Introduction to the Carburetor

The lowly carburetor is one of the most misunderstood parts of an engine. They can be small, simple devices, or large and quite complicated. However, they ALL have one thing in common... they convert liquid fuel into emulsified vapor which makes your engine run.

This tutorial will go over the basic cleaning steps for most carburetors, why it's important, and what it does for the health of your engine. But first, let's go over a few of the main parts on a carburetor and what their function is:

The Needle Valve

The needle valve is the first part of the carburetor the fuel touches. It is designed to act as a metering device for the fuel flowing into the carburetor.

The Float Bowl

The float bowl is where the fuel makes its first entrance from the gas tank into the carburetor. Typically, carburetors use a buoyant object (be it made of brass, cork, plastic, etc.) to aid in metering and maintaining a specific level of fuel at all times inside the carburetor float bowl.

The Float

Just as the name suggests, the float is either rested on, or attached to, the needle valve and the height of the float determines the depth and level of the fuel in the carburetor.

The Carburetor Body

The body of a carburetor typically consists of the bell mouth, jet passageways, fuel passageways (for choke, idle, and main jet's respectfully), and air passageways (typically for fuel emulsion).