Missing spring on float needle?

[FlyingSteve]

So this is pretty weird... 3 of my flat needles have this spring-like seat that the float rests on, so it isn't resting directly on the float needle... This spring seat clips on to the fuel inlet valve... Know what I mean?

If you look at this picture,

http://www.thegsresources.com/images/carbs/048_Remove%20float.jpg

On my carbs, that spring seat sits over the fuel inlet needle valve. 3 of my carbs has this "spring seat", and the 4th carb is missing it. I thought it was lost. But in this carb rebuild tutorial, there is no mention of this "spring seat" and it isn't in ANY of the pictures. I checked the online parts fiche to find a P/N for it and it isn't in any of the diagrams. My needle valve also looks slightly different than one shown in the picture. The tip on my needle valve is springy.. It can move in and out. It's hard to explain all of this, but hopefully someone here has encountered this before and can tell me the importance of it.

So what is the deal? Do I need them or not? Will it screw the float height up?

[SqDancerLynn1]

It will work fine without it..

[Danjal]

Your float heights will be the same all said and done, but the actual float on your shorter needle will be bent higher then your others. I was at one point running 2 diff sized needles in my carbs. Dad had an old school needle for his dirt bike that worked. I just ran those until a new matching set came in. It worked fine, just the floats were bent differently on the tabs.

If I were you steve I would set your carbs to fuel level and not needle height. Mine are speced at .81" for float height. It dumps fuel out of the until they're at .90" Even at that height they still dump fuel out if you tilt them 20 degrees or so. I need to find my notes on fuel level and float height settings again.

[FlyingSteve]

So I gotta buy that "special" hose they use for checking the fuel level?