fuel leak at carb

[kenny]

i fired my car up for the first time today and i have a lot of fuel leaking out on the choke side of the carb i tried tightening the fuel line and the screws around the top of the carb with no change. the leak looks like it is coming around the gasket between the top plate and main body of the carb. the carb has been rebuilt with a standard rebuild kit and had new floats installed. i removed the carb and it had a lot of fuel run out of a small hole located about where the 71 carbs have the nipple that connects the the 3rd port on the breather, this carb doesnt have that nipple on the side of the carb. it is a factory 1969 440 carter carb. what do you think i need to do to stop this leak.

[JimT1971RR]

Are you using a standard mechanical fuel pump? It sounds like you might have too much pressure going in. Check the fuel for correct application. Many years ago, I had a Barracuda in which I put on an incorrect fuel filter which didn't have enough restriction and had a problem similar to yours. Another thing to check is the seats for the float. Make sure they are sealing when the float is in it's upper position.

[kenny]

i am using a standard mechanical fuel pump and i am using the vapor seperator/filter combo that was originally used on the 440's. all i know about carbs is that are they are very important to the performance and when set up proper = great and when not = frustration. i have pulled the carb off to take it back to the shop that rebuilt it for me so they can check it out and see if something was not right. they put a rebuild kit and a new set of floats in it, maybe something just got missed or was defective. thank you for your reply i hoped it would be something very basic that i was missing that i could adjust or fix without having to understand a lot about how carburetors worked.

[kenny]

Carb guy looked over it this morning blew into fuel line inlet said it seemed that seals are good thinks maybe floats are set to high going to open it up and check it out should know more tomorrow

[kenny]

the original rebuilder took the top off and found that he had left one of the floats set to high when reassembled he reset the float i put it on the car today and fired it back up again for a couple minutes and no leaking fuel all seemed to be as it should. however i still did not run it in for the initial 20 minute break in because dash gauges are not working and i really dont want to run without having any indicators on whats happening.

[71bird]

Is that a original vapor separator, or a repo?

[kenny]

it is a repo. when i broke the mounting tab off mine i did some research and found that some & cheaper repos without stampings were missing the filtering screen however mine was one of the ones with the stamping and should have the screen also interestingly i read that all repos had too large of a return line opening i think .075 letting to much fuel return and factory called for .060 i think and a lot of people recommend a .040 for a little more fuel pressure. mine was to big and i did reduce my opening to .045 on the return side. all worked well today.