I stripped a fuel bowl bolt thread in the main body on my 950HP. I picked up a Holley helicoil kit to make the repair. When I sat down to do it, yesterday, I ended up making a botched job out of it. The tap wouldn't seat and thread right, and now I've got a big hole where my purdy threads used to be. :mad:

At this point I'm at a loss. I've got a buddy who has the proper equipment to weld aluminum, but I'm affraid the amount of heat required would end up warping or distorting the main body. I was thinking I MIGHT be able to get the hole filled, and then retap it. Has anyone ever done this? Any other suggestions?

What a frickin' disaster. Nothing like screwing up a $650 carb. graemlins/angry.gif

Sean,
How big is the hole now?
Actually, it's not that bad. I recommend installing a "Twinsert". which is basically a helicoil inside another helicoil. An easy, dependable fix and is designed for situations just like this!
Check around locally...any decent machine shop could do this repair.
You DON'T want to weld it!
If necessary, worse case, ship the carb to me and I'll fix it.
Or, I'll send you the insert and tap and give ya' another shot at it. ;)

You're a good man, Bill. I suppose now that I've made a mess of things, I should bring it to a professional.

hey, i gotta question for ya, does that carb come with holes in the throttle blades???? i bought one off ebay that does, it's not nearly as ez to tune as the last one i had....

Here is a couple of things I found out about 'Some" of the HP carbs sold on Ebay.
First hand I might add graemlins/angry.gif

"Some" are built using rejected parts.

One 950 I bought came from a shop that sells them new.

It looked like a thing of beauty.I disassembled it and everything looked good.Till I noticed a small piece of metal missing right by one of the idle air bleeds.It was actualy part of the threads that the air idle bleeds use to screw in.

For the price I paid I guess I could live with that if that is the only thing wrong with it.
I saved close to 200 dollars on it compared to one from Jeg's, now named Jerk's (read this) http://www.andersonlimited.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=10538

Well several months later I decided to place this carb on a friends ride and give it a shot.It ran ok.But afterwards I thought I would install new gaskets.
I bought new gaskets and when I installed the baseplate gasket I noticed the venturi was not alinged with the baseplate.
Try as I may there is no way that I can get it to line up.This is disturbing because I am a perfectionist when it comes to sweating the small details that make power.

I bought another one from a different place to try before I found this 'Little problem".

The previous owner of the second carb said that he bought it from Jerk's.
It looked good on the outside.
I then disassembled it and found no problem.

I then closed it up and placed it on my shelf waiting for a chance to use it.

In the mean time I bought a video called "Professional Tuneing Video" from a carb shop called Pro-Systems http://www.pro-system.com/video.html
There are tons and tons of fast guys using their carbs.Not that I run that fast right now but I wanted to further my knowledge of carbs and making HP.

Twards the end of the video Patrick James talks about how some of these Ebay carb companies can sell their carbs at a reduced price.

I thought I already new one of the reasons graemlins/angry.gif
Then he said that some of these companies don't use the HP metering blocks and he showed the difference between the two to the camera.He said that it causes mysterious meetering problems.
So people don't know what's wrong and why the carb doesn't respond like a winner.

I looked at my two 950HP's that I purchased from Ebay.First I opened up the one that has the venturi off center...It had the correct metering blocks, I felt a little relief.

I then took apart the second one that I had already deemed as good with no defects.

SURE ENOUGH IT HAD THE STINKING REGULAR STYLE MEETERING BLOCKS graemlins/angry.gif

I'm done with FLEABAY HP CARBS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

You good folks should be too!

Let's see now.
I have one 950 meetering body that has a venturi drilled off center and a part of the casting cracked/missing, but it has the good HP metering blocks.I also have one 950 that has a good metering body with the standard metering blocks...

I guess I could combine the best parts from both and have a good working stock 950HP that only wound up costing me about $850.00

What a steal graemlins/thumbsup.gif

Fill the hole with JB Weld, then start over. It's amazing stuff. You'll be able to file it smooth, drill it and retap it.

Thrasher, what were the differences between the HP blocks, and the others. Do you have any part numbers?

I will have to tare the one carb back apart to tell you.
Well,..guess I could look at the vid again graemlins/clonk.gif
I'll try to fill you in about it in the next couple of days.
Just check back.I will post it!

I don't know about the numbers but I am sure they are different.I think it would be hard to tell that way because darn near all the normal carbs have a different number stamped on them, let alone the HP models.

I don't have a digital camera so I can't post a pic.I can only give a discription :(

Screw Ebay! graemlins/thumbsup.gif
Got no use for that place,other than amusement.
The jerks have it ruined it for the good people that want to sell stuff..now its more of a crap shoot than anything..even w/the feedback,etc.
..just because you have good feedback doesn't mean you don't sell crap to unsuspecting people that might not know its crap..

Originally posted by chev-hell:
hey, i gotta question for ya, does that carb come with holes in the throttle blades???? i bought one off ebay that does, it's not nearly as ez to tune as the last one i had.... dude, thanks for the info, but as helpfull as that is, i still don't know the answer to my q.. tongue.gif

Well when I post about what the difference is you could look at yours to see if it uses the regular metering block or the HP model.

Might raise your eyebrow and spout some four letter words like me.
Hope not.

I read the story on the SSM bars lawsuit. All I can say is WOW! I'll take that into consideration next time I'm buying something.

CAN SOMEONE LOOK AT THE STOCK 950 they have and tell me if it has holes in the throttle plates or not

ONE OF MINE DOES :D

Does yours have the stainless throttle plates?

graemlins/clonk.gif guess that they didn't come with em then..... well i can't get it to idle down enough now cuz it's got holes in all the blades, and it diesels, so i get the idle up with the timing but the stupid idle screw does no good since it's all the way up (blades closed, timing up, it idles at 1200rpm)..... FIRST bad experience on ebay since 1995... guess i had it coming.

they don't look stainless, they are black

The Holley Built Holley 950HP's that I know of all have the holes in the throttle plates.
They also have the stainless plates.

If you bought your carb used it may be that the plates are sooted up and looking black.
If that is the case try to rub some of it off.
But it should be easy to tell.

Hope ya didn't get scammed :(

If so WELCOME TO EBAY MOTORS graemlins/waving.gif

Hey I have a 950HP for sale if your interested :rolleyes: tongue.gif :D

My HP950 has holes in the plates. Bought it new from Jegs about five years ago.

Sean,
Did you ever get your carb fixed?

hey Thrasher can you send me the names of the Ebay companies you got screwed by?

http://www.chevelles.com/forum/email.gif (http://www.chevelles.com/cgi-bin/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=email;ToWhom=00000129)

Originally posted by chev-hell:
CAN SOMEONE LOOK AT THE STOCK 950 they have and tell me if it has holes in the throttle plates or not Yes, they come with pre-drilled butterflys.

Originally posted by BillsCamino:
Sean,
Did you ever get your carb fixed? I did. Thanks for asking. I left enough material in the hole when I initially tried to thread the tap in there that I was able to drill the hole, retap it, and get a heli-coil in. I guess it was a good thing that I stopped when I realized I had a problem.

Holley's heli-coil kits don't come with any instructions, so I just attempted to tap it without drilling it. After speaking with a pal, who's a pretty damned good holley man, he told me to drill it, then tap it, and run the heli-coil in. It worked. Hopefully that'll hold up!

Thanks again for the advice.

Originally posted by ACE841:
hey Thrasher can you send me the names of the Ebay companies you got screwed by?

http://www.chevelles.com/forum/email.gif (http://www.chevelles.com/cgi-bin/forum/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=email;ToWhom=00000129) There was only one company that I bought from.

The other was a dishonest sellor.

Sorry about not posting the difference... Yet.

For a quick reference on a 950HP I can tell you this;

On the outside of a standard primary metering block there is a hole where a spark ported vacuum port would be, it won't be drilled through but that deep initial recess/hole is still there.

On the 950HP metering block there is just an outline of this hole, it is resessed just slightly.Not even close to being drilled through.

If you look at fleabay you can spot the deep hole on some 950's if they give you a side shot.
It seems these carbs always have
"very little time on them".
Probably because the owner was dissapointed in the performance and felt it should have been greater given all that people had told him.

Just for the record here.

You can get a carb to work with those standard metering blocks.It takes a very experianced shop to get it right.Even then it's not as good as the real deal.
I may just replace the metering blocks by contacting a reputable carb shop and tell them of my wowes.It'll probably end up costing me 200.00.
That fleabay "Deal" just keeps getting better and better :rolleyes:

I spoted a company online that sells HP carbs with the HP style metering blocks and also with the standard ones.They tell you upfront about it.
The price difference is 100.00 bucks.
http://www.apdracing.com/dragcarbs.asp?news=1

HEY HEY HEY, guess who else JUST stripped a thread in his holley 950 graemlins/clonk.gif yep, ME..... so now i get to benefit even more from this thread and the "heli coil" posts graemlins/thumbsup.gif

You guy's are not supposed to use cheater bars when tightning the fuel bowls graemlins/clonk.gif


tongue.gif

Just remember to drill it before installing the tap! If you'd like, I can send you the kit I bought for $70, use a coil, and send it back to me. Or, if you're feeling particulary rich, the part number is Holley 26-3.

i appreciate it, but i'll just pick something up local. you suppose that means we are too strong for our own good :D