Gotta love 'dem Carbs

[Tom Mandera <tsm1@domain.elided>]

Ken - the hesitation you're talking about is what I've been fighting to 
eradicate for so long.. only I think mine's worse. ;-)

How much is fuel injection again?....

Truck ran fine yesterday morning.. but for the brake issue.  I left work 
last night and had to run an errand for a friend before going home... 
when it rains, it pours. ;-)

Not only did the brake m/c "leak" get MUCH worse, but the truck decided 
it didn't want to idle any longer.. so compression braking became pretty 
interesting.

Tried to do a little diagnosis last night about why it refused to idle.. 
I checked for vacuum leaks but didn't find anything suspect.  Vacuum did 
drop a bit, and it refused to run at idle..

I noticed the main jets "spitting" into the throat at the mid-range RPM I 
had the truck running at.  It wasn't a smooth flow.  "Ah hah, 
restriction!".. so I yanked the carb off, but didn't go much further last 
night (I didn't have to work today (imagine that, on a Saturday no less!) 
so I opted to do the repair in the relative warmth of daylight).. 

It might be a piece of gasket.. the carb has the newer "reusable" gaskets 
on it.. but some of the original gaskets were still in place as well.  I 
had a problem getting the float bowl to seal, so I removed as much as I 
could of the old gasket.. must've gotten some particles loose and stuck..

Another interesting note.  I had put an "off-road needle and seat" spring 
loaded needle valve assembly in my carb.. I thought it peculiar that the 
needle could just drop right out of the assembly.. but I put it in, and 
apparently it's been working fine for some time..

When I was changing needle valves around Thursday night, the spring and 
needle fell inside the float bowl of the old carb.. more research through 
my various manuals.. turns out this particular spring loaded valve is for 
*side hung floats* only... would've been nice to say so on the package.. 

-Tom