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Hibernate a Holley

4K views 29 replies 11 participants last post by  mjgord51 
#1 ·
I would like to know if you can drain all gas from a carb and store it for a month or two? Would any thing go wrong or dry out in the empty carb. This is a Holley 1850 / 4160 . thanks in advance, Marvin
 
#3 ·
Best way to store any carb is upside down in a sealed bucket full of gasoline, I've heard kerosene works OK too but never tried it with that fuel.

That being said its not always possible, drained and flushed with alchohol and dried out stored upside down in a bag works too. A magarine container of the right size almost fits the standard air cleaner flange perfectly so you can use it as a pedestal.

Just be aware if you have phenolic floats they don't fare well being stored after being exposed to fuel, they typically get micro cracks which allows them to absorb fuel over time. The worse part of this is the carb will seem fine at first and work fine but over the next few weeks of return to operation the float gets heavier and heavier until it gets heavy enough to flood the carb and even spew through the vent.
 
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#4 ·
Ethanol fuels are corrosive and will turn into a chalky gray crud if you spray a very generous amount of WD-40 into the fuel inlet and store the Carb in a stout plastic bag with as much air out as possible it will prevent it.The picture here is an Edelbrock that sat on the shelf six months with ethanol.
 

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#7 ·
I've never had too many problems pulling the bottom screws, pumping the accelerator pumps dry and blowing air down the air bleeds. Then cover the top with a carb hat and stuff it in the corner or shelf or under the table or where ever. I did find a mud dauber nest in one one time. I hate those things. Especially when they build inside your sockets so when you go to use them a bunch of dirt and stuff falls out.
 
#8 ·
I have not started my truck for almost 6 months ago as I was getting some work done on other things and my fuel line system was part of it and rear end etc and I had my carb full of fuel and what I did was had it filled to the proper level with fresh gas and put some fuel stabil in it to keep the fuel from getting stale and bad as I had just put it on brand new when I got it and something went wrong with some other things (another story) and my garage is not heated so I had to wait till spring time cause I hardly have any room and my truck is just a little s10 but even its small size I can hardly even open my door without almost hitting the wall and the other side is shared my my neighbor so I can't do a whole lot but I had not had it running for 6 months and I sprayed some carb cleaner down the air bleeds and the fuel level was still almost right where it should be and a few pump shots and I also had a tank full of gas and stabil in it as well and it fired right up and looking through my sight glass windows on my fuel bowls they were clean as can be.
 
#10 ·
i had a holley 600 cfm vacuum secondary the 1850 manual choke model and then the 80457 electric model and I upgraded mine with some quick fuel billet metering blocks and have since replaced them with holley double pumpers for better wide open response. I have v8 350 swaps in both builds and i know my way around quite good for tuning wise and that is more thenk adjusting idle mixture screws and changing jets etc. With books on tuning holley carbs it make it easy tuning once you get the knowledge if pretty easy and hardly takes any time to do.
 
#11 ·
Ive taken the floats out and put them in a sealed little plastic container with some diesel fuel in it. My thought was it'd keep the floats pliable(not sure if thats the best term?). Blow down the carb and spray with any of the above mentioned chemicals; store in a zip-top freezer bag (theyre heavier-duty). Ive mostly done this with small engine carbs while tearing them apart with no timeframe. Label the top of the lid with a fine pen on a piece of tape. You can write any float adjustments or whatever on it, along with the date and the fact that it HAS FUEL in it so you don't accidentally spill it or get it near a flame.
 
#12 ·
When I put my Harleys away for the winter, I put a fresh tank of gas in them with Sta-Bil or Seafoam added. I fire the engine and let it run a few minutes then shut the fuel petock allowing the engine to run till it exhausts the carb and quits. I shut off the electrics, roll 'em to the back of the shop, connect battery charges and cover them up.


Next spring I remove the covers, disconnect the charger, roll 'em out, check the oil, turn on the fuel, and crank them up. No problems ever. They like everything else around here burn E10 because you can't get gas without alcohol anywhere except on the indian reservations and those are too far away not to be another hassle.



Bogie
 
#14 ·
Hey no offense taken:) we are all fellow hotrodders here and we all miss something here or there or I know I have ha ha. Your ride sounds like a cool one. Take care mjord51 and good luck on your build and if you ever have any questions about that carb your using I have done more different tunes on that carb then any other holley along with a double pumper. Just sent a inbox message and I will shoot you my email.
 
#16 ·
For eric32, What I am thinking of using in place of the Edelbrock Performer (on truck) is my other Edelbrock Torker Open/Duel Plain Manifold. here is some pictures.
 

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#18 ·
I Appreciate your input But the last pictures I posted was for Eric aka eric32, we are Crunching some ideas back and forth and the change of manifolds (I already have) were just an idea so far. Eric has gave me in my mind better answers then others have. Your idea of what you have suggested would be great on a High Performance Engine 350.383 ect which mine is Not. If I were looking for something in the Higher Performance Package then I would go back to my old 70 1/2 Z28,350 LT1, TH400 modified trans, 4.11's which accelerated me to 0 to 95 mph in 1/10 of a mile, not a real rocket ship but good enough for 1970's technology, thanks anyway
 
#19 ·
I don't want to cause any issues for anyone lol as I am just being conservative side of things since its going to be a 305 and I would stick with your dual plane performer intake since its a dual plane it will give better bottom end and better response and that is what you would want for a 305 and even on my performance 350's built up I use a weiand 8150 high rise dual plane intake and I actually got rid of my edelbrock air gap performer high rise intake since they have a small section cut out on the divider and I have gotten tested carburetor spacers before and I have done the open spacer's and the 4 hole spacer and I tuned my carb for each one and the open one took away a lot of bottom end response and it was not as crisp and snappy and did not do quite as good on response wise.

Then when going over to the 4 hole it gave me way better response and also gave me a more quicker response when punching the throttle and the only real difference that was felt where the open spacer did better was pass the 5000 rpm mark which is the reason for a open plane intake for motors that are intended for high rpm use more so then lower end use. I once had a pretty much stock 350 way back in the late 90's which was the first 350 stuck in my 86 s10 and was before I ever really new anything about performance stuff like I do now but I the engine was used and they guy I got it from had a edelbrock torker 2 on it and had a edelbrock 600 carb on it and it was ok and was nothing fancy and had a smallish rv type cam and not much more then that.

It had leaks everywhere and after I was able to save some cash up over a year or so I had it took out and this time I went with an edelbrock dual plane intake and the edelbrock was all worn out and stuck a new holley 600 vacuum secondary on it and reused the same came since it was still good and not worn out along with the lifters and such and the heads were new poor flowing old smog 76cc GM 882 heads but the engine bottom end was a set of new stock flat top pistons and same crank etc and other stuff so pretty much the same motor just with new heads which were the same as before and with the dual plane along with the holley it ran quite well and was an every day driver and was nothing more then that and never intended for any performance at that time and did me well with a turbo 350 and 3.73 rear gears.

I was born in 76 so I don't know really hardly to much before the early 2000's which was I got hit by the hot rod bug and have been one ever since but from what I have read on here and elsewhere the torker 2 was pretty much made for corvettes which did not have much hood space and height so that was made so folks could get as much as they could for top end power from the few bits I have read but I am sure there is a lot more there as I know the dual plane intake has been changed over the years by edelbrock and weiand and whoever else made them back in the late 70's and up clear up to even now. Dual plane is the best for a stock to a good street performance motor that is not going to see high rpm and not really ever going to see track time. An open plane is for 3500 and up rpm range and is more for engines that will see more higher rpm use then anything low and is for making the max amount of power the engine can give. On one of my previous builds I had a edelbrock victor jr intake and it ran really nice and strong and all was matched up pretty well but I did loose some bottom end response like I had before the rebuild. I had some issues with something and had to pull it back out and had to tear it down and regasket stuff I changed out the intake to a high rise dual plane and it hardly took anything away from the top but the bottom end came alive more and gave better response up to about 3000 plus rpm then after that it was about the same and without a dyno the top end felt no difference and pulled to about 6500 rpm where it leveled off.

I have seen though to where some people have used and open plane intake and put a 4 hole spacer on it but that is a whole different subject and that is more so tuning with carb spacers. Throttle response and mileage will stay the best with the intake your already using. That is how its been in my experience.
 
#21 ·
From what I can tell in the photos it seems like its write but with out maybe some other shots its hard to tell right off. I don't have my carb parts yet for my manual choke kit so I can look at it and see if I can figure out your issue and maybe get it fixed for you. Let me look around and see if I can do some digging up on things are I know there a few things that can cause this besides what I told you so far. Give me a few days as I have some other things going on as well and hopefully will get this all figured out.
 
#26 ·
First of all this truck that I bought had its Past Owners that has Thoroughly Molested it with what ever they could find to make whatever fit and or work. With that in mind any thing on it could be the wrong part or parts on it, so sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words. For me its nice to have every thing to be the Right Part. I am just a old grumpy German blooded individual that has to have every i dotted & t crossed.
 
#25 ·
Like mentioned above it looks like it is off centered and all you might need to do is just bend it a hair and most likely it should fix that part and as far as the bolt goes I use the one that came with my holley kit and its just a plane old screw just like the one in the photo and all I do is tighten it down just enough and then I take the end of the cable end and bend it down just a hair so like that it won't pull through by chance if it were to come loose but mine has been tightened for over 5 plus years before I took it off and it never got loose at all over that course of time.
 
#27 ·
#28 ·
I'm old school, been working on and modifying Holley carbs for years......there is absolutely nothing wrong with the choke mechanism and bracketry in the pictures Mjgord51 has posted.

The slight offset is meaningless, the small center wire in the choke cable can handle that small amount of misalignment without a problem.

If you're totally anal then you could straighten each end of the choke lever arm slightly to put alignment dead-on.....but it really isn't necessary. Holleys have been this way for 50 years.

Center wire of Choke cable fits through the small hole in that brass bushing on the end of the lever, then the cross screw is tightened to lock the center wire adjustment in place
 
#29 ·
I am not so sure on the offset being Meaningless, the cable does hang up and doesn't pull or push at all. It might very well be a Aftermarket Choke Pull Off Cable setup, being all other Knobs don't look like the Choke knob. I am going to slightly bend the choke lever for a proper alignment. thanks
 
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