In my CC of the GLC, I asked if it truly was the greatest little car, and the consensus was that it certainly was in the running. Well, that assumes it is running, which this one apparently wasn’t. When I drove by, I noticed the air cleaner was off. Don’t you miss carbs? Well, not the old, simple jugs like on my truck, but the ones near the end of their lifespan. Complicated, expensive, hard to fix without a degree in carbutology. Of course, that might well not really be the problem. But lifting off the air cleaner and gazing down the the throat(s) of a carb is akin to the doctor having you stick out your tongue and say Aahh! They don’t do that anymore either, I suppose.
The loss of the old-fashioned carb has certainly reduced the number of things a guy could do to at least look like he knew what he was doing with a stranded car. Even the biggest moron could remove the air cleaner, fiddle with a couple of linkages and say “try it now”, and the poor lady stranded on the side of the road would think he was wonderful. Now, even those of us with moderate mechanical ability are reduced to looking under the hood and shrugging our shoulders.
Seriously, I am not sad to see carbs go. My only try at rebuilding one ended in failure – my friend in high school decided that the carb needed rebuilt in his 68 Cougar. I sat down with him at a folding aluminum table in the garage and we took it apart, cleaned everything, and installed all the new parts from the kit. Put it all back together and the car ran like crap. We could never get it adjusted correctly, it was either flooding itself all the time or stalling at random times. He finally gave up and took it to a mechanic who got everything dialed in. I will never forget the mechanic saying “if you can rebuild it, you certainly ought to be able to adjust it.” Sorry, wrong. I like to think that if I ever got to try again (and not as a stupid high school kid) I could do a better job. But then, maybe not.
1+
I started working on cars from the 1980’s, so I do not miss them in the least. The only carbs I seem to be good with are on small engines on lawn equipment. I have had far better luck with multi port fuel injection on cars. I’m even not a fan of the aftermarket carbs. Unless you are racing, the only thing a Holley does better than the factory carb on an old Ford is leak gas all over your intake manifold.
+2.
The carburetor was a PITA. When running smoothly, it sucked a lot of gas…and you knew, no matter how sweet it was, it wouldn’t last.
When running poorly…you could tear your hair out. Get it to idle smoothly…and it would starve for fuel starting from a light. Maybe it would lope at idle, and run great under load. Oh, yeah…and the “automatic” choke. How many guys have risked life and limb on a busy street or highway to free one that’s stuck? Or, worse, had to bail out the little lady when HERS jammed up in town?
You can see it dramatically on motorcycles. A FI setup costs more…but it starts right up, purrs, has more guts than its displacement would suggest…and will start even in near-freezing weather, and let you ride off without mechanical histrionics.
Plenty of what’s been done to cars, enrages me. But there’s no QUESTION…fuel injection is an improvement. What you pay in purchase, you save in no tune-ups; no carb replacement later…no frustration and no lost time.
I have feet in both worlds, with my ancient farm tractors (1950 Ford, 1977 AC), vintage air-cooled Volkswagens on one hand (foot?) and the “modern” fuel-injected gas minivans and pickup truck, plus the mechanically injected TDI New Beetle.
It’s kind of an analog vs. digital thing. I can rebuild a carb, but dialing it in is something done by feel and experience. The modern stuff pretty much involves replacing parts and then noodling code in the engine computer – while very precise, it’s also very expensive for a DIY’er.
I rented one in Guam in 1978 and liked it better than the VW diet I had been on. But VW’s were cheaper so I stuck with them.
The only thing Ive ever had to replace on an old 323 was a distributor, the one I repaired had stretched the bob weight springs causing pinking from too much advance, 1 used distributor and the car ran good enough for another 300,000 kms.
My first Mazda was scrapped at 175k because the carb died, and a replacement was very very expensive. Subsequent Mazdas are injection, and still in the yard, and there are no issues with the fuel system at 118k and 180k respectively.
I am still fond of SU carbs – back in the 60s I made my own “U” tube to balance a pair of SUs. I remember messing with the twin (Solex ?) carbs on my Jag once, with the aircleaner off. When flames erupted from the venturis it scared the sh!t out of me and I didn’t go near them again.
I wish I bought the Mazda GLC (aka Familia, 323) in 1981 instead of the half-baked gen1 US Escort. Mine had a miscalibrated thermostat from the beginning, but didn’t know it till much later.
Still today, Mazda is the best way to get a reliable small Ford: the Mazda3 has Focus bits in it, just as the GLC shared stuff w/ the Escort.
I love TBI (throttle-body FI), at least GM’s TBI anyway! These units are so reliable and being able to actually see the fuel spray is cool too. Injectors are easy to replace…as is the TBI unit itself. It’s like having the serviceability of a carb with the accuracy of FI. The precise mixtures are much kinder to the cylinder walls…
A whole lot of vacuum hoses, valves and TVSs went away on these when FI replaced Mr. Carburetor.
The in-tank electric fuel pump aspect can be a real PITA though when they eventually fail though. The original in-tank pump still worked fine when I replaced it @170K in my Camaro (as a preventative measure).
I don’t have much Mazda experience, but they appear to be good cars from reading the buff mags and looking at consumer reports. I like the front-hinged hood on this example. Having flashbacks of my 82 Civic looking at it.
We did buy our first Mazda; a Mazda 2 last year as a daily driver for my wife. It’s a cool little car, and I think kind of a spiritual sucessor to the Honda CRX of the 80’s (only with more doors). It handles very well, but a little lacking on power (just like the CRX). Admittedly, it’s a little small for me these days, but she loves it.
Good choice; this is how you buy a reliable Fiesta, which despite testing well, got black marks in CU surveys of late.
So I hear. The 2 has been perfect so far.
The carburetor in my 88 Toyota Pickup was fantastic. Two pumps while cranking always started the thing, in any conditions. I don’t miss carbs though.
Now about Mazda… If you don’t mind sacrificing some comfort for a sportier driving experience they’re great cars. If you covet comfort, not so much. Even the CX-9 is too firm of a ride for my taste. Other Mazda owners have told me the real challenge is finding a good dealership. Based on my experiences, I would agree.
emissions carbs from the 80s were hideous, my enduring memory was popping the hood on my mother’s 84 Accord and seeing the vacuum lines running four abreast all over the top of the engine like an LA Freeway interchange. In comparison my Bosch K-Jetronic equipped 78 Scirocco was simplicity itself. The GM computer controlled carbs were even worse, it seemed like they would do anything to avoid fuel injection and I think it ended costing more to engineer and support those horrors than it would have to install TBI.
It’s all been downhill since the end of the gravity-feed fuel era.
Or is that uphill? 🙂
Depends if the tank is in the cowl or at the rear
Is this a recent photograph? That car is close to 30 years old now. Greatness may not keep the hood closed at this point.
Shot two days ago.
This is the car that changed my best friend’s family’s lives. They were perpetual GM victims until he bought a used ’84 GLC sedan of questionable provenance. We later learned it had been repainted a Pontiac blue. It had plenty of miles and the sheen of a marginal used car. It was also ridiculously more reliable than their two Impalas, LeSabre or Electra(I don’t remember which it was), Cutlass Supreme, and Omni combined. They switched to Japanese cars and never looked back. I don’t think either of their Mazdas ever saw 200,000 miles, but a couple of their Hondas did. The GM cars that made it to six figure mileages before upkeep reached Aston Martin payment levels was roughly zero. Even though the GLC’s transmission blew to shrapnel at about 165,000 indicated miles, it seemed like a magical little car compared to the others they owned before.
I guess I should feel pretty good about myself then.
While my cars of choice are simple aircooled Volkswagens, I can easily rebuild and tune the carburetors in them and I have been driving them all of my driving career, which has been 11 years now but I’m no trained mechanic.
Funny story, I was on the way to Florida back in 2008 in the ’64 VW Bus I had at the time.
It kept sputtering and I couldn’t figure it out. I was on the side of I-10 when a group of about 6 VWs, also going to the same show stopped to help me. I ended up cruising the rest of the trip with them but never did fix the problem (it turned out to be part of a broken fuel gauge sender left in the tank by a PO blocking the flow.
Anyway, later, I was told that when they saw me (being 23 at the time) and pulled over they thought “Oh great, here’s some kid who doesn’t know what he’s doing with an old VW” but when they walked up and saw me with tools laid out and the carburetor disassembled on a piece of cardboard, then reassemble it again, they were impressed.
I go both ways on old tech vs new tech. It’s nice that an injected car runs so smoothly even in cold but when it quits on the side of the road you’re just pretty much waiting for a tow. The carbed car you might be able to diagonse and fix it right there.
It was a telling moment when my BMW just quit running on New Years Eve. Sure it was fast, smooth and comfortable but my ’59 Beetle started right up, did it take a while to warm up and not want buck and sputter in the cold? Sure, but it got me there.
But then again, the fuel injected car generally don’t stop by the side of the road as carbed cars did 😉
I’m also one that started messing with cars in the 80’s, and while I’ve had my share of vehicles with carbs, I definatly prefer the fuel injected ones over them. Just way less trouble. I feel that the “benefit” of being able to diagnose a carb cars running issues, is gone altogether with the injection. So no need to.
Anyhow, the Mazda, I grew up with this car, same sedan body, even same colour, which I got to pick when my father ordered it. Since there was previously a piece about the Renault 16, and thats the exact car we had prior to the Mazda, I can honestly say that the Renault was a piece of garbage (bought new, junked at 65-70 000 miles) compared to the utter luxury of this mazda 3 series. Slightly smaller outside, but just as much space inside, and way, WAY better in absolutely every regard.
Sure, there was more premium cars on the road, but back then in Northern europe, most people were driving economy versions of most cars, or beetles, Ford cortinas etc. It wasnt a car to show off in, but it was a really good car for our family, although the auto choke did give my parents some headache, because they didnt understand that one had to hit the gas pedal occationly to turn it off as the engine was heating up.
Alot of my friends got 2 door coupe versions of this car as we got old enough to drive. Not particularly cool looking, but they lasted forever! And were so economical in the long term, even at about 10 year old, that they allowed alot of those kids to save up for other cooler things like apartments, V6 Audi wagons etc. I’d say they were pretty good cars.
My second car, was a gray 85 dx, I bought used with 29k miles on it for 3995.00 I sold it to my brother with 150k miles on it. He wrecked it 3 times with the last wreck totaling it. It had 280k miles on it with original clutch only having ever replaced 1 alternator and brakes. It was a great little car, coming from my old Fiesta the 5 spd was an upgrade. But it was not as fun to drive as the Fiesta. I thought Mazda was the greatest in terms of durability until many many years later when I bought a new 2002 Mazda/Ford pieces 626 hoping to have the same luck, that 626 was the biggest POS I have ever owned, but I blame Ford for that.
I had one of these cars.
The rubber boot for the accelerator pump plunger rod had disintegrated, and tiny rubber bits had made their way inside the bowl and would occasionally clog the main fuel jet.
Some days it would run and idle perfectly, and some days it would barely run.
Once you figure out what the cause and the solution (open up carb and clean out the debris) are, it’s easy, but the troubleshooting phase can lead to high-speed lead projectile intrusions into the crankcase!