As I was disassembling my W-30, it looked to me like the heater valve was the original one and had never been removed from the intake. Not thinking it could be refinished, I tossed it in my pile of original unusable parts to keep with the car. About halfway through my resto, I sent my OAI motor to Sparky's to see if it could be refinished without harming the rubber diaphragm (the repos seem to not last, and they look slightly different than the OE ones) He was successful, so when I went to the Nationals, I took the valve to Greg to see if he could work his magic on this part as well. Pic below of the "before" - next post shows the after since I can only post one IPad pic per post

Also thanks to Ron Memmer for confirming this is the correct OE valve for my car. Apparently, the 399678 valve is correct for 68-70 only - the '71 looks really different in addition to being a different mounting diameter.

 

The after pic.

 

Nice.

- Eric

 

Very nice Joe.

If Sparky would return my call or email I have a pile of stuff I'd like to get replated myself. Is he that hard to get a hold of? Or maybe just out of town?

 

I tried getting my carb repaired by him, no callbacks and no replies either. This was over a 3 week span, then I gave up.

 

I sent Greg my carb in January of this year and just now got it back All i can say Greg does excellent work and a super nice guy, but i believe he is so overwhelmed with work he just can't take anything new in! Thats how he made it sound to me! It was well worth the wait though

 

If you ever run across another OEM 68 heater valve that is in serviceable shape(not leaking) please keep me in mind. I can not get rid of the low speed harmonic hum induced by the aftermarket replacement valves from 4 seasons. I usually save every piece I remove off a numbers matching car but I removed the original back in 86. Cant find it!

 

Sparky is worth the wait, it was tough to get him sometimes but be patient you will be happy you did.

 

Hi All,

Glad you like my work and you are satisfied Joe! I also want to thanks ALL other customers as well.

Yes, I can be off the grid and hard to get a hold of at times. But, be persistent and patient since I'm a one man band I can be overwhelmed. I TRY and have a life too!!

Although my heart is in Oldsmobile's, I have the Pontiac, Buick, Chevy clan at my heels as well. I do plenty of Ram Air, Stage 1, Corvette BB work too. Not to mention many Tri-Power/Carb work as well. Not to mention tons of parts restoration that keeps me hopping!

I wish I had time to contribute to ALL the various forums as I do enjoy them, but there is only so much I can do.

At any given time, the value of all the cores I have here to work on are worth MORE then I make in a year! That's pretty humbling to say the least!

I hold the trust dearly that my customers put into me with their precious parts and guard everyone's product as if it were mine!

Burn rubber and keep the shiny side up!

Sparky

 

fwiw, I talked with Sparky earlier today for a good 25 mins. We went over my project, I asked my questions and he explained to me how to package the items, ship them to him and what he does with them. We also talked timelines and since this is basically his slow period right now, things will work out perfectly. Once I get all my items to plate together, I plan to ship them up to him. Eventually I will be posting the praise for Sparky's service like many others have. It's that word of mouth that made me realize I need to use his services.

 

Absolutely.



..and it's not just pretty. Talked with him about the application. Dropped it on the freshly built engine and it fired almost instantly. Very little adjustment was needed to dial in.

 

Sparkey, do you have any OEM 68 442 heater valves?

 

A Sparky carb runs like EFI.....