Need a carburetor repaired? Just ask this Florida teen | Popular Science (popsci.com)
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That is fantastic! The old car market is not going away but the people who can do this work either have retired or are getting close to it. They provide a needed service to the old car community. Great story.
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This is a great idea. I rebuild a few carbs per year for friends and acquaintances in one of the collectable car clubs i belong to. But, i always replace the float valve and accelerator pump cup with ethanol resistant ones. That, and replacing the fuel pump diaphragm in similar fashion should be mandatory on any old car.
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And carb rebuilding is perfectly suited to this kind of work. It requires a systematic approach, attention to detail, and a few special tools like the soda blaster, but not a lot. Kind of like model building. You know the carb worked at one point with the parts that are in it, so carefully take it apart, clean it, replace the worn parts, and put it back together the same way, it should work. Only issue is if some joker took it apart and messed with it before you get it.
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I would hire her services; I believe she would tolerate no shortcuts. Look, her Dad told her that if she wanted a car, it had to have a Manual Transmission and a Roll Bar; but it was all her to get one that could also outrun a Dinosaur…
I’ve rebuilt a few carbs in my day. Last one I built was for my 1984 GMC S-5 pickup. I actually liked that kind of work. It was relaxing. Paying attention to details. Not back breaking. Mostly sitting at a desk.
That is pretty cool that she is doing this…
Good deal, love the entrepreneurial spirit! I did however immediately think about the fact they are more than likely not testing the rebuilds in any fashion. I wonder how often they have leaks or other things that don’t go perfectly. Worn throttle shaft that needs bushings or perhaps when soda blasting removes the coating used to seal potentially porous castings. You could probably blindly rebuild 98% of carbs without encountering issues like that, just considering if I would take those risks sending one in… The older I get, the better the chances 
For you southern folks, rainman rays auto repair is nearby in Sarasota. They should team up.
I have done a few carbs and it really is not that hard if you keep things clean and follow directions. In the old days you could get a kit with all the jets and gaskets for $20 and another $10 for the floats. Prices now are way high though, even for small engine kits. But good for her though.
Just as an example I bought a service carb for my blower when it was a year old just to see if that was the problem. I paid about $25 for the whole thing and still have it on my shelf if I need it. Just for fun I priced one recently and it was $84.
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What a great small business story. And it makes complete sense, the young lady seems to like doing that sort of work, and it is work that needs doing. It’s a win win for everyone involved. One of my technology friends is thinking of changing to a self-employed job, I may suggest this idea to them.
Sort of makes a person wonder why there are so many homeless folks? Lots of stuff needs doing.
Yeah had a bit of a discussion about that yesterday. He blames ptsd, drugs, and the usual. You can walk down the street and pick a place and go to work that afternoon. Macs starts at $16. And not far away is is gospel mission that I support. If you need a meal or a bed or someone to talk to it’s there, but no drugs. I hate to see lives wasted but there is only so much that others can do when the person is not ready to join society. Otoh you just can’t have them pitching their tents on the sidewalk and relieving themselves there too. Taxes are paid by citizens and businesses for a clean and safe environment. And just when the social workers think they have the answer, I think it was Minneapolis where they were provided a vacant hotel. It was destroyed in no time. Just can’t have that kind of behavior.
There are companies that repair auto electronics for models that are no longer built. Your friend might investigate those cars and see if experience in high tech could translate in providing refurbished units.
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Re: repairing out of production automobile electronics modules
That’s a good idea too, but I think he’s trying to avoid electronics altogether, says there is too much competition from the electronics/computer unemployed, and others from these same fields who are needing to find a job quickly, any job, to satisfy their work-visa requirements.
& from my recent search for companies who repair out of production home-appliance electronic modules, there’s plenty of them already.
I would advise your friend to visit various Dealership Service Departments and speak directly to the Service Managers and find out if they would consider this; as well as local national service centers (Big Als, Pep Boys, Walmart, etc…) and local privately owned service stations…
He is an “Un-Proven” service provider and if one of the aforementioned did offer a carburetor rebuilding service where they remove the carb and provide it to your friend to be rebuilt, the customer’s car would be out of service all the time your friend has the carburetor and they would have to store and secure the vehicle until your friend finished with the carburetor. They might not be so willing to take on that responsibility until he has a proven reputation…
What your friend would be doing is different from the young woman’s business, where the customer takes the carb off and sends it in, she might even have some commercial accounts, but I guess from the article, it’s more a private business affair…
The reason I bring this up is that I have some experience with this. In 1995 or 1996, when I was stationed at Goodfellow AFB in San Angelo, Texas, my wife’s '85 Toyota Corolla needed its carburetor rebuilt. The sole Toyota Dealer in town was Mitchell Toyota and I was a friend of the Owner, Mike Mitchel, and I had a lot of respect for the Service Department. However, they would not take on the task. They explained that they had no one qualified and they did not recommend any local business either. They said he had a shop in town that did the sub-work for them but with various new employees, they had received several bad jobs that could not be fixed and they ultimately replaced the carbs with new or rebuilt ones from their service department, so they just completely stopped any and all carb work…
So, before your friend invests his hard earned cash or too much time, he needs to know if these businesses are even interested in him providing this service…
Remember; many of the members have posted stories where they could not get various items rebuilt and the only service offered was an R&R (Remove and Replace…).
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I guess I’m a little behind in electronics/ In the old daus though you could look at a circuit board and test the trasistors, capacitors, diodes, etc. to determine a failure and just replace the coponent. My understanding now is a lot of this is contained in a chip instead. I have no idea how you would test a chip and replace it.
[quote=“bing, post:11, topic:190185”] ptsd, drugs, and the usual [are some of the reasons for so many homeless].
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One former mayor of San Francisco - W. Brown — would personally walk down the street handing homeless folks a broom and ask them to sweep the sidewalk in return for their benefits. No money changed hands, at least not officially. Most of the homeless folks seemed to go along as a favor to the Mayor. Streets were definitely cleaner.
I expect the main problem is if a homeless person gets an income earning job, on a company payroll, they’ll immediately lose their homeless benefits, including quite likely their food stamps & most of their free health care; later, if they lose that job, they’ll have to wait a long time & jump through all sorts of hoops to get their benefits started again. It’s understandable from their point of view, there’s less risk to them to just remain homeless.
The other problem are the various codes and regulations which are designed to place restrictions on folks earning self-employment income. Businesses, corporations don’t like this b/c it reduces the labor supply for their needs, and governments don’t like it b/c it is more difficult to extract taxes and fees from the self-employed.
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That aspect makes repairing modern electronics modules considerably more complicated. It’s usually possible to replace a chip, but some chips contain custom software, and it’s not possible (i.e. not legal) to copy the software from one chip to the replacement chip.
I was wondering about the emissions regulations affecting a small business that rebuilds carbs or emissions-related computer electronics modules. I expect the federal & state emissions regulators might be keen to put this sort of business, out of business.
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In other words government is a willing party to the problem and maybe causes the problem.
Back to cars and car jacking, I think it was the police chief in Chicago that said they had identified about 370 people who had 9000 of the arrests. They were just recirculating instead of keeping them away from the pubic. In Minneapolis, they said it was essentially 6 kids that were causing the car jacking problem. That old 80-20 thing again on how to prioritize for results.
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I wouldn’t put it that way. But gov’t policies, even though well meaning, may be killing the homeless with kindness.
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