Going to try boiling my carb this weekend / WD Update

I think that the carb is my problem on my rough running WD. I was watching her run, and as she'd run rough the gas level in the sediment bowl would start to go down from the top (you could see an air pocket in there). Any idea what that would be about? I tried to loosen the gas cap and play with a few things and adjust the carb main jet screw but didn't see any change. But if I shut the tractor off and open the gas valve and then pull the drain plug from the carb, the gas seems to flow freely as expected.

At any rate, I'm thinking about boiling my carb this weekend, unless anyone can think of a good reason why I shouldn't. Got some distilled water, just hoping it quits raining so I can do this outside.

now why would you cook a carb? you get a gallon of CARB CLEANER and soaked the disassembled carb in it. then you wash it in cool water, then you blow out all passages with air. how's this for a reason at least you know its done right and will clean all carbon deposits out. cooking in water ???.
that air bubble will disappear when you put it to work so it can have fuel flow to carb.
or loosen sediment bowl and bleed it out.

Check your tank for things that may be floating
around the bottom of it. I have a Super C Farmall
that was like that and would sometimes just quit.
A few minutes later, it would start and run
without a problem, then may spit & sputter, run
flawlessly for awhile and then quit just like
someone shut off the ignition. After doing all
the usual things to attempt to isolate and solve
the problem, including a new distributor and coil,
I decided that I would have to take the gas tank
off, even if it didn't look rusty and had a good
flow when you took the line off of the carb. I
was going to run it out of gas and was using it
when she quit. Figuring it was out of gas, I took
the filler cap off and found about 1/3 inch of gas
in the tank, but I also saw the round plastic
inner liner from a can cover in there. How it got
there, I have no idea, but after fishing it out
with one of those push-button claws that bought
for a couple of dollars, but I never thought I'd
ever use, it hasn't missed a beat. It wouldn't
float to the top of the gas that was in the tank,
but it wasn't setting clear on the bottom either.
I figured that it would slide around and get
sucked into the outlet above the sediment bulb and
partially or fully plug the outlet whenever the
"its mood" was just right. Getting the plastic-
like inner liner out of there solved problem,
because I haven't had a miss or it hasn't died
since I found and removed it. (My $0.02 worth.
jal-SD)

I boil mine in a lemon juice solution. Got that tip on a motorcycle forum. Works astoundingly well. Don't do it in your kitchen though. The smell is awful. You just need to rinse it immediately afterwards and I usually hit it with carb cleaner after rinsing.

If the bowl is going mt, the carb is fine, you have a lack of gas to the carb.

"now why would you cook a carb? you get a gallon of CARB CLEANER"

"Cuz the carb cleaner that you can buy now isn"t "carb cleaner", in effect.

(Prolly doesn"t cause cancer in Cali, either!)

Will Herring:

"I'm thinking about boiling my carb this weekend .
. . Got some distilled water . . ." .


While you're at it, add a couple of Ham Hocks &
some diced Veggies and you'll have the makings for
some pretty good Carburetor Soup.

Gee, clean out the carb & fix lunch all at the
same time. That sounds like a winner. LOL!

AND, the last bucket of carb cleaner I bought was expensive! Unless you use it frequently, it ain't worth the money.

Check the flow from the tank to the sediment bowl. Couple years ago the old WD started running rough so I cleaned the carb and it seemed ok for a bit but soon started sputtering again. Ended up siphoning the tank empty unscrewing the sediment bowl and cleaning a bunch of stuff out of the pipe.

(quoted from post at 19:37:11 04/30/14) I think that the carb is my problem on my rough running WD. I was watching her run, and as she'd run rough the gas level in the sediment bowl would start to go down from the top (you could see an air pocket in there). Any idea what that would be about? I tried to loosen the gas cap and play with a few things and adjust the carb main jet screw but didn't see any change. But if I shut the tractor off and open the gas valve and then pull the drain plug from the carb, the gas seems to flow freely as expected.

At any rate, I'm thinking about boiling my carb this weekend, unless anyone can think of a good reason why I shouldn't. Got some distilled water, just hoping it quits raining so I can do this outside.

Click to expand...

If the level in the sed bowl is dropping then the problem is in the feed to the sed bowl and not your carb. You have crap in your tank or line to sed bowl.

Had a similar problem with an AC 175. Dead wasps semi-floating in the tank below the surface. Would get sucked over the pipe, shut down tractor. When tractor stopped wasps would float off of pipe. Restart and repeat. Good luck-

If your engine is surging and running rough at idle you need to be adjusting the IDLE jet, not the MAIN.

Back in the day that carburetors were made oot of cast iron, if they needed cleaning, we boiled them in Lye water, after taking them apart.

Bought a very nice used Husqavarna tractor a couple of weeks ago. Went over every little thing it needed to make it even closer to"new" condition. I found something looking into the gas tank. There was a poor little dead criket floating around down near the out flow area of the tank. Not a big deal to remove the tank and wash out the cricket. Did the carb while I was at it. GOOD GRAVEY I hate nikki carbs. They are such junk! They "run", but not like a walbro or Carter Etc.

As everyone else says, take the unscrew the sediment bowl from the tank and find out what is plugging up the inlet. I've been operating AC's since 1957, the only time the sediment bowl gets an air bubble is when something is plugging up the inlet.

Well gentlemen, on your advice, I will be draining the gas tank this weekend instead and then pull the sediment bowl and unscrew the whole fuel valve from the tank and see what I find. I will only revisit the carb if necessary afterwards. Will let you know what I find.