Heated carburetor base gasket (and is it necessary)

Maintenance/Repairs
1

I live in Washington state and drive an '86 cherokee pioneer 2.8



I just failed emissions for too many hydrocarbons unburnt fuel and when I took it to get checked out the shop said I had a leaky base gasket on my carburetor, not surprising considering the vehicles age. They went on to tell me that I had a heater in my base gasket and the only identical replacement part they could find was in excess of $500.



This totally blew me away of course and so I’d like to know if it’s feasible to go with a non-heated gasket solution. It would seem that, since I narrowly failed the emissions, a tune up and a regular base gasket should suffice.



Any thoughts?

Thanks!

David

2

Relief is spelled “Permatex Silicone Form-A-Gasket”. $3.50 The idea is to stop the air leak which is causing the mis-fire, right?

3

If that gasket is on all other engines of that type, you might find a good one at a junkyard. If you try to fix your gasket, use the high-temp version of Permatex. It might still be red in color.

4

That’s definitely the idea. I’m not looking to overhaul my vehicle here, just want the damned thing to pass emissions so I can get another couple years out of it.

5

I’ve called around to a couple in the area and haven’t had any luck. I can’t find anyone who sells the part I’m told I need, and even the mechanic said the only one he found was in San Fran.

I know the 2.8’s are less common but there are so many jeeps on the road it’s difficult for me to believe that mine is somehow THAT exceptional…

6

I’m wading into a model about which I know very little, but is it possible you’re being yanked; either on purpose or by ignorance?

Various car models over the years have used carburetor base heating but that’s done with hot coolant. This prevent throttle bore icing. Your base gasket as shown here appears to have no provisions for base heating at all.

The only place I could see hot coolant on this gasket would be between the end of the gasket and the edge of the small bore hole (the primary bore) if a coolant port exists in that particular spot on the manifold.
Early Subarus used a setup like this and even the gasket was near identical in appearance, but 500 bucks it ain’t. The Subaru gasket also had a porthole in the gasket to allow hot coolant to meet the carburetor base and the gasket shown here does not.

From the appearance of the gasket it does not appear to use heated coolant at all.
Don’t know if any of that helps or not, but maybe…

7

Every, repeat: EVERY one of those things leaks. EFE Heater Grid is what I believe it’s called (electric fuel evaporation), and they are notorious. AFAIK, all the '81+ have them nad unless you live in a very cold climate, throw away that beastie.

8

Toss it out. The truck will run just fine without it. I had a similar thing in my '90 Toyota pickup, 2bbl carb. I simply clipped the wire when I was doing a headgasket. Never noticed a difference.

9

Thanks for the advice all who posted. I went down to a local parts store and just got a regular gasket. Even the guy behind the counter looked at me funny when I told him this story. Things seem to be going fine now and all I need to do is putter on down to the emissions testing facility.

Amazing how fast a $500 quote can become a $50 fix.

Thanks again!

10

The 2.8 v6 is GM sourced and a common engine of that vintage. Not sure if it helps.