Sophie the mk1 44

[pauldaf44]

To be honest I refitted them as they were fitted before dissasembly. Plenty more to do today anyway and doesn't take 2 mins to pop the drums off and double check.

[macplaxton]

Aug 12, 2013 7:25:59 GMT pauldaf44 said:

To be honest I refitted them as they were fitted before dissasembly.

Rule 1: Never assume the last person doing the job did it properly.

[pauldaf44]

Made half a set of new brake lines for Sophie this afternoon and a full set for the pickup. Before you comment John no they are not copper, ok well part of them is I used copper nickel alloy pipe. Much stronger than pure copper, still reasonably easy to bend oh and they don't rust. On the downside I might have pushed myself a bit too far with todays 3 1/2 hours in the workshop my foot that was operated on 2 months back has swollen up to at least twice its normal size. Woops.

[thebear54]

OOPS for the foot and OK on the brake pipes. ;D

John

[pauldaf44]

Sophie has been having problems running recently and frankly until they are sorted she would be completly undriveable.

Her timing was wandering whilst running so she wasn't running too happily so ive had the dizzy off the car for a good clean and inspection, the distributor shaft play is within limits so the issue had to lay elsewhere. I have found it though, the dizzy clamp was so gunked up with old engine oil and gunk that when tightened the clamp wasn't sufficiently clamping the body allowing it wander. Plenty of cleaning and it now clamps up properly and the timing is staying where its set.

Unfortunatly that has not stopped her running issues she was still hunting and cutting out and then needed a lot of cranking to restart. First part of the mission to discover her issues was to stick a colourtune plug into each cylinder head in turn. The result was intermittent fuel starvation followed by a very rich mixture and was the same on both cylinders which points to problems with the carb. First off I took the airbox off and operated the throttle linkage by hand and noted that the accelerator pump does not deliver any fuel. On removing the top of the carb I discovered the float chamber was full but of a nasty murky mixture quite unlike what was visible in the fuel filter sure enough on removing the fuel the float chamber is coated in a loose brown crud that is flaking off and blocking the fine drillings within the carb. As a result Sophie's carb is now on my desk for a full strip down and rebuild.

Once that is done and her fuel tank has been flushed and sealed I hope she should run nicely but she will be recieving a tappet adjustment and a compression test, both wet and dry as a matter of course in order to pinpoint any issues within the engine itself to be honest I doubt I will find anything.

Paul

[33grinder]

Nice to read some progress Paul.

With regards to your carburetor I would try Gower & Lee. They are able to rebuild the Solex so should be able to supply parts for it too.

www.gowerlee.dircon.co.uk

[pauldaf44]

Right carb now in pieces. It definitely needed to be, near enough every channel was bummed up to some degree. The accelerator pump was full of solid petrol so wasn't pumping despite the diaphragm being ok. I have managed to get everything bar the delivery side of the accelerator pump clear but that is completely blocked still. I'm not sure yet what I'm going to do about that but it's soaking in carb cleaner so hopefully it will blow clear tomorrow

Sent from my V370 using proboards

[pauldaf44]

Well freeing up the glued up carb was an art form. The jets and a lot of the passage ways within were almost completely blocked with set petrol and the accelerator pump was so blocked up it was completely inoperative. A day and night soaking in carb cleaner loosened up most of the rubbish and I was able to get it out with some elbow grease.

I was still having problems with the accelerator pump, the very fine outlet tube was blocked and was too narrow to rod out even with 0.6mm welding wire. That called for a little bit of lateral thinking. I stripped the insulation of a length of multi strand electrical wire and used a single strand from it to rod out tube and it worked. As a result the carb is now back together and even has a working accelerator pump

The inside of the carb didn't clean up as well as id have liked but it least it shouldn't block up anymore.



I also found getting a rebuild kit for this carb difficult and such I haven't yet sourced one. I don't like the play in the choke and throttle spindles but they turn freely without binding so they will have to do until I can get an overhaul kit rather than just a gasket kit.



The carb is now back together and looking a lot cleaner and will be going back onto the car at the weekend.



The carb body has cleaned up well but unfortunatly the linkages attached to it are pitted and no amount of cleaning will make them look any better but saying that the whole thing looks a million times better than before.

p.s. gower and lee are out of stock on parts for this carb

[33grinder]

Nice work Paul. Am surprised that G&L are out of stock as they reconditioned the same model carb for Mark in Bristol. Perhaps they are holding onto their stock should more reconditioning jobs come in...

[pauldaf44]

Well the carb cleaning worked nicely. She just started and ran nicely for all of 30s before running out of petrol. I was going to put her over the pit this afternoon to fit her new exhaust and do some minor welding, but that will have to wait until I get some more petrol for her. Ive been trying to decide where is best too tow her from for manuovering as she has no throttle cable and her bumper mounts are rotten.