Zenith 40tin carbs leaking fuel - rebuild?

[Gringo]

My Zenith 40 tin carbs are leaking fuel from the sides, I think its called the control arm, where the shaft goes into the carb body. They have been sitting for 2 years and had old gas in them. I am wondering if I need to do a rebuild on them or if maybe a float is stuck. I want to try everything before the rebuild. They ran perfect and leak free prior to sitting the 2 years. Thanks for any and all help.

[Christien]

In my limited knowledge, I'd guess that you might be able to fix the leak depending on where it's coming from, but first you need to determine exactly where the leak is. Keep a fire extinguisher in one hand!! Once you do that, depending on which part it is, you might be able to just open that up and replace whatever seal is required. Rebuilding carbs is not difficult, just time consuming. Tuning them once they're rebuilt, however, is a true pain. When I rebuilt my Zeniths, I spent an afternoon trying to tune them. I was able to get a decent idle and acceleration, but airflow was uneven between the cylinders and it was backfiring a lot. I took it in and let a pro tune them. (not overly expensive)

Did you clean out the old gas before starting the engine?

[Gringo]

I put in gas stabilizer before restoring it, but the gas coming out is pretty gross. When I have the key turned on but not cranking and the fuel pump working, I move the throttle rod and can hear gas spraying into the carbs. When I do this the fuel also spills out where the rods turn in the carb case. I will maybe take them out and inspect further. I thought it might be a sticky float I can pour something in there to free it.

[Christien]

My concern would be that you're doing a lot of damage running the old gas through there. Gas gets gooey over time and I would be worried about it gumming up the various chambers and.jets in there. My suggestion would be to drain all the old gas (either from the bottom of the tank or by pulling the main fuel line into the carbs and run the fuel pump to drain it into a container) then put some fresh gas in there, spray carb cleaner into the throats then fire her up.

One piece of advice you should definitely take is to wait for someone more experienced than myself to respond here. I'd hate to give you bad advice and make things worse.

[Christien]

Anybody with more knowledge want to chime in here and help this guy out?

[Gringo]

I took it out and found the leak, 2 of the diaphragms are toast. Probably better just to get the whole thing rebuilt I am guessing. Thanks for the help Christien.