Saturday, 22 September 2018

New carburettors - final take (5.1)


It had to be something simple! This morning I visited a friend's workshop, for some kind of second opinion on the carburettors. And after coffee and vlaai we started with a few checks. His verdict was that the throttle disc of the front carburettor wasn't aligned properly. Which also meant that fine tuning had to wait till this was rectified. After some more coffee and vlaai I headed home to do some household shopping, after which I made myself comfortable to remove the carburettors again to check the alignment of the throttle disc of the front carburettor. Well there was nothing wrong with the throttle disc. It was nicely centred and moved freely. But by the time I found that out I already had found the culprit for the problems, this small piece of tissue paper:


Rather embarrassing really! While fitting the carburettors for the umpteenth time I almost forgot to remove one of the gags of tissue paper I had stuffed in the two manifold ports to prevent dust from entering. But with the front carburettor loosely in place I noticed my error. So I just pulled the carburettor back a bit and pulled the gag of tissue paper out. And I didn't notice that a small piece tore of and remained behind on the two lower mounting studs, where it got wedged between the carburettor flange and the manifold mount. And here, soaked in fuel and preventing an airtight seal, it could provide extra air and fuel. But it could also prevent the throttle disc from closing properly. Resulting in the problems mentioned in the previous two posts on this subject. I knew it had to be something embarrassingly simple!
With the carburettors again in place it turned out very simple to set the idle speed at around 950 rpm. I won't set it any lower as the idle will become rather lumpy. This being caused by the by now ancient Triumph Tune TT10204 Fast Road (280° duration) cam shaft that is fitted to the car's engine. Hopefully I'll be able to fine tune the carburettors within the next couple of days and see how the car runs now!


At least I am now again rather experienced in removing and adjusting SU carburettors and have gathered a lot of knowledge on SU working pressures, needle valve closing pressures, fuel pumps and so on. And I have learned not to use tissue paper to keep dirt out, but to use cloth rags in the future. But also to take my time to carry out  certain jobs, and not rush them!

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