O.T. Toyota but it sure felt good


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Posted by Sherman in Idaho [72.47.153.28] on Friday, June 06, 2014 at 10:20:57 :

As you know, last winter I was given a non-op 1984 Toyota Pickup: all there, decent body, good rubber, bad brakes, wood bed, ran badly. I got it to where I could drive it around, but never could get much power out of it or get it to idle decently. Hitachi carburetor has 4 adjustments, 3 electrical connectors, and over a dozen vacuum hoses. Rather than mess around with it, which I had made the mistake of trying to do on a girlfriend's Toyota 20 years ago, I bought a Chinese clone of a Weber carb off ebay for $190 delivered with the adapter kit. Then I went to work removing every bit of vacuum-powered smog gear from the engine compartment and threw it in a large pile. Boy was that fun!

The Weber went on easy, only one vacuum hose, to the distributor, and it fired right up. Turned the idle down way lower than it ever idled before, set the mixture, made sure the electric choke opened, and took it out on the freeway. It ran like a new engine -- lots more power and very smooth over the whole power/rpm range. Only thing now is to see what kind of mileage it gets.

That had to be the most satisfying half-day of mechanicking I've ever done. Having worked on lots of 1980s vehicles with all that vacuum-powered smog systems that no human alive can troubleshoot, and that eat into the performance even when they work right, it sure was satisfying to just rip it all out without even thinking about what hose was supposed to go where.

It got me wondering whether a 2-barrel Weber would improve an old flathead, in economy perhaps if not in power. They seem to make adapters for about everything, and since the adapters come in two pieces -- a top plate with studs to match the carb patter and a bottom plate with holes to match the manifold -- even if there wasn't a stock adapter, one would only have to make the bottom plate, which would be a simple shop project since it's just a flat piece of aluminum with holes in it.



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