prelude_girl

Hi all,

I have found a leak in my stock carburetor for my 1982 Prelude. I saw drops of gasoline falling from the cap for the accelerator pump body cover.

I have taken the carb off and disassembled the pump and I believe the problem is that the cover is no longer flat and allows gas to leak out the sides.

Has anyone else had this problem? If so what was your fix?

Thanks,

Christine

PSI GUY

iTrader: (2)

If you have a belt sander with some fine grit, that would work fine to straighten it out to seal better. What I usually do for something like that is to paint the surface and lightly touch the piece to the sander the way you would to make it straight and you will see where the material will need to come off to straighten it. Once the paint is gone, paint it again and redo the procedure. Once it's cleaning the paint of in one shot and not in places it should be straight and you can check it back with a straight edge to double check. Even if you don't have a sander, a piece of 180 grit paper on a table or bench will do the trick, just more work for you.

prelude_girl

Thanks for the suggestion. The idea of refacing the surface of the cap so that it would be flatter occurred to me but I'm glad to know I'm not alone in thinking that is the way to go.

I'll be sure to post the results of any attempts to fix it.

Thanks!

PSI GUY

iTrader: (2)

The odds of finding any sort of replacement parts for your car is likely impossible, best bet is to work with what you have.

prelude_girl

Hi all,

Reporting back that the leak is apparently now fixed. I drove for about 25 miles and could not see any evidence of gasoline dripping. The carburetor never stalled under hard acceleration so I'm confident the pump is working correctly.

The fix consisted of the machinist at my university physics department carefully sanding down the face of the accelerator pump cover on a flat granite slab on which was taped a very fine sandpaper. (600 grit?) He also now and then lubricated the sandpaper with WD-40. He rotated the cap a few times during the process to ensure the material came off uniformly until just enough was taking off so that the whole face was smooth.

Thanks to taking many pictures, I was able to get the vacuum lines back in place. :-)

I hope this report might be of use to someone.

Key words: 1982 Honda Prelude, 1.8L, 3-barrel Keihin Carburetor, accelerator pump leak.

Christine