IT DIED!!! FACK! this morning on my way to work i noticed that my car sounded quieter than normal; less of the usual muffler-less popping. now this evening coming home from work, it was slow to get up to freeway speed, then i slowly noticed i wasnt holding speed, and was actually flooring it and slowing down. i pulled off and i couldnt even hear the car idling apart from my noisy as all hell water pump pulley. it could hold idle mostly fine, apart from being really quiet, but i couldnt hardly rev up at all. maybe 2000 rpm before it plateaued like it was delivering the most fuel it could. i pulled off the air box, and saw that the rear jet in the carb has zero fuel coming out of it even when i punch the throttle, but the jet under the choke flap appears to be flowing fine. pulled the fuel line off the side of the carb and cranked it, and it has fuel pressure (not very much, though most of my experience is with fuel injected cars so i may just be wrong). im thinking its clogged somehow, or something is stuck inside and ive never taken apart a carb, so this area is where my knowledge ends. what im curious is, can i just blast carb cleaner  through the fuel inlet on the carb to see if it can clear it up, or if it really needs to be rebuilt. i havent gotten a chance to check for rebuild kit availability in my area, so im not sure how long that may take to get. also, for possibly getting a rebuild kit, the ones ive found specify a specific carb # and have multiple kits listed. where do i look to find which carb i have? all i know its its a hitachi carb.also how long should a first time carb rebuild take? ive got a decent amount of personal mechanical experience plus i work at a dealership (ford, unfortunately, but still lots of knowledgeable people) where i may be able to get some good help.

Edited March 1, 201610 yr by zmarrott

I don't know exactly what carb you have but if it's vacuum secondary then it's pretty normal to not see any fuel when punching the throttle.  It needs to be under a load for the secondaries to kick in.

When I was dinking with the Hitachi that was on my car "86 GL Wagon" I could floor the throttle and as the rpm's got pretty high THEN i'd start seeing the secondaries kick in fuel.


Spraying carb cleaner in the fuel inlet is likely to do nothing.

before i know i had fuel coming from both, so maybe mine is different?. i do know that the accelerator kicked fuel through the secondary when the throttle was punched, didnt need high rpm. not 100% sure if it was constan though