Before Fuel Injection; Before Floats and Needle Valves...

Engineers and other inventors have been coming up with new and more efficient ways to deliver fuel to the combustion chamber ever since the first internal combustion engine.  This little video offers a good look at one of the early systems for regulating the amount of fuel in the carburetor bowl; an overflow and return to the fuel tank.  This method worked well and was used on many of the early gas engines and tractors.  Follow this link to have a look inside a Secor-Higgins carburetor, and to read of all its virtues.  The Secor-Higgins system was used in Falk gas engines and Rumely Oil Pulls, and it was a  major advance from more primitive mixing valves.  If you look closely at the diagram you will see that it, too, used the overflow system to regulate the fuel level in the carburetor. 



In the last segment of this video you will see the interaction between the magneto and ignitor on this engine. Ignitors have a stationary and a movable point inside the combustion chamber. The points are closed, completing a circuit, and then released. The spark occurs when the circuit is broken.