Ole - take a look at the picture of the throttle shafts and arms in the link I provided.
The economy carburetors have a weird throttle arm.
The color a carburetor is painted should not be used to identify the carburetor; spray cans are cheap! We have installed Chevrolet W-1 carburetors on LOTS of applications having worse carburetors as original equipment; as well as LOTs of hot rod (dual carbs, triple carbs, etc,) Many of the owners wanted the carburetors painted to match the engine color.
Many thanks to Forest Sweet and Doyle Stocks for doing all that research. Now I know that Jon ( Carbking ) was correct they were painted black at the factory. I think I will have to print out that copy to show judges that a painted one is right. Thank you Chipper and all of you for your great responses to my question!
John - building cars for show can be both interesting, and exceptionally frustrating.
For 40 years, we offered total restorations of carburetors with a 5-year authenticity warranty. We were able to offer that warranty, as we are the current caretakers for surviving carburetor records of a number of carburetor companies.
But there can still be problems.
Will relate one such problem. Maybe 20 years ago, we restored a carburetor (a Stromberg) for a customer going to Pebble Beach. The day after the show, I received a call from a very irate customer who screamed at me for more than 15 minutes, before sanity prevailed, and I was able to learn the reason for his anger. Seems the father, and uncle of that year's chief judge both worked at the factory of the car in question, and this gentleman was the self-annointed expert on all items for this make. And the chief judge stated that part of the carburetor was incorrectly refinished. This lost my customer enough points to drop him from 1st to 3rd in class.
So I asked the customer if factory documentation would help. He said yes. I then photocopied the original Stromberg drawing showing finish, and mailed it (before email) to the customer. He confronted the chief judge, who allowed it was possible, that maybe he might have made a mistake; but refused to change the outcome. And in fairness, it probably would not have been possible to change the result after the fact.
However, the customer was invited back to P.B. the following year, and took a first.
There are a few things to learn from this fiasco, and none of them being that in this case I was correct.
(1) If one is planning to have a car judged, especially in a points show, it is an excellent idea to contact the show authority in advance (a year in advance if possible) asking if the judging authority has any judging standards specifically for the individuals car. In the case above it would not have helped, as the chief judge was the authority; but often discrepancies may be discussed and solved before the vehicle even makes the show.
(2) Mistakes ARE made, by anyone that is human. Having a mistake such as the above at a major show is embarrassing to all, and certainly not desired by anyone.
(3) As a general rule, when doing a total restoration, documentation will be at least 50 percent of the cost of the total restoration! Those who ignore this fact will generally end up having issues.
(4) The internet is a good starting place for documentation, but as shown in this thread, often there are differences of opinion. In the case of this particular carburetor, no reasonable argument is possible, as the factory documentation does exist. Again, if having a vehicle judged, the opinion of the judging authority is what matters, right or wrong. If wrong, and proof is available, I have yet to see a judging authority that would not change based on the proof.
There is literally tons of automobile documentation that is not, and probably never will be, on the internet. Just in carburetor documentation alone, I have more that 60 gigabytes that we have converted to digital data, and that just scratches the surface. Rest assured I will not be paying for a 60 gigabyte website to post all of this documentation.
Chipper, Yes I am going to send money to the Technical Articles Fund. I think every member needs to do that.
Jon, Thank you for that great insight on how to make sure that some of the more technical issues are documented for the judges consideration. I have printed off your Carter Carburetor service bulletin and the research of Forest Sweet and Doyle Stocks. I will keep them in my files with the car in the case of any question by the judges. Since the Bowling Green event will be my very first car show to have an entry in, I want it to be the best that I can do. I don't think that the judging authorities have been set for Bowling Green yet but I will check into it.
Please indulge (read tolerate) me for a bit of your time here regarding my 1941s. I have a few questions re the following with judging in mind:
a. It is my current understanding that the body of the carburetor is painted black. Is that flat black, gloss, satin or simi-gloss?
b. Cover. Same question as above.
c. All brass looking items should not be painted. How about levers, etc? Is this correct?
?. For the 1941 carburetor, what is correct number for the little brass tag?
e. Are there any identifiable markings that I should make sure are on the correct carburetor?
I too want to get mine right as best as I can and I recognize you as the best, most knowledgable authority, guru, expert (pick one) on the subject. I'd sure would like to get this right once and for all.
Thanks for your help and time.
Best,
Charlie
BTW: I apologize for any and all redundancies or matters that have already been answered ad nausea. Just consider me dense.
More info on the plating: while any of the four coatings listed in the link are possible; during the 1930's and 1940's, Howard Crown ran primarily white zinc, so the overwhelming odds are that all of the steel pieces would be electroplated with white zinc in 1941.
And per my post a few posts back: if you plan to judge the car, run the above past the judging authority a few months in advance, to make sure you and the judges are on the same page.
I agree with the vast majority of what Jon has posted. I will add a little more information specifically about Chevrolet applications. Carter carburetors used on Chevrolets were sourced from two plants: the main Carter plant in St. Louis and a plant under contract to Chevrolet in Bay City, Michigan. The carburetors from those two plants are basically the same except for a "C" appearing on the body casting (Bay City plant) and in some cases slight differences in the castings or parts used.
Though rare I do have some tags with the Chevrolet part number and not the Carter number. That suggests to me that the tags were used particularly on the downdraft W-1 units to identify the carburetors so they could be installed on the correct engine.
I also believe that carburetors that were factory rebuilt by Carter received a new Carter number tag even it it has the "C" on the body and likely would have had the Chevrolet part number tag originally.
In my experience rebuilding over 1000 carburetors (the vast majority Carter for Chevrolets) only a very small percentage have the number stamped on the bottom of the body casting.
Just to add another wrinkle to this thread, when judging any area of a Chev the judges must remember that Chevs were manufactured at several different locations throughout North America. Differences could and did occur between the same areas on similar bodies in the same year, depending on where the specific Chev was manufactured. One example is the one-piece vs three-piece bumpers on '51 Chevs. All '51's made in Canada and California had one-piece bumpers, but '51's from any other plant had three-piece bumpers. Judges have to be aware of this possibility when "discrepencies" are found.
Before 1924, Chevrolet used carburetors manufactured by Carter, Holley, Marvel, Stewart, Stromberg and Zenith.
Sometime in the 1923~1924 time frame, Chevrolet bid carburetors, with a provision that the carburetor manufacturer would allow a certain percentage to be build by Chevrolet. Carter was the only manufacturer that would permit this (at the time, Carter probably was the smallest of the 6 companies mentioned above, and was really looking for volume).
So Chevrolet accepted Carter's bid, and continued to use Carter carburetors through the 1949 model year.
After General Motors started the Rochester Division in 1949 (Oldsmobile), Chevrolet specified Rochester B's for most of the 1950 production. As Chevrolet had Carter redesign the W-1 for the 1949 model year, this decision certainly created some bad feelings with Carter. It also explains why parts for the 1949 W-1 (684s) are so scarce, as it was a one-year only design.
Some of the earlier carbs built in the Bay City plant had Chevrolet part numbers instead of Carter numbers, stamped on individual parts.
The Chevrolet tag numbers are on the same line with the Carter tag numbers in the link provided above.
Early Carter tags, maybe through the 1931 model year, were red cardboard, although some of the service 150s (1930~1931 carbs) produced years later, were equipped with a brass tag.
As to the flange stamping numbers, so often missing, as mentioned by Chip; commercial carburetor rebuilders, in order to "true" the casting (quite unnecessary with cast iron) would hold the flange to a surfacing wheel, truing the casting, and often removing the stamped number. I have seen countless W-1's with a circular surface pattern on the bottom of the flange.
We used to stamp the correct number, if missing, in carbs we restored.
And a shameless "beg" here, if anyone has any W-2's for sale or trade...........
Jon, Thanks for the additional information which I wholeheartedly agree with.
I have also heard the story that when Zenith started supplying carburetors to Chevrolet they had a contract for up to a million of them. When those million were supplied Chevrolet began to search for a better deal. Also at that time the zinc based venturis were swelling and cracking the carburetor housings. Those were mostly the O-4, T-4, T4X and T-4XF Zeniths. During the late '22-'24 production is when Holley, Zenith, Carter, Stewart carburetors were factory installed. The interesting fact is that the Carters were the RB-0 with zinc based venturi Carter no. 32s and 33s. In 1925 when the majority of carburetors were supplied by Carter they went to a prior model number 4s and 6s that had the venturi cast into the body. Those early Carters had one model with an adjustable main jet. Don't see many of those.
On the generator question I looked through all my cores and carefully inspected all that had no evidence of extra paint on the Delco-Remy tag. I also went through a box of about 20 brush cover bands. All have evidence of black paint. I will say a few of the blue steal cover bands had almost no paint remaining so maybe adhesion was a problem on those. The picture I attached is of the generator on my 39. Code dated in the same time frame as all the other electrical equipment and original to the car. I have had it since 72 and my grandfather since new. He would not have painted anything and all the work was done at their taxi garage. I suppose anything is possible but I believe they were painted in this time frame.
First, Carter stated to paint the inside of the W-1 carburetor HALFWAY DOWN. Sometimes I do not type everything I mean (either the brain is faster, or probably slower than the fingers ), and my post was misleading - sorry.
Second, Carter referred to the W-1's produced by Chevrolet as CW-1's. This tidbit might be useful from a historical aspect, but if folks start using the terminology, it will probably confuse a lot more folks.
Carter states in their service literature that ALL W-1 carb bases were stamped, but the CW-1 bases were NOT stamped. I have never really tried to prove/disprove that the CW-1's were not stamped. As I posted earlier, I generally would stamp the bases if the number had been ground off for the use of future enthusiasts.
As posted by Chip, Carter painted the carbs brown and gray, in addition to black.
Chevrolet used brown on the 321s, 335s, 358s, and 434s. Chevrolet used gray on the 260s, and 285s. All other W-1's used by Chevrolet were painted black.
As for identification of the CW-1's, Carter suggested reading the various 6 digit numbers on various components, converting these to Carter numbers by using the Chevrolet Carter part number interchange; and then using the Carter part number application interchange to identify the carburetors.
As Dave posted I have yet to find a generator or starter band that was not coated. Some were not painted but black plated or coated. The ones that were painted likely were serviced some time in their life.
