Are Remanufactured Carbs Always This Crappy?

[davis95]

I bought an 85 Chevrolet truck last week and I'm going through a few things to get it running good again. When I pulled the carb I noticed the remanufactured carburetor sticker on the side, so I automatically assumed that it was probably built from several old carbs. When I took it apart I cleaned the main rods and jets to see what they are and there are no numbers or letters whatsoever on either. What's up with this? Why would they sand off all the numbers? I'm not completely sure what size the jets are but the rods appear to be 54M's. The secondary rods' markings are also gone. They have a tip about the size of a pencil lead that is about 1/4" long and past that is a slight taper that comes up the rod about 1/2" inch with a very slight step and the rest of the rod is full girth all the way up. What type of rod would you suspect this to be? I now have the carb fully rebuilt (and even put a threaded plug in the apt hole) and it should run fine once installed on the truck, but I can't get over how little quality control goes into the reman carbs. The only exceptional part on the entire carb is the airhorn. The rest of it is marginal. 

[omaha]

there were, back in the old days, alot of people into the carb rebuilding business. However, for some of them, the emphasis was on the SELLING part of the equation. As long as you got something that worked, at least for a while, these places were making money. The idea was to get them out the door asap. Sure, the comebacks would happen but the idea was that after you had it installed for a while, it was your baby!  Heck, you could buy a rebuilt Q-jet from J.C. Whitney. {maybe even still today, not sure}
It's kinda a bad deal cause Q-jets got even more of a bad rap.  When fuel injection came along, eventually, alot of the good carb shops disappeared so the mass carb builders had free reign. After all, where else were you gonna go? There werent much choices. {unless you had some carb guru in town} The big auto chains supplied what they could but profit was important to them.
    Now it is 2010.  It's hard to say what you will find when you crack open you're carb. Probably a fifty/fifty shot. Either it was built by a decent carb shop back in the day before FI or it will be a cheapo junk rebuild from some large chain auto supply.  (unmolested carbs excluded of course). The carb guru is not considered outdated anymore but is in demand. (at least I'd like to think that).
              .........just my .02.......FWIW.......

[Cliff Ruggles]

The quality control 4-5 years ago for "remanufactured" carburetors was OK to PATHETIC.  These days they are ALL pathetic, and should be avoided at all costs.

We don't even want them sent here for work!......Cliff

[Marx3]

Amen to that. I just had to rebuild one, bought off of Summit... Supposed to be an exact fit for a 68 HiPerf. 327. Baaah. airbleeds-sizes and such where all over the place.

[Toronado]

I had a carb off my corvette a q-jet sent in to be completley
re manufactured at 400$, this ten years ago. When i got it
back it ran ok but leaked fuel every were, the inlet was really
in bad shape no threads, the company sayed they could not fix it.
So manufactured/ rebuilt, means you get unpredictable results with very cheap
parts. I really think the best carbs are rebuilt at home by some one
that has done good research bought a few books like cliffs
and DIY, is you screw up correct your mistake and do it right.
Knowing you did it right allways keeps me sleeping better, than guessing
did some over priced company rebuild right. Buy new, or build one your self from
old dirty castings, but made by high quality manufactures like Rochester.

[von]

Here's a good example. I recently fixed a new reman carb that was a numbers matching unit for a '69 Chevelle SS396 and would barely run. Here are some of things wrong with it: No side manifold vacuum fitting (huge vacuum leak), no upper idle air bleeds (mismatched air horn), no secondary fuel nozzle tubes, missing choke linkage spring, secondary throttle plates AND air valve only opened about 75%, worn and loose primary throttle shaft, many throttle plate screws loose, float level way low, too rich primary jets, too lean secondary metering rods, and more. It had been sandblasted and main body painted but primary jets were blasted too and very rough. The air horn and likely the base plate were not matched to this main body. A disaster from the word go.