Stupid Move?

[Roadster Rich]

I am afraid I might have made a stupid move. Now going over the full engine after 46 years and I have been amazed at how tight and good shape it all is. But I took the zenith carb and separated into halves then put into laquer thinner for 24 hours. Never took any of the parts off. The soak removed all the paint (good I want to repaint) but now I am concerned that I should have removed all the jets, washers etc before soaking. This worked fine before and really did not need any repair. Should I be OK to just reassemble or did I do some harm with this soak, and need to strip down to replace anythign?

[Mike V. Florida]

Sure sounds like fix it until its broke to me, but you should be ok since it was working ok before.

[jkeesey]

It depends on what the small gaskets were made of. Some of them distort in lacquer thinner.

[Roadster Rich]

Mike, you are right about that. That's why I labelled this "Stupid Move". I remembered about reading in Les Andrew's manual about soaking a carburator, but did this before I read it again, and found that he talks about soaking a totally disassembled body to get rid of built up "varnish" from the gas.

[Bruce]

Once the jets and gaskets are removed, soak it in 50-50 hot water and Simple Green. Get it as hot as possible. Bump the can every time you walk by and take it out in about a day. This was the recommendation of one of my Model A gurus ... and it works very well. You will still have to paint the body ...

[Mike 1931]

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Sir, I would replace your gaskets to prevent a possible spill of gas. During the soak, the old gaskets may have rotted away.