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I test drove my car today without the air cleaner after a garage tuning session. I made couple of spirited runs and during WOT my accelerator stayed on he floor. I assumed my linkage had stuck but I had left the cleaner gasket on the carburetor and it was “eaten” by my carb. When I tried to pull it out a piece broke off and fell into the intake. Had to take carb off on side of road and retrieve the piece. Luckily it had caught in the butterfly. I know dumb but fortunately a good lesson and not expensive repair. Jim
You're not the only one to have one of those "what the heck was I thinking?" moments.
Fortunately no expensive consequence.
Think of it as a teaching moment.
No harm, no foul!
Flip side of the coin. .. There was the one about the guy looking down into the carb while jacking the throttle rod when a backfire occurred. Heck of a facial though carb gasket stayed in place.
LOL! reminds me of my 912 Porsche Engine rebuild at 22 years of age.. Dragged the sucker up 2 planks on my parents basement steps and out into the middle of Winter. 4 bolted it to the transaxle, wired it up. Started it!!!!!! CLANK! CLANK! CLANK! i had dropped a washer down one of the Solex carbs........Tear down resulted with a #1 sleeve and piston replacement. $400.00 big ones when your 22 is a boat load of money.......LOL! Amazing how careful I am when pulling my Air Cleaner.....
OP! Great result....Happy New Year! PLEASE!
Never ever operate without an air cleaner unless the car is running in a stationary spot for tuning purposes in a fairly open area with a fire extinquisher nearby. Period.
There is simply no reason to do it. A simple backfire after a mis-adjustment during a tuning session can turn into a hood-scorching fireball or much, MUCH worse.
Last edited by Frankie the Fink; Dec 28, 2020 at 11:49 AM.
When I rebuild my C2 on one of the first test drives the throttle stuck for a moment.
Made for an exhilarating shift to second gear.
Found out I had installed the throttle rod backwards. (Threaded portion to the front)
It goes to the back on the Corvette. The extra rod was hitting the bottom of the air-cleaner at full throttle.
Never made that mistake again.
Lesson learned
