OT What not to do when working on a truck

[Tom Sweeney]

This definately falls under the tip of the day from the village idiot heading :rolleyes:

I was tuning up my old F150 truck. It's a basic beater work truck that has been in desperate need of a tune up for over a year.

It has a holley 4BBL carb on it. I was having trouble getting the float set on the carb so I took the float bowl off. Of course between taking of the fuel line & taking off the bowl a fair amount of gas spilled onto the intake manifold. Unfortunately I didn't notice that when I took the bowl off a tiny O ring fell out of the fuel pipe that goes from the front to the back bowl. I also squirted the carb pretty good with carb cleaner.

You see where this is going right :rolleyes:

Well I put it all back together unknowingly sans the missing O ring. I started up the truck but it backfired through the carb due to the carb cleaner.

This wouldn't have been any big deal except for the fact that gas was gushing out of the fuel pipe due to the missing O Ring.

The back fire caught the spewing gas on fire Which quickly got almost out of control due to all the gas on the intake. :eek: I grabbed an old coat & tried to smother it - but it was too far gone for that. :mad:

I hustled into the house & grabbed the kitchen fire extinguisher & hustled back & was able to put out the fire before it did any damage - especially to my brand new plug wires. or my sisters brand new ranger pickup parked right next to it. :mad:

But hey I probably saved about $100 doing it myself. Course I'm going to have to buy a carb rebuild kit to get the tiny 3¢ O Ring I lost so I might as well rebuild the carb while I'm at it.

Next time I do a tune up I'll have to remember to buy marshmallows ;)

[Jason Roehl]

Hey, Tom, just ask at a parts place for some O-rings...they may have the size you need. I got some new one for my injectors for just a couple bucks. Fuel-resistant ones should be green now.
Or, a 1/8" piece of vacuum hose of the appropriate I.D. can be cut off and then sanded to fit. DAMHIKT.

Glad you got the fire out and didn't do damage or get hurt. Just don't vacuum up the gas with a shopvac...I hear that's bad. :D

[Jim Young]

Sounds like you have a 4160 model. They are pretty easy to rebuild. I'm wondering though, why was there carb cleaner in the carb? Your supposed to have the engine running when you squirt in the cleaner.

Glad to hear you didn't burn anything down.

[Steve Clardy]

They are available seperately at most auto parts stores where they carry holley parts. There are two orings there, 1 on each end of pipe. A little tip here, put a small dab of grease or oil on the orings so they will slide in place and not bind.
Steve, [usta do a lotsa this work].

[Tom Sweeney]

Funny thing is I used to do this stuff all the time also.
Guess I'm just gettin old & rusty - kinda like my truck ;)

I used to be able to rebuild a Holley 650 blindfolded with one hand tied behind my back :rolleyes:
I've rebuilt & modified engines, transmissions, rears & just about anything else on old fords(60's & 70's era) back in the day.

I just wasn't paying attention & was being sloppy.

I sprayed the carb cleaner cause there's a lot of carbon buildup in the carb(due to being in such bad tune for so long) - so while I had the float bowl off I sprayed down the jets & figured what the heck so I sprayed down everything. The other bonehead part is that I did this all after installing new plugs - so now I probably carbon fouled the plugs a little also :o

As to the O-ring -as I said the carb is pretty dirty with carbon buildup & the choke hasn't worked since I bought it - so I might as well rebuild the whole thing - I promise to pay closer attention to what I'm doing. :D