Re: Ball & Ball carb frosting up - Carb Question


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Posted by David Sherman on Monday, November 27, 2006 at 3:44PM :

In Reply to: Ball & Ball carb frosting up - Carb Question posted by Todd Wilson on Monday, November 27, 2006 at 3:04PM :

You had perfect icing conditions and ice happened. That's pretty much normal. It's only a problem if ice builds up INSIDE the carb before the engine gets warm enough to heat the carb up. I've seen frost on the outside of carbs on lots of rigs shortly after starting when the air temp is just above freezing and the humidity is high. The only time it ever caused a problem was on my Sno-Cat. The first time I drove it up to Moon Pass (10 mi and 2000') I had the throttle wide open all the way, and it was doing 10-15 mph, working hard, but maintained full power. On the way back down, it started out fine, but after a few miles it began to lose power. By the time I got to the bottom, with the throttle wide open I was barely doing 5 mph even on the downgrades and was starting to think I'd have to walk. What happened was that once the engine wasn't heavily loaded, there wasn't enough heat to keep the carb warm and ice build up inside until it had significantly choked off the air. The problem was that this engine has a manually adjustable heat riser and somebody had set it to the "summer" (no heat) position, which is hard to explain for a Sno-Cat. The heat riser had not only rusted solidly in place in the closed position, but the ports under the carb had become completely clogged with soot. I had to pull the manifolds, clean the gunk out and un-stick the flapper, but after that it's worked fine. The flapper, of course, is now set to the "winter" position. I've thought about putting a control cable on it so I can adjust the "carb heat" from the cab like on an airplane (the Sno-Cat body is rather airplane-like anyway), but haven't done it since it doesn't seem like having it permanently set to the "winter" position has hurt anything.

All in all, if the carb thaws out right away as soon as the engine gets warm, you're fine. If it stays frosty, and ice starts building up on the inside, check your heat riser. Start by just feeling the base of the carb after the exhaust manifold has gotten warm. Then make sure the heat riser flapper works.



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