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I saw some postings recently about NAPA carb kits and how bad they are. I am adding my own story to this.

Last fall I bought a '69 Corvair and it needed the carbs rebuilt. NAPA had them for me the next day, 10/28/11. I rebuilt the carbs and everything was great. Yesterday, I finally had to pull the carbs back apart because it was again running like crap. The rubber on both accelerator pumps were ruined from the alcohol in the gas. Luckily I saved the old parts a could put the old pumps back in.

Silly me. I thought that if I bought new parts, they would would be compatible with today's fuel.

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Can't say I'm surprised, rubber accelerator pumps pretty much went the way of the DoDo bird with the advent of ethanol in gasoline and most (the better?) kit makers returned to good old leather. Based on a lot of experience I believe the very best kits are from Daytona.

What about the needle (needle and seat). If it is 'rubber' tipped (not solid) then it is probably swollen too.

I know u bought it at Napa but what brand is the kit and what country was it made????

They are NAPA Echlin 2-5259 kits. It says made in the United States on the box.

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Which means the box was made in the United States.

The two kits that I bought for my '55 have "Made in USA" stamped all over them as well. Sad, ain't it?

Also on the kits in underlined letters state that opening the box prohibits any credit or return. I understand the usual reason for that but in this case....

How about THAT "Catch 22" fans.

It's going to be a long, long time before I ever buy anything fuel related from NAPA!

Definately contact Echlin about that problem. Save the box i hope. Sounds like Napa had some really old stock on the shelf they were trying to get rid of. Does the box look realy old that they came in???? If u have instructions or any documaentation look at the very lower corners for anything that mite resembel a date.

Remeber to check the needle (of the needle and seat) for swelling IF it is 'rubber' tipped.

My money is on it's old stock.

Before condemning gasoline, here is a little lab test.

a) fill a graduated cylinder part way with gasoline

b) add 10% tap water and shake

c) the change in water volume separated is the alcohol, the remainder is pure gasoline.

d) set the pure gasoline aside and soak the suspected parts in sealed container.

e) if the parts are still affected the problem is not with alcohol

My experience with carb kits in the old days was that some of them worked for a year or two and then crapped out, although I put one in my old 61 Ford and it was great, but I don't recall if it had a diaphram pump or a piston pump.

The Packard kits with leather pumps sometimes didn't do so good either and I found myself putting the old piston back in because there was too much resistance and the power valve spring would be overwhelmed. Then I saw people putting a screw stop to lock out the power valve spring which resulted in less than full throttle being available.
So we were always running into problems with carburetor kits.

Please note the above test requires time. I did some of these long term tests on DexCool anti-freeze and GL-5 reactivity to copper and the results were very illuminating.

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I sincerely HOPE that's the reason.

Apropo of this, I just got an e-mail from SEMA advising that the court has cleared the way for 15% alcohol content.

There is a resolution before the House of Representatives that would block the sale of E15 until National Academies has completed a study of how gasoline blended with 15-20% alcohol may impact gas powered vehicles. The this is H.R. 3199. SEMA urges that we contact our respective Members of Congress in support of H.R. 3199.

A point that may make us seem less selfish is that while we can choose to drive our cars, the poor who can only afford older vehicles will be the group most impacted by E-15 or E-20. My and others experience with what E-10 can do to fuel systems. i.e. one month life span of carb kits, should be mentioned by way of proof.

Here endth the lesson for today.