Rebuild service painted my carbs!

It seems like anytime I leave parts to someone they do whatever they want instead of giving the parts back the way they are supposed to look. But your carbs don't look bad , they'll probably look cleaner longer, Unless you are going for Concourse points or something.

 

I had my radiator stripped and a few tiny tiny pin holes fixed and they went and painted the radiator with a 'Water based paint.' after a week I went to put it in and noticed the paint was peeling off in sheets. I brought it back and the owner tells me I shouldn't of picked at the paint to make it come off?! wtf are you talkn about I said. long story they restriped it at my expense. I could go on and on. My Carbs were redone a year ago and they were not treated in anyway. and they look kinda old already. You might wanna reconsider. .02$

 

Absolute madness and completely unacceptable. Carbs should be raw aluminum and the all of the hardware yellow zinc plated. I would question the work of anyone who thought painting them was a good idea. This has nothing to do with chasing concours points but it shows very poorly to paint carbs and should you find yourself in a position to sell the car then the painted carbs will stick out like a sore thumb and it will cost you in resale. I would insist they be re-done and even better somewhere else with better common sense. I hope for your sake they did not media blast the carb bodies before paint or I'd be pursuing the shop for a replacement set of carbs. Attached is a photo of what a carb looks like after an overnight dunk in carb cleaner. Why there is any need to do more than that is beyond me as the stripped finish looks like freshly die cast aluminum even 40 years later.

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well I guess have them strip them down again

 

Kudos to you for your even-tempered demeanor. I would be so angry I couldn’t speak. What an absolute bonehead move.

 

Does the carb rebuilder that you used specialize in Weber carbs? Did you look at examples of carbs that they had rebuilt? They probably do a variety of carbs and have no idea of what your carbs should look like in the first place. From looking at your carbs, it looks like they were bead-blasted, removing all of the dirt, staining and plating on the steel fasteners. The tops of the carbs have a dull matte finish indicative of bead blasting.

Unfortunately, if they strip the paint from the carbs, the die-cast bodies will not look original again and all of the steel parts are going to rust, unless they take everything apart and plate them yellow-zinc chromate.

You could have the die-cast parts vapor blasted. This process uses blasting media in a stream of water and instead of opening up the pores of the metal (and leaving a dull finish) like bead blasting or soda blasting does, it closes up the pores and leaves an more original finish. This all depends on the skill of the person doing the vapor blasting and the type of media/pressures that they are using in their blaster.

I am sorry for what happened to your carbs, but you have to check examples/quality of work that a shop does before sending any specialty parts for repair/restoration. The shop that did the work probably thought that they did a great job. This is why good Weber carb shops like Pierce Manifolds get top dollar for their carb rebuilds.

After seeing this work, I would be more worried about the actual functioning portion of the carbs: throttle shafts/plates/bearings, float height settings, etc. Carbs are like musical instruments and they take very specific careful setup in order to function properly.

 

If you strip the die cast, (even bead blast) and tumble them, the aluminum will look very close to original. See these.




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Does anyone know approximately what Pierce charges to completely do a full set of four?

 

I'd be concerned with the lead plugs that pepper the carb body. They tend to come loose and fall out when the carbs are hot tanked or cleaned by those not familiar with them. The last set I rebuilt I had to make a couple new plugs and resolder a few to plug leaks.

 

I had Pierce do 4 a few years ago. I think the total charge was somewhere around 5200-5400 all in (parts and labor).

https://www.ferrarichat.com/forum/posts/144733615/

I did not have a "reservation". The wait list is typically 1 year long. However, they put me in when they had time. I sent the carbs in March/April, and they were back by June.

Totally worth it.

 

Thanks for the reply. I'll have to put that on my 'someday' wishlist.

Best regards, Mark

 

That seems really expensive. Pierce did my 4 carbs last year for just under $2,000 including installing sealed bearing on the throttle shaft.

 

Well - I searched for the receipt. I can't find it right now. I also had them do the sealed bearings. Maybe my memory is fading and it seemed like 5K, but it was only 2K......I'll look more.

 

About ten years ago I had pierce do my 36DCL's off a 250 GT. Actually they did two and turned the one 40DCL into a 36DCL . (the car would never idle correctly)
$800.00
Beat that.

 

Yeah - I can't. Just found the invoice. I was wrong - it was a hair over $2600.

Still - worth every penny.

 

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Just for reference, this is what my carbs looked like after they were rebuilt.

 

If you didn't want them restored to original condition and appearance, and they were correctly rebuilt otherwise, why bother redoing them? Seems you wanted carbs that worked correctly. Now you are venting about what they look like. I understand, but probably keep the part from oxidizing.

 

The problem would be if they were powder coated, the heat cycle of powder coating is risking causing lots more trouble then it's worth, and honestly it's a bad idea. media blasting is also problematic for lots of reasons, best course is sonic clean and if needed a hot tank followed by a thorough inspection of every nook and cranny.