THE WEBER CARB
Okay, anyone who has a classic old CJ that's spinning the tires thanks to the venerable 258 inline six-banger has probably had his share of nausea-inducing, wake-up-in-a-cold-sweat nightmares thanks to those horrible factory carburetors, the Carter BBD.
Now I don't pretend to be an expert on carbs; quite the opposite. I don't know a damn thing about them. I consider them to be complicated, temperamental widgets. They fall into a wide-encompassing area (including such things as non-dairy creamer, microwave ovens, and women) known as "Stuff I Don't Understand".
So what I don't know about carburetion I could just about squeeze in the Grand Canyon. But I do know when something sucks eggs, and that's what that factory carb did. At least on my Jeep. But I've heard enough arguments in my favor to assume that mine was a pretty reliable example. These things probably worked great when new, but now that they're over a decade old...well, let's say they're ready for the Old Yeller treatment.
My BBD was rebuilt once toward the end of its life by a mechanic down here in Gorham, where I attend college. He told me afterward that the floats were crushed. At the time, I didn't think to ask to see these "crushed floats", so I think he might have been jerking my chain, which would also explain the brake light fluid and muffler bearings that were also on my bill. Anyhoo, the point is that it was such a dog and running so vilely, that I actually took it to a mechanic (unthinkable, really) and had him try to fix it. He gave it a clean bill of health, and it was still shit. <Sigh> What it comes down to is you can't polish a turd.
The straw that broke the camel's back was when my distributor decided to go the big recycling center in the sky. My father and I, liking simplicity and loathing anything on a vehicle that can't be re-built with a roll of duct tape and a standard screwdriver, decided to paw through the scrapyard of old and come up with something simpler, something we could understand. A 1972 Jeep distributor, complete with points, practically leapt from the pile and into our hands, gleefully wishing to be thrown back in the fray. After installation, the Jeep resumed operation again, and one day I was tinkering away on it, and as I leaned there against the fender sipping a beer and pondering the innards of my Jeep's engine bay, I had an epiphany.
Okay. This Jeep, being an '85, had the very latest in smog-reduction hardware <snort, guffaw>. This included the computer, the ignition module (melted a few of those, too), the electronic distributor, and the computer-controlled BBD carb. Worked like a charm if all the components were new and in harmony. So in my case, they sucked. But, the electronic distributor had now been taken out of the loop...so that had to throw everything else off...but the Jeep still ran. I'd been wanting to ditch this computer for a while, and suddenly saw my chance. I unplugged the computer, and tried to start the Jeep. It fired up, so I gleefully began pulling wires.
Another beer and about an hour later, the computer lay defeated, gasping for breath in my driveway, dragging behind it it's entrails consisting of ravaged and melted wire loom and about a hundred feet of wire. I'd won a small victory against unnecessary vehicular technology.
Of course, now that computer controlled carb was this little island of stupidity. It wasn't much good when it had the computer telling it to do something, even though it was probably wrong. Now it didn't have anything to go on, and it was floundering in desperation. One nice thing about these carbs was they are set to run at full rich in the event that contact is lost with the computer, so if the system shit the bed, you could still drive home. So I was still getting around, but mileage and performance suffered horribly.
Enter, the Weber carb! (Forgot what this page was even about by now, hadn't you?) I'd been drooling over these things ever since I learned of them thru legend and the copious Jeep catalogs I subscribe to. Now we had the perfect excuse to buy one. (I say "we" 'cause I sure as hell didn't have the $400 for a new carb. The First National Bank of Dad swallowed that one. Thanks Dad!)
So with all this ado, we'll finally get down to the nuts and bolts of it.
THE CARB ITSELF
Came in this really neat box. :) Just kidding. The carb comes pretty well organized in the box, along with all necessary hardware. I don't recall having to scrounge anything up in order to put it on. Also, like most carburetors, it comes with bench settings so you can bolt it on and go. This one required fine tuning, but it was fairly well explained.
Dad adjusting the installed Weber. |
Into the maw of the beast... |
The Carter BBD compared to the Weber. No comparison! |
The Weber Kit |
So the Weber comes with about three pages of photocopied directions. (See my Directions Rant) And, like most directions, it was full of grammatical and spelling errors, which made me question the people making this thing. Anyway, here we go.
The kit includes three plastic base plates to adapt the intake manifold to the carb base. We had to use two of them, and it comes with a gasket and sealant for the joint to keep them from leaking. The Weber comes with its own linkage, and we didn't have a problem adapting it to the existing linkage. We also used the existing return springs, hooking them to various apparatus to make them snug enough to serve their purpose.
The directions are pretty good for tuning the carb, but it's only to get the thing running. I'm still in the process of finding someone who is "Weber-wise" as they describe it, to fine tune the thing. I guess once you've got some experience with them, a real pro can make them do backflips. We'll see.
We only had one snag after installation, and it occurred while road testing. There is another linkage, hooked to the throttle linkage, that runs each barrel of the carb. (The Weber is a progressive 2-barrel, which means it only uses one barrel during low rpm (0-250 RPM, ballpark, i'm just guessing). When you cross that, it opens up the other barrel. So...if you really dump on it and drop the hammer, both barrel's open up and pour gas down the carb...she's pretty snappy. :) ) So this linkage is adjustable for length, and has two locknuts on each end. Well, I forgot to tighten them up after we got it together....so I went to step on it once, and nothing happened...the ends had twisted apart, and just dropped in half. Small matter to pop the hood and twist them together, but of course, it was the middle of the night, pitch black, on the side of the road with traffic whizzing by...but you get the idea.
TUNING
Okay, like I said, I don't know anything about carburetors, and probably never will. So they try to walk you through the tuning as best they can. I think they suffer from the same trait that I do, namely, once you get really good at something, it's hard to teach someone else, cause there's too much you just take as obvious. I think they could have been a lot more specific, but again, it's an experience thing.
So anyway, the bench settings for the Weber will let the rig run, but you won't be going anywhere with it. The instructions describe it as "the engine will run slowly, more like a tractor. As long as the motor runs, that's all that's important right now.". Indeed, the motor would chug-chug-chug along, sounding like it was waiting for the least little provocation to shut down. So now we set the mixture.
Now, even tho this is a two barrel carburetor, it only has ONE mixture screw. I guess they know what they're doing, so I didn't ask. Again, they know more about them than I do (I hope). They described this as "how Webers are different.". Whatever. All I know is it makes it easier to tune. So you turn the mixture screw until the engine runs well, and then poorly. Then back it up a little, until it runs well again. (Duh.) Then, you set your idle to the desired level, and you're done. Sound simple? You'd think so. I only had to do it about three times.
Now, Weber boasts two things: 1) is that they can be fine-tuned and modified to near perfection, and work better than almost any factory carb and 2) that you'll get better power and better fuel economy. For the record, I still think that more power with less fuel is a physical impossibility, and so far I haven't been proven wrong.
I haven't seen dramatic changes in fuel economy...of course it doesn't help that I'm a real throttle jockey and drive like a maniac. And if you're braver than I am, you can get different size jets, etc. to transplant into the Weber to make it run even better. I'm one of those "Don't monkey with the carb, it runs fine now" people. Unless I had someone who I thought knew what they were doing.
THE JUDGEMENT
Was it worth it? The $400 you shell out for the Weber carb is a pretty substantial investment. Hey, as far as I'm concerned, it's been a great carburetor. Hell, it didn't have a lot of competition from the stock carb. A squirrel puking gas into the motor would have been better than that damn thing. But it's got great throttle response, it's never quit on me yet, and besides, it's a pretty trick mod, what with it's exposed air filter and chrome top. (I generally hate chrome, but I can live with this.)
The one thing that bugged me initially was the noise it made. Yes, it's noisy. Noisier than the old carb, anyway. Mostly because the factory carburetor had an air cleaner assembly with the filter inside. This one is all exposed, so you can hear it hissing and sucking air all the time. Like all the other noises the Jeep makes, I learned to ignore it.
So I'll go on record as throwing my support behind the Weber. It's a good carburetor for the money, it's designed to go on the Jeep, as opposed to a bigger Holley that requires an adapter or a whole new intake manifold. So why not.
It gets the Boots Seal of Approval.
