I'm still wondering about the necessity of the fuel pressure regulator with the new carb. What's a suitable one to put on, and will it hurt to wait awhile before I do. It seems to be flooded when I try to start it if I shut it off for 5 or 10 minutes. At the same time, I don't know what the factory pressure for the hitachi was, but I understand that the weber only requires 3.5?psi.  This makes me think that too much pressure could harm this new carb or cause real bad gas milage. It also seems that I should have ample power to hold 70 on the highway, and I don't. Maybe it's flooding itself when it's trying to climb a hill. It seems like it is tuned right, but I have never replaced a carb like this before. I just kind of tweeked this  by ear. Surely someone knows about this issue as I am pretty new to performance upgrades. I didn't mind going slow with the old carb, I just hated the headache and fatigue that came with the gas dumping on the original hitachi, so I figured I may as well put a better carb on and have a little fun.

you need a regulator with an electric pump,
but if you have a stock pump it's not needed.

Electric pump with 5 PSI should be fine, you are not
going to "hurt" the carb with too high fuel pressure,
provided it's not 60 PSI of coarse.

Flooding is from 3 things that I can think of off hand

1. float level is set too high, causes rich running and
fuel dumps out of the float bowl vents into the throttle
and bogs/floods the engine on hills and sharp turns

2. the needle valve and/or seat is damaged OR the
floats could be sticking or rubbing on something

3. or sunk floats, full of fuel from a pin hole, usually in brass
floats, or in foam floats the foam just gets old and looses
it's outer coating that makes it fuel proof and the foam
soaks up fuel and sinks

How old is this webber? was it new or used? did it sit
around a while on a vehicle full of fuel and get full of
hardened old gas ?

This is a brand new weber 34 which I was told replaces the 32/36. They may be full of crap on that, but I do know it is new. The sammy was stock, so I assume it has the stock pump. I thought the stock pump was some sort of electrical gizmo up under the hood.  Are you suggesting that the stock pump is not supposed to be electric but instead mechanical? When I say flooding, I assume it isflooding because I'll have to hold the pedal down full right when I start it and for about 20 seconds after to smooth it back out. Maybe I'm just not use to this carb, but more likely It's just not quite tweeked.  There have been a couple times that it even tried to die at a stop light, and I had to hold the gas a little. I upped the idle a hair and I'll see if that helps. It's just not consistant. The flaws that you suggest seem unlikely on a brand new carb but not unheard of. I don't know how good the quality control is on these. It does look as though there may be a couple of 1/2 inch hair line cracks towards the bottoms of each of the chambers on top of the carburater that I can't see being by design. Maybe that's throwing it off. I'm going to email weber some pictures of it so they can see. I also have someone in town that can probably give it a quick look and tell me if these cracks were by design or not. Like I say, they sure look suspicious.


I have only started tearing into this recently so I am not too familiar with it. I just know that I test drove a tintop back in 87 and my wife thought it sounded like a tin can. So I just admired them for the last 20 years. She still hates it and I don't care because I like a ride that will throw you around a little. I guess I better check into a service manual.

This is a brand new weber 34 which I was told replaces the 32/36. They may be full of crap on that, but I do know it is new. The sammy was stock, so I assume it has the stock pump. I thought the stock pump was some sort of electrical gizmo up under the hood.  Are you suggesting that the stock pump is not supposed to be electric but instead mechanical? When I say flooding, I assume it isflooding because I'll have to hold the pedal down full right when I start it and for about 20 seconds after to smooth it back out. Maybe I'm just not use to this carb, but more likely It's just not quite tweeked.  There have been a couple times that it even tried to die at a stop light, and I had to hold the gas a little. I upped the idle a hair and I'll see if that helps. It's just not consistant. The flaws that you suggest seem unlikely on a brand new carb but not unheard of. I don't know how good the quality control is on these. It does look as though there may be a couple of 1/2 inch hair line cracks towards the bottoms of each of the chambers on top of the carburater that I can't see being by design. Maybe that's throwing it off. I'm going to email weber some pictures of it so they can see. I also have someone in town that can probably give it a quick look and tell me if these cracks were by design or not. Like I say, they sure look suspicious.


I have only started tearing into this recently so I am not too familiar with it. I just know that I test drove a tintop back in 87 and my wife thought it sounded like a tin can. So I just admired them for the last 20 years. She still hates it and I don't care because I like a ride that will throw you around a little. I guess I better check into a service manual.

Sounds to me like your choke is not set correctly...  There are excellent Weber tuning books out there. Check Amazon.com

-Eric