Holley Clear Float Bowl Plugs Failing?

[AMXguy]

I've been hearing stories about fires caused by the Holley clear plugs falling apart, anyone else heard of it? just to be on the safe side I'm going to put the brass ones back in my cars.

 I'm not even sure if those are intended to be left in? in any event you'd think they'd be gas proof material.

[miketyler]

I dont know about fires but they are only meant to be used for adjusting floats. Prolonged contact with fuel expands the plastic and the sight bubble will twist off when you try and remove it.

[FJ5_440]

I dont know about fires but they are only meant to be used for adjusting floats. Prolonged contact with fuel expands the plastic and the sight bubble will twist off when you try and remove it.

I think the ethanol in the new fuel makes it even worse. - I left a pair in for about a week while I was messing with the tuning, and they snapped off when I tried to remove them.  I had to remove the fuel bowl to get the remnants out of my center carb - NO FUN

[BIGSHCLUNK]

I knew I shoulda' took those out........... 

[the_engineers]

Uh-oh.  Mine have been in for 2+ years.

[Jim]

Initially, Holley shipped carbs with these with the intent of leaving them in. More recently, they began shipping them with both types.

I've had a couple of carbs with them installed long term and never had a failure, but you could see where the plastic had started to degrade. I keep a set around for setting the float level, but use the brass ones after.

[AMXguy]

I just changed all 3 of mine back to brass,  I had to use pliers all the way out on all 3 they were so tight from expanding but none broke off. they were less than a year old, I'd get them out now if anyone still has them in there.

[dodge freak 2]

Sad it is that a company like Holley who been in the carb business for 100 years would put out a product that would leak fuel during normal use of it.

This happen when Demon carbs first came out and the ads for Demon were barging how their sight glass was larger and you needed not to remove a plug to see the float level. So I guess Holley jump the gun to try to match Demon without doing any long term testing.

Sad too is how the big shots running Holley got paid so much $ for like what, Holley along with many others declared bankruptcy at least once in the past few years.

Hope nobody lost their car-or worst-due to a fire thanks to Holley's bad discussions.   

[Moparal]

I remember in the 80's when I bought my first set of clear sight plugs for my holley. I thought they were cool. But seemed like just a few weeks later they weren't clear anymore. They got all fogged up and cloudy so I chucked them.

[brads70]

Good to know! Thanks for passing that along!

[Roppa440]

I had no idea the Holley clear plugs would fail. There was NOTHING in the advertisment or on the packaging to say so. I installed three on my six pack some years ago and three on another six pack I restored for someone more recently.

The newer ones all fell off the carbs within a week of just tuning and moving the car around. At first I thought someone had removed them!

My older ones seemed OK but were getting discoloured. So I replaced them with new ones. They fell off the carbs while I was just setting the timing and idle mixture after a re-build.

So my guess is that they have changed the composition of the plastic used. So they are now a complete waste of time and money.