Plate under Carburetor??

[Cybrinsanity]

So I just bought a 1963 Ford Thunderbird, and this is my first restore ever. I'm very new to everything automotive but it's always been a dream of my wife and I to restore an old car and we finally bought one and have started the process. ... Anyways I'm rebuilding the carburetor and there is a plate above the manifold and below the carb that has 3 valves on it, I was curious as to what this plate is called and it's function as I need to buy new gaskets for it. Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[ragtopbird02]

I'm sure someone else will know exactly what this plates function is, but it does appear to have water lines attached to it or very large vacuum hoses. If they are water lines, this might be some form of cooling for the carb or water operated choke. My TR8 had water lines that operated the opening of the choke, but those lines are much larger. Anyways, I am now very interested in finding out myself what that plates function is. Good luck with the project.

 

[Cybrinsanity]

yeah I'm pretty sure they are water lines, but like I said I'm completely new to this hahah thanks for the reply!!

 

[captrick]

Hey Cybrinsanity, I can't see where the lines go but I don't think they are water lines. The one in the back of the plate should go to the valve cover for the PCV system and the one in the front looks like it is blocked off, it is hard to tell. If it is part of the water system it might be for the heating of the air and fuel as it enters the manifold. If you could send a better picture of the hoses and where they go it would help. Good Luck Rick

 

[Cybrinsanity]

sure here's another look.

 

[ragtopbird02]

Those lines are strange looking, but it would be very easy to check if they were water lines or air lines, open one up. If any water appears, you know its a water line, if not, then it's some kind of air or vacuum line and the only things I could think of for water lines to go into a carb would be to cool the fuel/air mixture or water opening choke assembly. As I mentioned before, some else that has this setup will hopefully join in and clear it up for all of us. Good luck.

 

[fordrodsteven]

I have never seen anything like that on a car. Your pictures look like it is hooked into the cooling (water) system. Could it possibly be an aftermarket thing that someone put on the car? I went to a couple T-bird supplier web sites and looked in their parts catalogs. They list a plate under the carb but nothing like you have pictured. I will continue looking to see what I can find (I'm just trying to help you) If I find something I'll be sure to come back here to let you know. Hopefully someone else with an early '60's bird has that setup on their car and came shed some light on it.

 

[ragtopbird02]

Just went onto the mustang muscle forum and under coolent lines from carb base plate, I found a post for coolent lines from the water pump to the heater core that go thru the baseplate. It appeared to be on an older ford Mustang. I didn't have time to read the complete post, but you might want to do a search and try to find the post. It might give you some insight into this base plate.

 

[Flat Ernie]

These are coolant lines in the heater circuit. They should be in the line between the manifold and heater, not the pump and heater.

Believe it or not, the original purpose of these spacers was to cool the carburetor. The intake has exhaust passages in the center that heat the intake quickly for better cold-start running, but leaving these open actually hurts power a little, so these base plates with water are actually cooler than the exhaust-gas heated intakes once they're fully heated up. Some engine designs seemed to be more critical than others...Ford seemed to use them in the late '60s-early '70s mainly early in the emissions game to get the carb at a more optimum temperature...

 

[Cybrinsanity]

ah great thank you everyone!!