Better Beaters - Building Cars and Daily Drivers

 I finally got started on fixing the Mark VII's carbs.

 All the way from Merry Old England
Twenty dollars in postage!

As I had mentioned, I couldn't find my first order of carburetor parts so I decided to just re order the basic minimum of items necessary to do the job. They arrived within a couple of weeks, and I set them aside. I needed a break from all the Christmas stuff so I decided to fix the damaged carb. 

I ordered six items totaling twenty dollars. Add that to the twenty dollars postage and this slim assemblage cost me slightly over forty bucks. That's a lot of money for shipping, but I should be happy that the parts were still easy to acquire. Still it was important that I get moving.

That spring is part of the main needle jet, A metal cap screwed into a fitting that projected down from this area. The cap had been hit hard enough break it off. The damaged cap was sort of glued on as wasn't apparent when I first examined the engine. My guess is that when the carbs were found to be stuck solidly in place, someone hit the cap with a pretty big wrench in an attempt to free them up. This resulted in a big crack, and a spot for gas to leak out. This probably put any plan to repair the damage on hold. How long ago that occurred is anyone's guess, actually the whole thing is conjecture on my part. The reality is just that it's broken.

I had ordered a new bottom cap initially, along with a bunch of gaskets, but I forgot to get the cap on this order. The original cap had a broken brass jet tube stuck in it. I had to get that out so that I could use it. There wasn't enough tube left sticking out to get a good hold onto with pliers. So I decided to just drill into the tube  and use an EZ out to remove the broken portion. It wasn't a pretty process but I managed to drill a big enough hole to use my pipe removal tool. It worked out fine, luckily I hadn't done any more damage.

This is a reverse thread tool to remove broken 
plumbing pipes.

I had been trying to be careful and not break any of the old float bowl gaskets, planning to re-use them after coating them with a little Gaskachinch, but that didn't work out. I went to the local auto part store to see if I could source some O rings that would work.  

That would plan A.

They were a bit too small so I tried to stretch them out, that may work. I also decided to come up with a plan B. I cut these out of gasket paper. I used a two inch wood hole saw to cut out the center, then I trimmed the outer circumference with a pair of scissors. Nothing to be proud of here! Pretty crude work, but they fit!

Not too bad for the first go round!

Here' one of my masterpieces fitted in place.
Really not too bad at all.

In the morning I'm going to see if my O rings have stretched enough to be usable. I had pulled on them carefully then stretched them over various bigger items, finally stretching them around an old peanut butter jar. They had gotten better with repeated stretching. I'll let them sit overnight and will check them again.

I even came up with a plan C.

That would be to take some twine and cut it to a length that fit inside the cap. Then I would impregnate the twine with silicon seal and lay it in place. The silicon would help seal the joint, as well as hold the twine in place, especially if I let it set up over night. 

Either way, those carbs are going back together!

On the upper right of the photo the shiny new bearing cap is evident. On the upper left side a small shiny Phillips head screw replaces the original that clamped the two halves of the throttle shaft together. 

I should be embarrassed to admit it, but once again I forgot where I had put the carb mounting nuts! 

I gave a cursory look in my toolboxes with negative results.

I looked in the XJS's trunk, as well as the Mark VII. I checked in the drawer of my rolling table.

That lead to a methodical search of my tool boxes where I found them in a bottom drawer where they had been covered by other stuff. The baggie they were stored in did have a tape label identifying it's contents. 

I moved them into a large plastic storage bag along with the envelope which my parts came in. Written on the white bag in black marker are the words, "Carb mounting nuts." From now on they're staying with the carb assembly. No more "cute" ideas!

The Winter rainy season just hit our area, right about the same time that the Holiday season began. It 's a pretty good bet that I won't be getting around to mounting the carbs util some time in January. However, it's not that far off.

In fact, it's already here!

Now that the Holidays are over it's time to get back to work. After all the Christmas decorations are packed and stored away to my Wife's satisfaction, I'm going to have enough space to house another one of my cars in the garage. Lot's to do and to look forward to. 

Let's see how productive I can be in this New Year!