Yo! A little help. Fuel is leaking from my primary fuel bowel

[jerry S]

I just got my car back again from the tuner. They re-jetted the carb because I was running so rich. I picked it up at lunch and parked it at my office. When I got to the car, I smelled gas everywhere but drove home anyway. When I got home, the car would not start and I opened the hood to stare stupidly at the engine when I really noticed the smell of gas. I shined a light at the carb and noticed that fuel was leaking from the primary fuel bowl. I filled up that cup in no time flat. My neighbor thinks the shop over-tightened the screw you see in the picture on the right side, lower corner and that his caused the fuel bowl to crack. Does anyone concur or can anyone intelligenty opine as to the source of this leak?

 

[latamud]

First, you paid someone to change the jets in your carb?
Sorry, had to get it out of my system.
Yes, overtightening could cause a leak. Overtightening also can strip the threads in the main body or tear the thin gaskets that seal the bolts to the bowl. Maybe they reused these gaskets.

Other ideas:
-float level
-something in between the needle and seat
-accelerator pump housing is loose
-the plunger inside is torn
-float through bolts are loose

I have a friend that bought a Holley manual so he could rebuild his carb. The carb was dyno-tuned before he bought it by the way. He called me up and told me he didn't understand why he stripped the threads in the main body when tightening the float bolts back on. He used a torque wrench like the book said, 25in/lbs. He didn't know the difference between ft lbs and inch lbs.

 

[Z06killinSBF]

Is it dumping fuel in the motor at idle? Does it spit fuel out of the top? If so, that'll be debris in the needle/seat. My friend's BRAND NEW Holley did that. 10 minute fix.

 

[bnickel]

first off since you had it tuned and they changed jets it is their responsibilty to fix it. DO NOT touch the carb until you have talked to them first otherwise they'll just say that you did it and they most likely won't fix it.

 

[iskwezm]

they probaly just got cheap and tried to re use the bowl gasket or its the acc. pimp diaphragm

 

[Edbert]

I was thinking the pump housing or diaphragm, based on the drip coming from it

My first guess was the paper gasket at the metering block, but that is farther back and wouldn't drip from there unless you parked downhill.

 

[rbohm]

looks to me like fuel is leaking from the bowl screw, meaning that they either damaged the gasket at the screw head, or never installed a gasket there.

 

[10secgoal]

Mine like to leak right and the lower corner screws between the nut and bowl after a jet change

 

[jerry S]

thanks everyone. It sounds like an easy fix. For latamud, I did not pay the tuner to change the jets on the carb as much as I paid for a session of wideband tuning on the dynojet. They elected to change the jets to get the right A/F ratio. I was not about to tell them to do everything as part of the wideband tune EXCEPT change the jets because I can do that myself.

As for the leak, it seems to be coming from above the screw. I wiped the whole thing down and noticed gas coming from that bowl shaped section below the inlet and above and to the left of the one screw you see in the lower right hand corner. Maybe it is just under pressure but the fuel seems to be coming from someplace other than the screw.

 

[thehueypilot]

Stripped threads on bowl screw or missing/torn gasket under bowl screw. There should be no pressure inside the fuel bowl.

 

[NasaGT]

first off since you had it tuned and they changed jets it is their responsibilty to fix it. DO NOT touch the carb until you have talked to them first otherwise they'll just say that you did it and they most likely won't fix it.

+1 Take it back, have them fix it.

 

[jerry S]

+1 Take it back, have them fix it.

Already scheduled. Being dutch, they are cheap and half-assed. That is just the nature of the average dutchman. It is not their fault. God made Germans, Swiss, Japanese to have an unrelenting eye for detail while he made the dutch to be content with doing just enough to get by. The dutch are the sloppy ying to the Japanes/Teutonic anal-retentive yang. In spite of that, I have confidence in their ability to fix the problem. I am sure they just reused old gaskets somewhere.

 

[302 coupe]

the gaskets can be re-used, thats not the problem. The problem is if they damaged the gaskets and re-used them, or didn't put them back on. Sometimes the bowl screw gaskets can stick to the screw, soemtimes they stick to the body. If you're not careful, you end up with some screws being double gasketed and some with no gaskets. The blue or red bowl gaskets are re-useable, the only ones you can't reuse are the cheap paper/cardboard ones that come in cheap/no name rebuild kits.