Polishing beads from carburettor

  Has anyone had these come out of a carb before, these dropped out of the drain of number one carb last week, they are aluminium and have multiple uneven facets/impact marks on them, I got a set of mk11 pumpers a couple of years ago that had never been apart, still had the yellow assembly paint spots on them, I stripped, sonic cleaned and replaced all rubber parts, gaskets and a couple of bits of brass that were beyond redemption, while stripped as stated sonic  bathed blown through with brake cleaners and finished with air, slides had absolutely no wear, been running them for a couple of years and drain the bowls off periodically,  a couple of weeks ago these dropped out of number one, bear in mind they cannot get in the bowl through the float valve as they are just over a millimetre accross, I am assuming they are polishing beads from the original production line, where they were hidden up is a mystery to me, any ideas, there is no chance they have got in there in my care as I have nothing like this or blasting equipment.

  I at best would only be offering a guess so will not attempt to suggest I know what you have found. Will say pumper carbs have some check balls/cylinders but brass or steel as I understand it. To come out the drain they had to be in the bowl or the hose?
 

Not the check balls as they are stainless steel and are too large to go through any passageways, the facets on their surface kind of dictates they have been blasted at a surface, i crushed one with a screwdriver blade, I also tried to melt it with a soldering iron to no avail dispelling any idea that it was lead or solder. It appears I am at an impass,  the carbs are working correctly and very well, such a strange find.

During ultrasonic cleaning on carbs I have had several of the small brass plugs fall out of the drill passages. However you say these are stainless and the carbs are working properly and they look a bit rough on the edges. So it's interesting on where they may have come from. Anyway for those who do clean with an ultrasonic check those brass balls used to plug the drilled passages after cleaning.

Cra-z1 wrote:

During ultrasonic cleaning on carbs I have had several of the small brass plugs fall out of the drill passages. However you say these are stainless and the carbs are working properly and they look a bit rough on the edges. So it's interesting on where they may have come from. Anyway for those who do clean with an ultrasonic check those brass balls used to plug the drilled passages after cleaning.


The brass and check balls are all in place,  the balls in picture are aluminum and are not check balls they are just over 1mm, check balls are around 3mm and steel and would not end up with the facets.
 

I've never seen anything remotely like those balls.  I have seen two different sets of George Wired rebuilt carbs that were all full of glass bead blasting grit, though.  

Nessism wrote:

I've never seen anything remotely like those balls.  I have seen two different sets of George Wired rebuilt carbs that were all full of glass bead blasting grit, though.  


I am 99%sure these carbs had never been opened up until I got them and was thinking they may have been peened during manufacture to polish them a little, as explained in my first post they were rigorously cleaned by myself and re-built around 2 years ago and I periodically drain the bowls off, so could they have jammed in a passage from manufacture until recently?
 

Just another guess, but could they possibly be from a finishing process at the factory. My blasting cabinet came from a mfg that built units for special applications. I recall seeing bags of aluminum media that appeared to be from wire. After some use they looked like balls.

Aliens beamed them in there from their orbiting starship.

If alien balls are that small Texas we shouldn't have to worry about an invasion, at least the women will be safe. I've never encounter anything resembling something like that either?? But always check the carb casting blind holes. These are passages formed in the molding/casting process but never used. Junk can get wedged up in there only to come out at a later date. A similar VM carb passages shown. I have a sonic cleaner but rarely use it, i mechanically clean all the ones i do. Then solvent/water high pressure out all the debris.    

My conclusion is that these have been in the carbs since fettling in the original foundry, they are conditioned cut wire shot, I found out about these by looking on line and they manufacture them still.   

Speaking of wired shot that is what I use in my blast cabinet. I clean my cases and other parts with it. I love it compared to using glass beads. Is use SS cut and conditioned .016 wire. After years the cut wire is getting to be like the conditioned wire and leaves a nice finish.