Posted on 08/27/2022 11:57:37 AM PDT by Hojczyk
A gated neighborhood in an upscale Tampa suburb is a strange place to send your carburetors for rebuilding. The shop sits in the three-car garage of a lovely home, alongside a similarly lovely turquoise 1957 Chevrolet Nomad wagon. There is a long table with some chairs, and a workbench is parked next to a couple of soda blasters. All is lit by florescent bulbs overhead. This the modest domain of Riley’s Rebuilds, a carburetor rebuilding service headed by Riley Schlick.
Riley is a 17-year-old girl: A surfing, skating, soccer-playing, Jeep-driving high school senior. Four of her high school friends, all girls, have learned to rebuild carburetors too, rounding out the staff of Riley’s Rebuilds. Ship them your worn-out carburetor, and they’ll ship it back soda-blasted, ultrasonic-cleaned and rebuilt to original specifications
On what planet is this happening?
Here on Earth, actually, where a girl with a screwdriver, a drill, and some oil wrenches can earn “really good money,” Riley says. Her father, Dane, is an amateur mechanic. That’s his Nomad, which he’s had for about 15 years, and he also has a much-modified Dodge Little Red Wagon pickup that he drag races. He’s the one who taught Riley how to rebuild carbs, and she taught her friends, and now they all have part-time jobs “that pay us well,” Riley says. “For teenagers, anyway. So much better than minimum wage.
Riley has a year of high school left, and she foresees no end to Riley’s Rebuilds, even if she goes away to college. She’s already talked to one college soccer coach who has pledged to help find room in the engineering department to let her do rebuilds there if she comes to his school. “This has been a great experience,” she says. “I’ve learned so much, and not just about carburetors.”
Nice story.
Thanks!
Way to go Riley!
I did not really learn how to rebuild a carburetor until I was in my 20s and even then, I did not have the confidence to do anyone’s but my own.
Hats off from an 80 old motorcycle wrenchbender.
How do you surf in Tampa? The waves are like a foot.
Another woman succeeds . . . because a man taught her how.
I’ve read that 40 percent plus of “factory rebuilds” are faulty so if she’s turning out good work, the potential is there.
Needs to get a flow stand....
Same in Galveston but people still surf there.
With carbs becoming more scarce she should diversify into electric drive motor rebuilding. Most world manufacturers are going all electric. Unless she specializes in high performance carbs for racing and classic cars. More power to her!
I miss my Holly 780 CFM 4-barrel
And the car with the engine I put it on. And a few of my other cars.
I miss the 1970s. Just saying..........
If one can tune a Holley 3310, one can send rockets to the moon.
She already has enough shop knowledge to propel her career than any of those "XYZ-Studies" idiots whose only college participation appears to involve protesting whatever......
Hopefully she will also pursue a degree in electrical engineering since in the not too distant future, EV's will be the govt. forced mode of transportation and gas driven vehicles will become obsolete.
Look for the parents to get cited for a zoning violation by a “code enforcement officer”. Some jurisdictions in Fl are truly vicious in their code enforcement - I remember hearing about one woman’s running up tens of thousands of dollars for parking in her own driveway too close to street or off concrete and on lawn not sure which.
She can tune a Holley but prefers Edelbrocks....
I don't think she's interested in rockets just yet...LOL!
I don’t know of any cars built in the USA in the last twenty years that have carburetors. Everything now is fuel injection. Still a market for classics though. A friend of mine recently rebuilt a carburetor for his ‘66 barracuda.
When I was screwing with cars, just to keep them running in the early 60's I could get a rebuilt 1bbl for a 50's Chevy 6cyl for 5 dollars. Gas (100 octane, leaded) was around 25 cents Incl tax. Under 20 cents in a gas war.
I have a carb off a 53 International tractor that needs more than TLC. Where do I send it?
quintessential specialized small business made possible by the nearly universal international reach of the Internet ...
i’ve used such businesses at least three times: once to inexpensively replace a badly designed broken NUVI on/off switch with an IMPROVED switch made by the shop specializing in that repair; a second one in canada that specialized in replacing fried maxtor HD controller boards + specific microcode thus allowing data recovery, and a third that swapped Kenmore dryer controller boards with blown capacitors for repaired ones for a very reasonable fee, thus putting the dryer back in service for a few more decades instead of trashing it and buying a new one ...
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