CATALOG OF THE MECHANICAL COLLECTIONS IgQ 



valve and the air supply valve are positively controlled, that is, they 

 must be set for the speed and load under which the engine is to 

 operate. 



OLDS CARBURETOR 



U.S.N.M. no. 286567; origiual ; gift of tlie Olds Motor Work.s; not illustrated. 



This carburetor is a part of the automobile built by Kansom E. 

 Olds in 1896, as it is now exhibited in the Museum. 



In this carburetor fuel feeds by gravity to a nozzle in the air 

 intake passage. The rate of flow of the fuel is controlled by a needle 

 valve. The fuel is raised to the level of the carburetor by a pump; 

 that not drawn into the engine returns by gravity to the tank. 



The carburetor consists of an upper chamber to which the fuel 

 is pumped from the tank below. A return line from this chamber 

 carried fuel back to the tank when the supply pump exceeded the 

 quantity used. The fuel passes through a strainer into a small-bore 

 copper tube that projects into a mixing chamber below. A needle 

 valve controls the rate at which the fuel enters this tube. The suction 

 stroke of the engine draws air through this chamber and gasoline is 

 drawn from the tube and mixed with the air. The air intake passage 

 is protected by a wire-mesh screen. The fuel that might drip from 

 the nozzle between suction strokes of the engine returns to the fuel 

 tank through a return line from the bottom of the mixing chamber. 



A. L. DYKE FLOAT-FEED CARBURETOR, 1900 

 Plate 34, Figure 2 



U.S.N.M. no. 30S479; original; gift of A. L. Dyke; photograph no. 18494C. 



This is a single- jet constant-level carburetor with a main air inlet 

 and a throttle of the vertical, barrel, rotary type. The constant level 

 of the gasoline in the carburetor was maintained by a float -operated, 

 needle, feed valve. Designed by A. L. Dyke and G. P. Dorris and 

 manufactured by A. L. Dyke, at St. Louis, Mo., in 1900, carburetors 

 of this type were the first to be manufactured and marketed in the 

 United States. It involves man}'^ features of the present-day carbu- 

 retor. 



The carburetor is of cast brass and consists of two main compart- 

 ments, the float chamber and the mixing chamber. Gasoline enters 

 the top of the float chamber through a fitting that carries a needle- 

 valve seat. Within the chamber is a hollow brass float carrying a 

 needle shaft that rises to close the valve when the gasoline within 

 the chamber reaches the proper level. A spring held "flusher pin" 

 is fitted to the float chamber for the purpose of depressing the float 

 to "flood" the carburetor for starting. The mixing chaniber is a 

 hollow cylinder having a large air intake opening at the bottom and 



49970—39 12 



