Shorty Carb For F-Head

Roc asked if I would elaborate on my carburetor in my CJ, so here you go Roc!

As you may or may not know, I just bought my first Jeep, a '46 CJ2a a month ago. As I bought it it had an F-Head engine with a Holley carburetor that fit underneath the hood line. The carb didn't work very well and had not worked very well for some time, as evidenced by the fact that the screw bosses for the float bowl had been distorted to the point that there was a 1/4 inch distortion in the housing made up by several gaskets and the grace of God preventing noticeable leaks.

 My first stab at fixing the stall when climbing hills was to get a carb rebuild kit, which is when I discovered the evidence described above, the carb was unusable. I rebuilt it anyhow and used it while I was waiting for the proper "fix".

 Next, I was thinking of finding a carb from an old Ford Falcon or Ranchero 6 cylinder ( I have owned a few in the past and the carbs are a close enough match) and my research led me to the one I am currently using which is a combination of the baseplate from the carb that came on my CJ and another Holley body that I got at Ace Fuel Systems in San Jose CA (He rooted through his pile of old cores and found the closest thing he could find to the one I had and was a closer match to 135ci displacement engine I would be using it on) The core he found is off of an early '60s IH Scout Mail Truck. I got a rebuild kit for it and rebuilt it myself.
 
 The key here is to find a carb that has  a close match to the engine size. The Scout has a 152ci 4 cylinder engine, the Falcon/Ranchero has a 170ci 6 cylinder, so that would have been less desireable. This may be the reason that the original carb did not work, if it came off of a 270 Dodge slant 6 like I suspect there would not have been enough air volume being drawn through the carb (CFM) to operate properly at idle. If I can eventually find a carb that came off of a 134 ci engine then I will change to that.

 I do need to reconfigure the throttle and choke cables though. I am thinking I might put a bell crank on it to make the throttle work, If I do that the existing choke setup will work OK but as it is the two linkages are on the same plane, so I can't have the choke cable hooked up without interfereing with the throttle.

Oh yeah, they had cut the center hood seam down to flush to clear the airhorn. I don't have a picture of that here, but it is a pretty simple mod to the hood.

Hope this gets your mind working! Let me know what you think of all of this (I'm sure yoy will).
 

Seems like you have a pretty good handle on 'making it work'.....good to know it fits under the hood.

Thanks, It is all in the camera I use.

I freakin' KNEW that I should have included my carb number in the original post! It is a Holley  ST-4171. If you want to know the application for the carbs you have, check out Ace Fuel Systems at http://acefuelsystems.com/ or call them at (408) 727-2838. Please do not feel the need to drop my name because it will do no good (or harm?).

Anyhow, the owner there was able to root through his pile of carbs for a similar one to what I brought in and then identify it by the stamped number. He did this all rather quickly (maybe 10 minutes) and I walked in cold off the street.

 If you can't figure it out that way, I might be inclined to recommend that you try the one that has the smallest throat as that will be the one for the smallest displacement engine. It would be interesting to know (if you want to experiment) how your Jeep runs on both carbs. If I get a chance I will try to track down the engine displacement for the first carb I had and see if that is helpful.

My other thought was to take the original F-Head Solex carb and cut and weld it shorter to eliminate the nearly 2-inch tall stand-off. This is rather extreme, but I could do it relatively easily. The problem is that I can't make it short enough for my satisfaction unless I also reshape the airhorn to be shorter as well while maintaining a minimum of one inch clearance between the top of the carb and the top of the airhorn (it could probably be less, but why risk it?). But then where do you stop? I guess that is the real question.   

Where do you stop??

I forgot to mention that I had to "massage" the valve cover to clear the carb. But just a little bit.

yeah thanks.


i have read an article in either peterson 4wheeler mag or Fourwheeler that the L-head solex carb can work by shortening the cylinder off for the airhorn to fit better or some makeshift airhorn.  Then how the choke is routed on the carb will have to be redone a different way as well.

That link you mentioned Hans is very helpful. I am reading over it now.



Edited by jeeperkyle46 - 25 Oct. 2008 at 9:06pm

Hey J.R.   is that a offer to sell yours or are u asking us to ask u about where we can find one of these carbs??  

I, too, have gotten two other  holley carbs to see about this but they wont be able to work.  What could you come up with if you can find one for me as i have that unsightful tin bowl bondo'd to the hood of my 2a.   AND the cool thing is that i have a hood that is in great condition that i want to use but i need to get a shorty carb that will work.

okay.  understand.

Hans understand the busy season,   PM sent.

Might start a new thread and that one is over 13 years old.  Good lucky