<VV> missing enrichment needles

[Grant Young]

It seems as though the issue with the shop manual diagram has been well explained, and if that is where david.neale3 at ntlworld.com was looking for the needles, then all is well. It was also mentioned that there were some bowls produced with the cavity for the needles, but that is wasn't completed, which is also true. I have found many 1964 bowls like this, so there might have been some tooling changes before they were ready to complete the circuit, so to speak (or they might have been made later as spares). There are, however, a bunch of "late model" carbs in circulation that were rebuilt or subbed out by some of the large rebuild houses (such as Holley and Carter). These can be identified by a paper rebuilt sticker, and usually a plugged base vent hole. Just about all (90%?) of the ones I have worked on had a lead plug in the enrichment valve hole. I have been able to remove just about all of the plugs with a left-handed drill bit and resurrect them. The lead got into the restrictors on some, so they became 1964 bowls. They also have the vertical vent hole to the inside of the bowl plugged, but it can easily be drilled out again. This was apparently done to make them "generic" and therefore reduce inventory requirements. Guess someone forgot to tell them about the problem for the late model owners who only wanted one :-). It is worth checking if you have some of these because a few didn't get the treatment and you might have an unbalanced pair.
The Carbmeister