Blowing out a carb with compressed air?

Will Herring

Well-known Member
I've been told that compressed air can clean carb passages that the spray and dip stuff won't touch these days... So if I pull my carb into the two halves and pull the jets, do I just stick the nozzle at the passages and let her go full blast? Or do I run the risk of doing some damage if I'm not careful?
 
Acetylene torch tip cleaners work great on cleaning out those passages, also I use spray carb cleaner sprayed into the holes to make sure it comes out on the other end, keep eyes away from spray back.
 
(quoted from post at 21:22:10 07/23/14) Neither air nor dipping will clean out seriously plugged passages. Buy you can open them up with a fine, stiff wire.
That's the best way I've found too Mark.
Pushes out any small stuff that air or spray may escape
around when the passages aren't completely plugged also.
 
Once the carb is apart you aren"t going to hurt a thing with a full blast of compressed air through the passages.

Unless there are loose parts that are going to get blown away. Example would be accelerator pump checkballs in a car or truck carb.

NONE of those in the typical tractor carb, though.
 
On small engines i have seen holes plugged tight. I pluck a wire from a steel brush and clamp it in a vice grip. You can bore through it then.
 
I second Mo's advice, those are handy little tools to have in the top drawer of ones tool box. I used to do a lot of small engine work, much of it carburetors, and one of the last ones I did, an older honda, 1000 watt gen set, was crusted up but good. Thought I had it, sent it out, came back,(friends anyway) and I took it apart again, and somehow missed something, felt it the 2nd time, then it ran perfect, it had sat for a long time prior, those tip cleaners, (Wypo brand, and I use the pen style with tiny drill bits) with all the different sizes, just perfect as you will find the size that works on the small orifices, without enlarging/reaming out the hole bigger etc. Guitar string, you know those little pieces you cut the ends off when you change the strings?, They can work as well, different sizes too.
 
Sometimes the wire from a bread wrapper, minus the plastic coating, works great for cleaning carb passages.
 
( Guitar string, you know those little pieces you cut the ends off when you change the strings?, They can work as well, different sizes too.
.
Billy. I agree about the guitar strings. They work very well, when I change all the strings on one of my guitars, I save the old ones to give to my tractor buddies that don't mess with guitars.
 
I 'sharpen' fence wire on my bench grinder to get the size wire I need.
Patience....and be careful on digging out passages too.
make em bigger and it doesn't run well.
Oh, and when using air and old parts, just a cleanup, make sure all little gaskets that are stuck on are removed first.
After you hit it with air, they are very hard to find.............
 
I agree on the torch tip cleaner, but recently I was
working on a lawn mower carb and I blew out a welch
plug. It was lost so I made a new one out of brass
shim stock.
 
agreed.

save the compressed air for a final cleaning AFTER you've used wire and carb spray.

A full face shield is useful when using the carb spray (and compressed air for that matter). That way you can spray into all the little passages and not worry about it all coming back into your face - which it often does.
 

Some things to be aware of when cleaning TSX carburetors.
1) All passages are not straight through. some have 100 degree turns/intersections (see violet > in first picture).
Others are like a tee with 3 holes all connected as in economizer circuit. The idle circuit has 5 holes all connected within
the casting! Just because you blow air in one hole and it comes out somewhere does not mean all 5 paths are clear.
2) Just because a hole starts out at one size does not mean that it retains that size all the way through. Often there is a designed-in reduction in size (step down or orifice) part way through, maybe deep in the hole you are probing. Don't mistake that for trash & drill it out!!
3) Not all TSX carburetors are identical. For example (see sixth picture in group) notice that some do not have the red circled idle fuel-to-vent passage and some do not have the economizer port in carburetor throat.
4) Bowl passages are more obvious except for this one in the last two pictures where Gary has a hat pin through the air vent-to-nozzle-well hole which meets wire running from nozzle hole-to-idle fuel hole.

These are a few pictures & diagrams that should be helpful in finding & clearing all passages, that Gary (GB in MT) and I (JMOR) worked/cussed/discussed some time ago.


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[URL=http://s192.photobucket.com/user/JMOR_photo/media/carbs/idle_air_bowlVent1.jpg.html]












 
Good grief JMOR, that is some extensive documentation, and thank you! I was able to get carb cleaner to squirt thru and out all of the expected passages. Then when I went and blew it out with air, nothing surprising happened until I blasted the idle jet hole -- sudden plume of rust pieces! I think I found one of my culprits. Everything seems to be mostly open, just some loose junk was in it and in the bottom of the bowl (as the tractor was running but had a hole in the sediment bowl screen so it was letting rust and junk into the carb). The reference diagrams were perfect though; thanks!

And now I need to clean my gas tank...
 

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