2013-12-23 YH Carb restoratiom

BUICK 56X CARBURETOR RESTORATION

While the volunteers here are working on the Buick 56X restoration here in cold Michigan, down in balmy North Carolina Dean Tryon is restoring the four YH Carter side draft carburetors. He has put together a process for doing this which he has passed the first of four carburetors through.

1) Inspect to determine what needs to be done.

2) Thoroughly clean the carburetor.

3) Disassemble and inspect components.

4) Replace parts if necessary.

5) Assemble.

6) Paint.

7) Test by running on an engine.

When Dean rebuilt the carburetor for the Futurliner he went through this entire process. When it came to the last step he checked his 1959 Buick and discovered that the bolt hole location of the Futurliner's

carburetor was identical to the 1959 Buick carb's location. So he mounted the Futurliner carburetor on his Buick and that is how he did the test operation.

One thing Dean discovered in the inspection part of the process is that caused a change that was I sent him two YH Carters with automatic choke operation and two carburetors with manual choke operation. After talking to my supplier we made an exchange and sent Dean two more YH Carters with the same automatic choke operation as the 1954 Wildcat engine was built.

To test each of the four choke springs to make sure they operated at the same temperature Dean simply took the springs to his wife's kitchen and put them in the oven and turn on the oven and they all operated

at about 250 F.

Now what to do about installing each carburetor on a vehicle to see if once the rebuild was done the carburetor was actually working.

The only car that Dean had in which he figures he could adapt a YH Carter was on his 1929 Buick with an up draft Marvel Carburetor. Dean decided to build a very inexpensive intake manifold out of wood and a PVC plumbing elbow. He told me about his idea and the only thing I could think of is a crazy scientist.

While sitting in my easy chair one evening a few days before Christmas the phone rings and I could see it was Dean's number. When I picked it up I could hear a lot of noise and finally I figured out it was an engine running. As I could hear it was not a V-8 l asked, what is running and Dean stated he was testing that first carburetor on his 1929 Buick! Yes the mad scientist is at work!! Following are Dean's words with the photos:

Dean:

Here are 2 photos of the installation today. I got it to fire up and run briefly but I needed Les (Dean's wife) to crank it while I work the choke and throttle manually. Had it running twice.

But it proves it MIGHT not be a hair-brained idea after all. We'll see. The situation is that we do not know whether these carbs worked in 1956 on this engine without recalibration.

Dean Tryon