Will a good brass carb float still bubble in hot water?

[miatawnt2b]

I am testing carb floats today as I fight these 4 carbs. Short story is that I installed 4 new floats purchased from Clark's. Put everything back together and tuned the carbs. Car ran wonderful. Then it sat a week. Went to a car cruise and on the way home one of the carbs flooded. So apart it comes again and that new float had gas in it. So I boiled some water and found the leak... Problem with the soldered pinhole in the side of the float.

Anyhow, of course I tore apart the other 3 carbs and tested them in water as well. The interesting thing is that even a float without gas in it would bubble all over the brass when submerged in 200 degree water. Is this normal or are all these new floats junk? It almost appears as if the brass is pourous enough to let the pressure escape cause the bubbles are super tiny on the floats that don't have gas inside, but the one with gas inside has large bubbles at the pinhole.

[Richard]

When you are boiling the water you will probably see bubbles on the bottom of the pan. That doesn't mean the pan is leaking.
Why boiling water?
The pin hole is the last thing soldered, after the float halves are soldered together. If the seam has to be resoldered, you must first remove the solder from the pin hole. The moisture and fuel must be removed before the pin hole is closed.
The easiest, sure way to do that is to put the float on a metal table with an incandescent bulb next to it for several hours.
After it cools, the hole must be soldered closed very quickly. If you heat the air inside the float, the expanding air will blow the solder back out of the hole.

[miatawnt2b]

Yep. That's exactly what is happening Richard. The water, when close to boiling will make bubbles appear on the brass. Slightly cooler water (200*f) will not do this, but will show all the actual holes.

I was able to solder up the pinhole in the side of the float, test, and reassemble. I do hate getting faulty new parts though. At least it was an easy fix.

-J