The main help that I can provide is mostly from personal experience. It would be best to confirm that the carb you favor is a correct model for the WD, as Steve alludes to regarding jetting:
Follow the instructions in the following manual as best you can:
Zenith is in the second part of the manual. Be sure to remove the venturi and clean out the tiny passage behind it as well as the gunk around it. Jets & nozzles like to be removed with the proper tools. Better to leave a stubborn one in place than to destroy it unless you are prepared to deal with the consequences. Tip cleaners for oxy-acet torches offer a range of diameters for very careful cleaning of all passages that don't get replaced.
Steve would blast your carb clean with glass beads but you may have to make do with a bucket of todays weak carb cleaner. So be it. There may be shaft packing that won't enjoy a soaking.
I expect that you would have replaced the primary needle valve & seat. If you now have a neoprene tipped needle, it seems a little tougher to eliminate the leaking that you refer to. I believe that you would find that many folks now adjust the float level by carefully bending the tang so that it closes the needle a little sooner, rather than later. This will eliminate the leaking of gas through the primary bowl gasket half way up the carb. The reason for this adjustment may be that modern gas includes alcohol which has reduced buoyant force, &/or modern gaskets differ in thickness, &/or the geometry of modern needles & seats is slightly different from original. If you find that your WD starts easily without choke on a cool day, it probably is over-fuelled and will benefit by this adjustment.
If you find that the carb ices up excessively under load, you would benefit from providing more radiant heat from the block, probably by ensuring that thermostat and temp gauge are working and then using the manual shutters to keep the coolant temp way up in the green range.
Going through these steps has provided me with a very functional 10981 Zenith on my '51 WD. I work it very hard on a brush hog in the summer and it never runs short of fuel (follow Operators Manual instructions for setting idle & main jet screws). Acknowledging Steve's thoughts about proper jetting, if I had a good core and just couldn't rebuild the carb properly myself, considering the cost of a new universal Zenith, I would prefer to send my carb to Steve for a rebuild specific to my need.
HTH,
stu
Topic Options
Post Options
Thanks(0)
