now I have a finely tuned Willys with a stromberg Carb


This is the adapter


Thanks for all the suggestions,
I hope this thread helps someone else out if they have a similar problem
It certainly makes it a lot easier to diagnose when you have all the parts at hand, I think I have more than recovered the cost of my spare wagon in this exercise


Anybody want to buy a used Carter Carb

That's excellent news, John. I wonder if the issue gkesseru discussed was it? Which model Stromberg is it, by the way?

Now to get old metal fixed up.

Congratulations! Glad to hear the news..

Glad you got it fixed. The immediate restart when letting off the throttle sure made it look like a bad carb.

Great news John, thanks for sharing and documenting your process, really is valuable!

It is a Stromberg 2376466 BDV-2 8

Great!. Good to read you have it going.

I conducted an autopsy on the Carter carb this afternoon and found a needle in the bottom of the float chamber
It is not out of this carb, it is about 1/8 inch square
It is a bit big to fit through the fuel line let alone the 2 filters
It is polished on the edges where it has been rubbing on something, probably the bottom of the bowl. I cannot see any rub marks on the carb
I did not find it till I tipped the carb upside down so I did not see what it was interfering with
I will refit carb and test it again



I also found the float level way out of adjustment, Twice as much as spec
So if this was under the float it would not open needle fully , restricting fuel flow, and with the float cutting off fuel way before it should I probably had very little fuel on the bowl when I was under load and it would run out of fuel
Stop for a while and the bowl would refill and let you go for a bit longer until the fuel usage beat the inlet rate set by the float which was not enough
Maybe it was moving around in the bottom which caused the intermittent unpredictable behavior



So much for professional re builders

that needle is the accelerate pump check valve. There is a small round opening in the top edge of the carb body where it drops into. It acts as a one way valve to keep the accelerate circuit full of gas

I rebuilt my Carter carb some months ago succesfully using a rebuild kit from Mikes carburetors. One of the aids that he does is to take you through a video rebuild of a YF carb like I have. Don't think I could have had such a successful rebuild without the Video. http://youtu.be/SD4zs7VOp7Y. Hope it helps.

Found it
I tried the Carter carb this morning after stripping it and blowing out all the passages
Went reasonably well except on the longest hills
Removed the top of the carb as soon as it faltered and it was empty

Why would the Stromberg run and not the Carter

I removed the top of the Carter carb and connected to the fuel pump with a pressure gauge in the line
I held the top of the carb above a funnel that was placed into a soda bottle so I could see the fuel flow as well as time how long it took to fill
It took 330 seconds to fill and the pressure was 3 psi, the bottle was 1.25 litres or 2.2 pints
I then repeated the procedure with the stromberg and it filled the bottle in 120 seconds at 1.5 psi

So I removed the seat from the carter and blew compressed air into the inlet, nothing came out onto the clean rag I had used to catch any debris

I could not see daylight through the hole

I then had a dig around in the inlet and fished out a lump of what looked like a ball of paper

I retested the flow rate and it took 100 seconds to fill the bottle at 1.5 psi

Test run

FIXED

Moral to story
Fuel pressure does not equal fuel volume

Good job John!

27willys said:

Found it
I tried the Carter carb this morning after stripping it and blowing out all the passages
Went reasonably well except on the longest hills
Removed the top of the carb as soon as it faltered and it was empty

Why would the Stromberg run and not the Carter

I removed the top of the Carter carb and connected to the fuel pump with a pressure gauge in the line
I held the top of the carb above a funnel that was placed into a soda bottle so I could see the fuel flow as well as time how long it took to fill
It took 330 seconds to fill and the pressure was 3 psi, the bottle was 1.25 litres or 2.2 pints
I then repeated the procedure with the stromberg and it filled the bottle in 120 seconds at 1.5 psi

So I removed the seat from the carter and blew compressed air into the inlet, nothing came out onto the clean rag I had used to catch any debris

I could not see daylight through the hole

I then had a dig around in the inlet and fished out a lump of what looked like a ball of paper

I retested the flow rate and it took 100 seconds to fill the bottle at 1.5 psi

Test run

FIXED

Moral to story
Fuel pressure does not equal fuel volume

Click to expand...

Wow, that is some great diagnosing. Thanks for sharing your methods and results.

This has been a pleasure to read and keep up with. I have a feeling most of the forum was like me, watching and waiting to see the next update. Good honest work and perserverence . Thank you for letting us follow along.

well ill be. a few years ago i bought a snowblower that i was told did not run well. i got it for a song and took the carb apart. i found that someone had but the diaphragm back together wrong. it now ran much better. 2 winters ago it cut out on me again so i yanked the carb and disassembled. i found what appeared to be a piece of plastic. it was circular like what you would get from a hole punch. but plastic. i removed it and put the carb back on and that thing ran much better than it ever did.

also the circular things are called chads; at least when they are made of paper they are.

27willys said:

I conducted an autopsy on the Carter carb this afternoon and found a needle in the bottom of the float chamber
It is not out of this carb,....... So much for professional re builders

Click to expand...

It sounds like you would have been better to never take it off in the first place. A professional is just someone who takes money. I have followed this thread because I have a 226 with the Cartermatic carb. What were the issues that led you to the carb rebuild initially? Im not knocking you for getting help - I always pay to have my 4 carbs on my motorcycle professionally synced- You cant assume work is up to your standards because a mechanic works from a shop or works from their own house, charges $10 or charges $100, you never know how good the work is unless you are there getting dirty yourself. This forum is a great resource but no one could tell you what is inside your carb you had to look for yourself.

that being said congratulations on the fix I would love to see pictures of the stromburg installed and a dyno comparison on one test engine of all the carbs people have fitted to the 226

its possibly a secondary ignition miss, mike.