Carburetor and Distributor Specialties

Carburetor and Distributor Specialties Contact information, map and directions, contact form, opening hours, services, ratings, photos, videos and announcements from Carburetor and Distributor Specialties, Automotive, aircraft & boat, 236 Colonial Drive, Grants Pass, OR.

Specializing in the rebuilding and correct councors restoration of carburetors, correct dichromate coloring of carburetors and distributor rebuilding / recurving.
541-212-3940

70 GTO Ram Air carb colored for a customer.
02/23/2026

70 GTO Ram Air carb colored for a customer.

Customer bought a set of “restored” 427/435 hp carbs from someone and sent them to me to be “gone through”. Aside from f...
02/22/2026

Customer bought a set of “restored” 427/435 hp carbs from someone and sent them to me to be “gone through”. Aside from fixing a litany of crappy work (loose linkages on throttle shafts), using used / ripped secondary diaphragms, bowls with stripped inlet threads, wrong floats etc, I will be recoloring these carbs to make them look as they should.

I recolored one bowl and sat it next to their “restored” body. This is a great representation of difference in my coloring and what others are passing off as “restored”

Love getting feedback / photos fromcustomers. Here’s a Holley 4653 I restored on a customers ‘70 Boss 302. I’m going th...
02/03/2026

Love getting feedback / photos from
customers. Here’s a Holley 4653 I restored on a customers ‘70 Boss 302.

I’m going through his Holley 3259 for his 66 GT350 and also restoring a carb for his slab side 289 Cobra. Fun stuff!

Recolored a set of Weber carbs for a Lamborghini Miura. Came out very nice. These carbs are made of aluminum so the co...
01/13/2026

Recolored a set of Weber carbs for a Lamborghini Miura. Came out very nice. These carbs are made of aluminum so the coloring process is very different for that of zinc bodied carbs. Most that you’ll see on restored cars have a greenish tint but they were gold when new (based on factory promotional photos). These were used on exotics; Ferrari’, Lamborghini’s Porches in the 60’s and 70’s. The Miura came with 4 sets of three, totaling 12 carbs for its 12 cylinder engine.

Restored holley 4653- 70 Boss 302. Getting shipped to a collector in Georgia.
11/24/2025

Restored holley 4653- 70 Boss 302. Getting shipped to a collector in Georgia.

Recolored Rochester BV for a customer who is restoring his carb.
10/15/2025

Recolored Rochester BV for a customer who is restoring his carb.

1969 Holley 4053…69 Z-28. Street restored for a customer.
09/30/2025

1969 Holley 4053…69 Z-28. Street restored for a customer.

A Customer sent me a quadrajet for a helicoil inlet repair and to seal the well plugs. It is a 7027263; a manual transm...
09/15/2025

A Customer sent me a quadrajet for a helicoil inlet repair and to seal the well plugs. It is a 7027263; a manual transmission 67 GTO carb and they are fairly valuable.

When I received the carb, I had very little hope for it. The inlet threads were completely stripped, but what was worse was that the inlet was significantly bellmouthed. There was about .02” of variation In the hole diameter and about .05” between the ID of the Inlet and the OD of the nut.

I attached it to my holding fixture on my mill. I then used the broken stem that was originally to hold the filter as a “center”. This seemed the be the most logical way to find center due to the lack on concentricity of of the hole

I then found that due to the bellmouthed inlet, the face or sealing surface had about .100” of variation. There was no way a nut would seal If we got It to thread In

I milled the sealing face flat (perpendicularto the threads) and then threaded the inlet for a helicoil. I intentionally installed the helicoil deep because I did not was the bellmouthed threads to allow it to pull the helicoil out.

To my surprise, the inlet nut threaded in, snugged up tight and held vacuum with a single gasket/washer under the nut. I was very please to be able to save this carb for the customer.

If you look at the first photo you can see how out of round the inlet hole was.

I know I haven’t posted much lately, been doing a lot of the mundane carb rebuilds and distributor curves. That being s...
09/06/2025

I know I haven’t posted much lately, been doing a lot of the mundane carb rebuilds and distributor curves. That being said, I had an interesting project in the shop this week.

I local customer brought me 2 Holley 885 carbs that were oem on his 1950 Mercury’s. Both had stripped inlet threads.

The inlet threads are an odd size; 9/16-24. Stripped inlet threads are typically fixed with a helicoil, except a 9/16-24 helicoil is not made, nor is a threadsert.

I tried to find a 9/16 fitting with a different thread pitch that I could get a helicoil for (9/16-18 or 9/16-12) but the fittings don’t exist.

I ended up making my own threadserts out of 6061 aluminum. The inside/ female thread is 9/16-24 and the outside / male thread is 5/8-24. The difference between the minor and major thread of these two sizes is .013”! The major of the 9/16” thread had to aligned under the major of the 5/8” thread…very precise machine work!

Once the threadserts were made, I set the carb up in the mill and drilled the inlet and then tapped it with a 5/8-24 tap.

I then screwed in the homemade threadsert with red loctite. I used the OEM fitting to set it flush and then put it under vacuum to insure it didn’t leak.
I certainly put more work Into this project than I’ll get paid for, but I enjoyed the challenges and overcoming the obstacles.

The good news Is that I can use these threadserts and process to repair the ultra rare 1965 Holley peanut bowls…of which I have 2 sets to repair.

Here are some photos of the process.

Restored 69 Z-28 carb. Just a couple more finishing touches before it goes on the test engine and gets shipped.
07/16/2025

Restored 69 Z-28 carb. Just a couple more finishing touches before it goes on the test engine and gets shipped.

Restored AFB from ‘66 GTO ready to go back to the customer.
07/09/2025

Restored AFB from ‘66 GTO ready to go back to the customer.

Restored a matched set of 67 Corvette 427/435 hp carbs. They are dated 2nd and 3rd week of December, 1966. The custome...
06/26/2025

Restored a matched set of 67 Corvette 427/435 hp carbs. They are dated 2nd and 3rd week of December, 1966. The customer set me the center and one outboard carb. I sourced the other dated outboard carb to complete the set and then restored them. They are beautiful. Going on a NCRS top flight build.

Address

236 Colonial Drive
Grants Pass, OR
97526

Opening Hours

Monday 9am - 5pm
Tuesday 9am - 5pm
Wednesday 9am - 5pm
Thursday 9am - 5pm
Friday 9am - 5pm
Saturday 9am - 5pm

Telephone

+15412123940

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