Im going nuts trying to get my float height set after a rebuild. The rear is perfectly dead center in the notch. The front keeps over flowing. I kept adjusting the tang upward until it ended up just holding the needle and seat shut. What am I doing wrong?

 

I don't know. I just searched the archive for 'Nikki float tab adjust' and found some interesting stuff, though. One thread called 'leave yer damn float levels alone' or something like that, and then this:







Sorry for my method, but I don't know how to link from the phone app. I hope this helps. Reading a bunch of old threads is the only way I know to learn stuff.

 

New needles need to be "burnished" which probably explains your flooding problem.

 

doublecheck that your bowl vent valve is operational and that your charcoal canister is not clogged as it feeds air from tank to carb @ the large pipe closest to front of car but still on driver side of carb. mine was clogged , so i deleted it. months of carb issues gone!

 

What do you mean burnished?
I know the vent opens and closes I did check that. I plugged it in and unplugged it and heard the click. Also my return line is flowing and clear.

 

Looks like someone needs to study the old threads more.

Ok, I'll tell you. There are tool marks on the needles that need to be "burnished" away. Others you emory cloth or whatever. I simply install them with the floats (which I don't mess with!) and blow a little compressed air through the fuel inlet while upside down. The air causes the floats to move up and down. I can quickly see if one is flowing more than the other. This movement starts to clean off any tool marks and I rarely have flooding problems since I started doing this.

 

I dont know If it counts for anything. But if I take the top plate and flip it upside down and run my fuel pump the needle and seat does seal on both. I left it like that for 20mins as a test and they stayed bone dry.

 

Oh and I wouldn't have messed with my floats but it fell off the table and bent both floats up. So I tried to set them with the scale included in the rebuild kit. Then I used the site glass for fine tuning. But one just won't set

 

As Jeff says, new needles are notorious for 'hanging up' and not seating easily enough after a rebuild, causing bowl floods.

The needle rides the seat bore just on the four rounded corners, and these don't get smoothly finished when made. Stuff's not made as well as it used to be.

Smoothing those corners a little, either with ultra-fine sandpaper or rubbing with a smooth, hard metal object (I use the back of an old stainless spoon) can cure this problem. You don't want to remove material, you just want the brass smooth.

The other possibility is that you may have a bad float that has gotten heavier with age by absorbing gas through tiny cracks, & so is not floating as high as it should. New floats can still be had from some sources. Way to test this is to put both floats in a jar of gasoline (safely outside) and see if they float at the same height. leaving them overnight will detect any slow saturation problems.

Odds are higher that it's a stick needle. Very frustrating to deal with. I've even had pairs of needles where swapping the needles to the opposite seats 'solved' the issue.

Happily, It doesn't seem to be a problem that comes back once it's dealt with.

 

Actually now that I am looking at the set up, I see two things that maybe an issue. I have 2 different designed floats one has the metal tab laying across the back of the float and bonded to it the other has the metal mounting tab just on the edge. The one With it just on the edge is the one that keeps flooding out. Also when I move my floats up and down by hand, the large needle doesn't move at all just the little spring mounted pin in the center of it. Ill try and get a picture of the floats up in a little while

 

I took the needle for the needle and seat and polished it a little with a brass brush. Then I tried bending the float instead of bending the tabs and it worked out good my float level is just below the notch. Like just misses it. Should I try to get it perfect or just be happy I got this far?

 

The perfect is the enemy of the good, my uncle Bob used to say.