So i have a 1964 Mercury Comet Caliente. It has a Autolite 2100 two barrel carb. It could be the original as the tag indicates is is a 1964 carb. The car stalls very easy ones the gas is touched and the acelerator pump on the carb leaks like crazy. It would be nice to rebuild this as it could be the original one the car came with. What i am wondering is a carburetor this old, generally rebuildable? Have read conflicting advise about this online, things like the chaneels the fuel moves through get bigger over time. . I imagine it is one of those situations that you dont know till you try rebuild it.?
Many people including myself rebuild older carbs every day. Don't know anything about the carb in question but if it was a quality unit when it was new , you should have good luck. One thing that can bite you on high mileage carbs is wear in the throtte shaft area or more likely the bore that the shaft rides in. This can give you a sometimes large vaccum leak. The throttle body can be bored and have bushings installed to remedy the situation.
Looks like rebuilt autolite 2100's are about $40 - $100 on ebay. Up to you if you trust those rebuilds. Pull it off and check the throttle shafts as suggested above. If your carb needs more than a kit, it may be worth it to just get a different one and hang onto the original.
No reason you can't rebuild it yourself. Unless the throttle shafts and other parts are just plain worn out as Graham said. Don't go by the instruction sheet that comes in the carb kit. They are incomplete and filled with errors. Get the factory manual (car or carburetor company) and go by that. Don't go getting ideas of your own, do everything exactly like the manual says and it will work great. Be careful, there are lots of little parts that can get lost, run away, or be easily broken. Take your time and go easy, is the secret.
I personally love the autolite- motorcraft carbs, VERRY simple, easy to work on...kits available at Napa .....blow carb cleaner through every passage and make sure it comes out the other side!
I have rebuilt a few carburetors myself, and have found that worn throttle shafts are not a big problem. When I do Holley (Ford) 94's, I usually get oversized shafts from Mac's. I bought the proper size reamer off of Amazon (it wasn't that expensive), reamed the carb base, and installed the new shafts. I had a Carter WCFB that also had worn shafts. For this one, I bought a kit on eBay that contained throttle shaft bushings and the proper reamer. The kit was about $40, but came with enough bushings to do two 4 BBL carburetors. Additional bushings without the reamer are waaaay less costly. I make sure I get "piloted" reamers, so it's almost impossible to not get the shaft bores straight. I also bought some 10-32 helicoils so I can fix stripped threads in the bodies. If all the pieces are there and not too corroded, I am pretty confident I can rebuild just about anything.
Thanks alot for the info, at $40 to 100 i just may pick up one of those and throw it on and then look to build the original myself.
Then again, checking ebay i am only seeing these carbs at around 300 bucks. So dont think i will be picking one of those up
When you rebuild the original replace the float and use a good quality kit..... Check you accelerator pump plate for warpage...
The trickiest thing about them is the little spring-clip gizmo that retains the float. It is a deceiving little bugger.
Ive only done a few . But it was worth every second just to fully understand the circuits and processes that happen in a carb.
DO NOT BUY A REBUILT EXCHANGE CARB. Those carbs are assembled from piles of non matching parts and never perform as well as the original carb. The 2100 Autolite is a very simple carb to rebuild. As has already been said above, a good quality kit , a new float, fuel filter and careful cleaning should give you a good quality job.
If you are afraid of a complete rebuild you were able to just buy the accelerator pump diaphragm. When you remove the 4 screws there is a spring in there so be aware.
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