1911 Continental Engine

I should have added that the float weight isn't really critical, as long as you adjust it for proper fuel level. Brass is heavier than cork, but when its setup right it does the same thing. I have seen much trouble with 70's Mikuni bike carbs caused by ethanol, they used that weird foam material that can make crossing Utah a nightmare

"William Wixon" wrote in message news:pTdYm.45632$ snipped-for-privacy@newsfe02.iad...

Thanks for the encouragement! I spent the previous 35 years as a professional engineer, mostly as chief engineer or engineering manager for large food & beverage manufacturing companies. The last 4 years as a volunteer have been a lot more fun. I'm now doing things myself, that were always done by my staff. I've learned TIG welding,machining,and a lot of other skills that I only had a theroretical knowledge of before. Admittedly, I used to hang around the crew and ask a lot of questions,but "hands on" is a lot better teacher. We have worked on some pretty unconventional stuff, including a replica of Henry Ford's Quadricyle, a steam roller, a steam mining drill and anything else that happens to need restoration. The next couple of jobs are the restoration and recommissioning of a 190? two cycle stationary farm engine of about 6 horsepower ( hope to have it going in a month or two) , and the partial restoration of one of the first steam traction engines ever built in Australia. The boiler on it is kackered, but we hope the refurbish the motionworks( steam engine) so it can be run on compressed air. This will take at least a year, but probably more as we are mostly volunteers who only work a couple of days a week. (When things get interesting though, I'm sometimes there all week) We will have to machine a number of new parts as the originals have disappeared or rusted beyond repair. The web site

So again, thanks for the encouragement, but I'd do it for the fun of it anyway

I found, during 30 years of construction supervision, that the best way to learn how things should be done is to watch the person doing the work. That, plus knowledge of the theory behind the work and a liberal application of common sense will quickly develop a grasp for how things should be done. Gerry :-)} London, Canada

You could probably get some larger pieces of cork from a custom fishing rod building supplier.

speaking of floats - for what it's worth, I made a new float for one of my cars (don't remember which one right now -maybe the 51 dodge) when the old stamped brass one cracked and leaked - I used a foam float from a Holley carb and cut off the metal hinge and soldered on the hinge from the old float - that fuel resistant foam stuff is used on a lot of fuel gauge senders now so it should be easy enough to find - that would be superior to messing with cork

I have remade the float from cork, ( sealed with epoxy)and made a new needle and seat as well. It now runs well, after we discovered that the float was touching the side of the bowl, and causing the flooding. A little more research, showed that the carburettor that we were using on petrol was in fact attached to the wrong flange on the intake manifold. This explained why the other carburettor had no throttle valve. Throtle duties were taken up by the valve that changed from kero to petrol. At the moment, the tractor has been taken apart for painting so I don't have anything to do with it for a while. Presently, I am restoring a small steam powered water pump. I have managed to get all the parts apart but have spent a few days drilling out corroded studs. (some were stripped in the ancient past) Helicoils are very useful things! The steam cylinder had been cracked and repaired ( by rivetting a patch on the outside ) but I intend to sleeve it with a suitable machined piece of cast iron sewer pipe.

And, for what it's worth, most (all?) epoxies will not stand up to the solvents in modern gasoline...

I checked that out with the epoxy supplier,and they said that it was ok with the hydrocarbons in the fuel, but they don't know about the additives in modern fuel. As a result we drain the fuel from the bowl when its not in use ( which is about 95 % of the time)

Went through this looking for patch material for a gas tank filler neck and you're right. Most hardware store epoxies won't stand up to continual exposure. Ace carries a product called Seals All that does. Did the patch with that and some gasket material and it's stayed fuel tight for years. Silicone RTV is worse than the epoxy, turns into a jelly material which then gets into the fuel and clogs up stuff, almost worse than sugar. There is some RTV that's gas-proof, last I looked it was up in the $100/100 gram area. Have to really watch what you get these days, most gas(all of it around here) has alcohol in it. At least MTBE has been phased out.

Stan