Carter,
I had made a similar inquiry to my local parts guy
about Grose-jet reputation for leakage, because I'd
heard just as many warnings as I had good things about
the grose-jets. His story went as follows:
The Grose-jet replacement needle valve assembly was
designed by a man of the same name (Grose). He refused
to sell the patent for it to major corps, and
continued to manufacture and distribute them as an
independant. For years people would replace the needle
type of valve with the grose jets, as they were
considered a superior design.
Sometime in the 60's and 70's, whomever was now
manufacturing them (D&G?), went from using the better
quality european bearings, to ones manufactured in the
far east (probably at some insignificant amount of
savings).
Anyhow, the bulk of these grose jets were assembled
with ovular or scored far eastern ball bearings, which
often caused leakage. The company quickly got a bad
rep for selling defective merchandise and went out of
business in the 70's. BUT, before they did go out of
business, thousands of these defective units were
distributed or continued to be distributed. According
to Will, until very recently, any time he came across
a Grose jet, it was in a 70's or older style packaging
implying to him that the originals were still floating
around and making their way out of the woodwork. But
to his knowledge (being a parts ordering guru that he
is. He knew of no one making them since the 70's). The
ones he did get, about 50% of all customers came back
with leakage problems, and he eventually stopped
selling them at all, until recently.
Several years ago, the patents had not been renewed or
they had been purchased by a company (I believe he
said it was Moss) and have now started a new
production run with multiple international patents on
their production. According to Will, since this new
grose jet has been produced, he no longer keeps SU
(Burlen made) needle valves in stock, and he only
orders needle valves if the customer is insistant. He
told me that he hasn't had a complaint from anyone
he's sold them to so far. Once again this is all
here-say, but after a year of leaky carbs, I'm ready
to give these a shot. I'll let you know before the end
of summer if I start to get leakage or any other
problems.
I'll also see if I can get confirmation from Will
about the company making them now, and see if that
manufacturer has any history to support this tale.
-Terry
http://www.firespitter.com
P.S. All the stuff that I've read about D&G
manufactured Grose Jets was that they would stick shut
(from laquer build-up), where the needle valves would
stick open (from any minute particle of dirt or rust
that got past the filters and stick to the neoprene
needle tip). I'm hoping that a heat shield will keep
the laquer build-up to a minimum.
Yahoo! Greetings - send holiday greetings for Easter, Passover
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