Stromberg carburetor

The Continental A-65 has a Stromberg carburetor, a NAS3A1 model.  Very simple unit, no accelerator pump and no mixture control.  Just a venturi with a supply of gas in the float chamber.  Problem 1: with no accelerator pump, it doesn't give an extra little shot of gas to the engine when the throttle is opened, so increases in power need to be done very slowly.  If you quickly jam the throttle ahead, like you might do in a panic/emergency situation, the engine sputters, hesitates, seems to stop for some seconds.  Problem 2: no mixture control, so it's impossible to adjust the mixture for higher altitudes.

Both these problems are cured by going to the Marvel carburetor that was used on some old Continentals.  But Marvels are not made anymore, and used ones are impossible to find. 

So, Plan B, I decided to overhaul my old Stromberg and just live with it's drawbacks.  I figured I could do it myself.  There's plenty of how-to information on the web and parts are available in Aircraft Spruce.  But when I tried to unscrew the main nozzle, it just broken right off.  I was stuck with a useless, 60 year old pile of junk.  Nothing to do but throw the old broken parts in a box and send them off to D&G Supply in Michigan in hopes that they could fix it.

It turned out that the folks at D&G are very helpful, they even donated some of their stock of used Stromberg parts to get my carburetor back together, at no extra charge.  Two weeks later I had my old carb back looking like new with a nice yellow tag!

I'd found two good suppliers.  What did they have in common?  When I talked to them on the phone, they both seemed to be interested in my project.  And they both went the extra mile to make my project successful.  A good rule to follow in the future.