Zenith Carb

D

denny03830

Member
My 31 A runs, but not great, every thing is new except for the carb. The engine dies when I brake, it does not want to idle, and it will not start when warm without the choke.

I want someone to do a high quality rebuild on my carb. It is a Zenith - 1.

Does anyone have a suggestion.
 
The best person to work on your model a is you, I would recommend you visit YouTube and look up Paul shin’s video of Robert Gimron rebuilding a zenith, it’s a good start, you will need the know how for trips of any length in an old flibber. There is not much to do outside of completely cleaning it out and putting a Shim or to in the needle valve.
Hope this helps, I have not worked on these cars for a great deal of time yet but I have been a mechanic my whole life, there is not too terribly much to it.
 
denny03830 said:
My 31 A runs, but not great, every thing is new except for the carb. The engine dies when I brake, it does not want to idle, and it will not start when warm without the choke.

I want someone to do a high quality rebuild on my carb. It is a Zenith - 1.

Does anyone have a suggestion.
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Easy remove carb, take ALL jets secondary well etc out of carb,ensure you get all gaskets from jets removed. idle jet has no gasket, clean with carb cleaner, blow out with air compressor after cleaning put back together check float level, see how that works!Site Index (Model-A.org) Thanks for site index supplier-great info
 

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denny03830 said:
My 31 A runs, but not great, every thing is new except for the carb. The engine dies when I brake, it does not want to idle, and it will not start when warm without the choke.

I want someone to do a high quality rebuild on my carb. It is a Zenith - 1.

Does anyone have a suggestion.
Click to expand...

There is a saying that 95% of Model A driveability issues are electrical.

Assuming that you have done a thorough job checking the electrical side, I would start by resetting the base idle speed / mixture. This worked for me.

While the Zenith is a simple carburetor, there is a significant list of not so obvious details to accomplish a professional restoration of one. You can find a rebuilder here on this forum. I'm sure that someone will respond with Gary Johnson's phone number, or you can send your carb to Bert's Model A.
 
Do it yourself so you understand it better and make sure the (gav) passage is clean, I used a paper clip and my carb runs perfect best I can tell. You will want the knowledge after you have it. Good luck and keep us informed. (((((These guys (fordbarn) helped me tremendously and will help you.)))))
 
Hello Denny, agree with everyone who says you can rebuild the Zenith yourself. It is time to dig in and study how the carb works, what the function of each of the four jets is. Purchase repair manuals "Restoring the Model A & B Carburetors - The Rex Reheis Way" and Steve Pargeter's "Zenith Model A Carburetor Restoration. I emphasis that after you have the carb soaked and cleaned you must flow test the jets. Most jets that you purchase are oversized. Obviously, if the jets are not passing the correct amount of gas, the car is going to perform poorly. It is your hobby and knowing how this carburetor works is important. Ed
 
'28 RPU said:
What do you do about oversized jets when most you buy are oversized? What, buy them by the 100's?
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Solder up the orifice and drill it out to the proper size.

FWIW, 2 years ago I bought jets from Brattons and they were spot on.
 
I did what HISTORY did, rebuilt mine myself. And yes, just make sure to get that GAV passage cleaned out. Mine was stored for 30 years after being put away by my Dad with all the fluids still in it, so I really had to clean out every passage. Now I remove it twice a year and use liberal amounts of carb cleaner and that seems to do the trick.
 
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