Our car is equipped with a STROMBERG carburetor model B, number 4. This appears on the side of the carb as “B NO. 4”  Stromberg made A carbs, B carbs and C carbs at this time and generally speaking the designation dealt with the throat size.

Before cleaning up our carb

Exploded view of Stromberg B No. 4 carburetor with part annotations.

After cleaning

Here is a bit of contemporary advertising for the Stromberg carburetors:

Click to ENLARGE

Click to ENLARGE

While researching our carburetor, I tried to locate Stromberg catalogs and parts lists.  This has met with some success, but not as much as I had hoped. Better insight into the carburetor’s construction and variations came from a somewhat surprising source, the Shapleigh Hardware catalogue. Apparently, this company supplied products of every imaginable type from about 1843 up until the Great Depression, when it consolidated several other companies and started a slow demise into the 1960’s.

I have attached scans of several pages from their catalog that I obtained on eBay. These pages deal strictly with Stromberg carburetors.  In my collection of old car stuff I have 5 of these carburetors. It is remarkable how many needle valve variations there are among these 5 carburetors. The catalog shows at least 6 types that fit the “B” style carburetor (styles S, U, V, W, Y & Z).  I apologize for the cloudy scan. It is the very best representation I could get after many tries. The catalog pages are extraordinarily thin paper which is now over 100 years old and darkening with age. Also note this is from pages 1627 through 1630 — a BIG catalog!

Stromberg Needle Valve variations – click on photo to enlarge

Shapleigh Catalog – Stromberg “B” carburetor – exploded view & parts list Click on photo to enlarge.

We understand that although our car has a Stromberg, other Michigans were equipped with SCHEBLER brand carburetors. Mike Howard’s car has a Schebler.