My glass fuel bowl leaks

Question:

I have a problem with carburetors leaking gas and was wondering if you have any advice for me. I have three old Ford trucks that have old Holley 1-bbl. carbs on them that have glass bowls. They leak where the glass meets the body of the carb. I have rebuilt the carbs but they still leak even with the new gasket. Since the carb is over the top of the exhaust manifolds it is not a good thing even though it takes hours to drain the bowl. Do you have any Ideas?

Answer:

When glass bowls continuously leak it’s usually because of a bad gasket. A lot of times old carburetors get rebuilt with old rebuild kits and sometimes the gaskets are very old, too hard to conform to inconsistencies in the surfaces they’re supposed to be sealing, and smaller than they should be because of shrinkage. It’s also possible that the carburetor mating surface is warped or otherwise damaged. The glass bowls could possibly be warped, though this is less likely.

You can check the bowls on a surface plate or other verifiably flat surface. Contact Jerry Ingordo at Precision Carburetor (287 Skidmores Road, unit #A, Deer Park, NY 11729). He has decades of experience and can solve your problem regardless of what is causing it.