[GT182]

A question Jon and/or John. What year did Carter sell out to Weber? Only asking as I have 2 Carter AFB "Competition Series" carbs and I can't find any info as to when Weber took over.

Sorry OGR I don't mean to hijack your discussion.

[carbking]

In answer to John V.'s last post, and apologies to OGR for a minor hijack of the thread:

John - the "engineering status" code had nothing to do with year. Rochester also occasionally used a status change. If one looks at the assembly drawings, one will find a number of insignificant changes (perhaps a hardware finish might change from yellow zinc to black oxide) which really had no bearing on the calibration of the carburetor. But if field service personnel reported cold idle issues, perhaps the choke was set 2 degrees richer; or possibly the idle tube might change from 0.032 to 0.033 inch. These changes would be considered sufficient to upgrade the "engineering status" code but not sufficiently significant to issue a new carburetor number. The assembly drawing will specify exactly when the revised engineering status code is to change.

Often, and this is also true of Rochester, a "factory patch" would be sent to service personnel WITH A NEW TAG! In the case of Rochester, most modification tags were maroon in color, and were to be placed on the same screw WITH the original tag showing the upgrade had been performed.

Back to Carter: the number 938 which I used on my website as the reference was first released in 1950, and (I believe) last used on a production vehicle in 1960. During this time, dozens of "insignificant" modifications were made; but only 4 significant ones changing the engineering status. Thus the final engineering status was 938sd.

And yes, the changes are probably more common than you thought. The following Pontiac AFB's were upgraded to status "A"

2506
2767
2768
3010
3123
3300
3326
3443
3545
3687

The following Pontiac AFB's were upgraded twice, first to status A then the A was changed to B:

3124
3125

As to the change for 3300s and 3326s:

3300s was originally equipped with 61-226 vacuum piston spring. It was changed to 61-246. This is a calibration change.
3300s and 3326s were originally equipped with aluminum choke piston 160-250. This was changed on both to 160-214 (brass). GUESSING there may have been a galling issue with the aluminum piston in the heated choke housing; so this would have been a reliability upgrade.

Stromberg did the same thing with changes, and while I have insufficient Holley factory literature to prove either way, I would bet and give odds that Holley did likewise.

Sorry to be so verbose.

Jon.

[carbking]

GT182 - Carter sold out to ACF Industries long ago. ACF sold the Carter Division to Federal Mogul approximately 1984 (too bad big brother WASN'T watching - sorry George ) From there pretty much downhill regardless of what name is on the casting (opinion). Thankfully, the only units effected were the aftermarket units. The O.E. stuff was simply discontinued, not downgraded like the aftermarket stuff.

The only genuine Carter "Competition Series" AFB's were: 4758, 4759, 4760, 4761, 4762. And the other genuine Competition Series were TQ's 4846 and 4847.

Jon.

[Tom Vaught]

Correct, Holley did use the "Brass Choke Piston" very early on with the 4150 series carburetors. (This would be the basic 3310 type carbs along with the 1849 and 1850 series carbs). Some of the Holley Double Pumper type carbs were up in the -6 type revision numbers.

Tom V.

[John V.]

Salute to Jon for the wealth of carb knowledge!

Jon didn't directly mention it, but to the question about Carter selling out to Weber, near as I can tell, that never happened. The connection between the two occurred in the early '80s when Carter produced Weber carbs under a licensing agreement with Weber for certain replacement carbs or F.I. retrofits for the '60s and '70s Porsche 911 S, all this according to a Wikipedia entry.

Jon mentions ACF, American Car & Foundry. William Carter founded the biz in 1909 and sold it to ACF in 1922

ACF owned the Carter biz at the end. By 1984 F.I. had largely replaced Carbs and ACF simply closed the carb manufacturing plant located in St. Louis. The entire Carter foundry operation was also shut down. Carl Icahn had taken over ownership of ACF by this point. In early 1986, Federal Mogul bought the Carter biz from ACF. Federal Mogul had previously declined to buy the Carter biz because of the declining carb biz. After ACF shut those operations down, F-M went ahead with the purchase as the biz had made a profitable turn around in 1985 after the elimination of the carb and foundry operations. The remaining biz being fuel pumps, fuel injection systems, emissions equipment, water pumps, etc., in other words lots of products but not carbs. F-M apparently re-expanded into aftermarket carbs as they would have acquired the intellectual property associated with the carbs. But that wasn't the biz that attracted them to Carter.

The shuttered carb manufacturing and foundry properties were sold but in 1993 one of the properties was identified as a Superfund (hazardous waste contaminated) site. Around 2013, cleanup began, expected to cost about $30B to remediate it. ACF still controlled by Icahn was to pay for the majority of the clean up cost.

Interesting story.

Jon, I'm guessing you have additional insights into this story as well. But from what I understand, the Carter Carb part of the biz had no real value and was shuttered prior to F-M acquiring the biz and had it not been shut down, F-M would not have acquired what remained of the Carter biz and whatever carbs subsequently descended from the old Carter carb designs might never have materialized. Not sure if this was a good or bad thing. And it was the "real" Carter biz under ACF that caused the environmental damage, so hard to say that F-M was the bad guy in what became of Carter Carb.

[carbking]

John V - very nice summation! My comments about everything going down hill after F.M. acquired the Carter division are only about the quality of the carburetors, nothing else. I have read a little about the Superfund cleanup, but haven't found much other than scare articles. My GUESS would be the issue here would be the results of the chromic acid used in the chemical mix which chemically etched (gold/green finish) on zinc alloy castings. According to a number of sources, chromic acid causes both cancer and dementia. And yes, I know quite a bit more about the degradation of the carburetors after the F.M. takeover. My company had WD (warehouse distributor) status with Carter at the time. The degradation had nothing to do with pollution. The dies for the aftermarket Carter carbs had been worn-out for several years, and Carter was not delivering aftermarket carbs. We, like other distributors screaming for product, were delighted when the first shipment of the new product was announced. Much less delighted when the shipment arrived. I had been warned by engineering friends at Carter, and my initial order, thankfully, was very small.

Jon.

[Old Goat Racer]

Originally Posted by GT182

A question Jon and/or John. What year did Carter sell out to Weber? Only asking as I have 2 Carter AFB "Competition Series" carbs and I can't find any info as to when Weber took over.

Sorry OGR I don't mean to hijack your discussion.

No problem. I received a head full of knowledge. More than I anticipated.
Carry on Gentlemen.

[GT182]

Originally Posted by Old Goat Racer

No problem. I received a head full of knowledge. More than I anticipated.

As I have too OGR.