Dear Car Talk:

I have a 1980 Toyota Celica ST with a 20R engine that has 98,000 miles on it. I bought it in the mid-1990s with only 30,000 miles from a little, old lady who only drove it to church on Sundays.

For the last two months, when I make a fairly hard left turn, the car loses power but doesn’t quite stall. What do you think it might be? – Chuck I think it’s the float in your carburetor, Chuck.

The carburetor is what metered fuel before the adoption of fuel injection. Carburetors are crude devices. But they were all we had for about 80 years.

Inside the carburetor is a float – like the float in your toilet bowl’s tank. When the float drops down, the carburetor allows the fuel pump to send in more fuel.

When the float bowl fills up, the float rises and the fuel flow is cut off.

This may come as a shock to you, Chuck, but your float is now 44 years old. It’s porous, which means it ain’t floating as well as it used to.

So, when you make a hard left turn, the float is getting submerged in gasoline. And when it gets submerged, the carburetor (incorrectly) thinks there’s not enough fuel in there 
– so it calls for more. What’s happening is that your engine is getting flooded in that moment.

That’s why it acts like it’s about to stall.

You can test this theory – if you’ve got the dexterity for it – by putting the car in Neutral while this is happening and giving it some gas. That should send that extra gas out the tailpipe and revive the engine.

If I’m right, you need a new carburetor. To get one, just hop into your time machine, set it to 1982, and go to your local Toyota dealer. Actually, these days, you should be able to find one online if not locally.

And once you get that new carburetor installed, this thing should be as good as – well, not new, but as good as it was a year or two ago.

Got a question about cars? Write to Ray in care of King Features, 628 Virginia Drive, Orlando, FL 32803, or email by visiting the Car Talk website at www.cartalk.com.

(c) 2024 by Ray Magliozzi and Doug Berman Distributed by King Features Syndicate, Inc.