Mk2 1.8 HL Automatic update

[mickthefitter]

I took my carburettors back to Andrew Turner yesterday. He was in an apologetic mood (and he apologised in his email reply sent 48 hours after I'd contacted him about the bodies not being mine) and seemed genuinely a little bemused by the mistake. He maintained that most of the carburettor parts I got were my originals and said the dashpot components have to remain together. I asked about the pistons lapping into the sides of the body, since the pistons I got are going back into my original bodies, but he said they don't really touch the sides. I don't know. I'm not an S.U. expert. I didn't mention the rust in the float chamber but if I'm to give him the benefit of the doubt, it could be that when I cleaned out the loose debris I could see at the bottom of the chambers when the carbs were still on the car, using a cloth and the tip of a fine screwdriver, the compacted rust (presumably out of a fuel tank or steel pipes) would be dark and wet with fuel, so less visible, and I was only trying to get the loose floaters out, not scrape the alloy cavity squeaky clean. So maybe those float chambers are mine. Andrew produced two HS4 bodies that were silver spray painted, as the alloy parts get a coat of paint rather than being bright metal, and asked me if they were mine as he thought they were. No numbers stamped on the intake side of the flanges, no holes drilled in either body for a vacuum pipe, and smaller diameter holes for the piston lifting pins that use an external spring and circlip rather than the thicker pin with no visible spring, on the carburettors I got back. So yes, they looked like mine. I thought the thicker lifting pins would be a later design, but Andrew said the type with visible springs came later. Andrew reckoned it was unusual to find S.U. bodies with no drilling for a vacuum pipe, and that the unused tappings were usually blanked off on MGs. In fact the 'rear' carb on the bodies I'd got back had something filling the hole on the outside of the body, as there was a little recess under the paint, and the pin-hole inside the carb, near the butterfly, was still visible. Nothing at all on the bodies that were originally mine. Just cast metal. Andrew also said something about my linkages being a mix of MG and something else, although I didn't exactly follow. At first I thought he was saying my linkages were not original, but he said he knew my car was an automatic so would have a kickdown linkage, but he was making comparisons with MGs and there was something different, even allowing for the automatic transmission modifications, to what he'd normally see on MG carbs. I think that is what he was saying, anyway. I guess even though someone had put a recommendation for his services in an issue of 'Understeer', they only had a single Marina S.U. built up, whereas mine is effectively a 'TC' and an automatic at that, so I bet Andrew Turner hasn't seen many of those. Another case of the 'MG engine in a Marina' meaning, don't assume you can fit MG parts. It still doesn't completely explain why I got the wrong bodies back, but as I said, if I give him the benefit of the doubt, maybe he thought the bodies he picked up were mine and that his experience said all 'B' Series twin S.U. installations were the same. Anyway he is posting the carburettors back to me next week at his expense, so I don't (or shouldn't) need to go to Grantham again.

[Morris McKinnon]

What a headache! They have to be right as the slightest little difference could effect the running of the car, I wouldn't know for sure to be honest but you could then end up looking for an issue with the engine that isn't there. Good to know he's getting it sorted for you.

[mickthefitter]

I've got the S.U.s back. Posted to me, delivered by Parcel Force while I was out, and collected by me yesterday. They look okay. These bodies do not have any holes for vacuum take-off stubs so they suit my car. However I've still got questions. Last week when I went to see Andrew Turner and he produced two naked S.U. bodies and asked me if they looked like mine, I looked and both appeared to have the small drilled hole for the type of piston lifting pin that has an external spring retained by a tiny circlip, which Andrew said was the later design. These were how my original carbs were, so these looked like my bodies. What I've got back is one carburettor with the type of thicker piston lifting pin that has the concealed spring, and one with the circlip. So does this mean he's drilled one of them out, or is this yet another different body? Even though last week he told me that when he'd searched, the two bodies he showed me were the only spare HS4 bodies he had in stock. Also I remember being told he would transfer all the 'original' parts I took back over to my 'original' bodies, including the float chambers - which on the ones I took in, had been wafted with silver paint. On my latest carbs, the float chambers are bare bead-blasted alloy. So not the same ones, I'd say. So even though the lids are done up tight with fresh gaskets, I feel obliged to take a look inside to see if there's any compacted debris at the bottom. None of this amounts to any reason to reject the carbs and as long as they've been built right, they should be functionally adequate. However - one of them has come back without the idle speed setting screw. Another email has been sent along with the photo seen below this text.

Honestly - is it too much to ask these days to get a job done right?

[mickthefitter]

New ignition components fitted today, all apart from spark plugs, which will be renewed before the fire-up. Points, condenser, rotor arm (a new red 'high performance' one, like the one taken off) distributor cap and leads. I was a bit unsure whether to change the condenser, since in recent years I seem to have heard so many stories about bad ones failing quickly after being fitted new, and I never seemed to bother changing the condenser along with the points when I did them 'back in the day', only swapping condensers if I had a persistent problem. However the one I'd bought, like the rest of the stuff, was Lucas, from Mini Spares, so I've fitted it and kept the old one as a spare. The HT leads I bought were the ones Chris linked me to, from Leacy, and they fit fine, though I've since discovered Mini Sport sell the same GHT184 set for A Series engines....though Mini Spares do not. And on Thursday or Friday, since I'm now on Moss's mailing list, they sent me a big flyer with special offers and GHT184 was being sold for around £8! Darn it. I've also set the timing statically again, since it would have been way out from the last time the engine was running when I was attempting to set it by ear, as advised by a retired carburettor specialist. The carbs are sitting under my coffee tables along with a VHS collection of Last Of The Summer Wine, Series 1 (not mine, given to me to copy onto DVD) awaiting Mr. Turner's response to my lack of idle setting screw in one of them, and he won't reply over the weekend, I know that already...

[mickthefitter]

Confusingly I've just discovered Lucas do a DCB104C condenser for the 45D distributor, which is mostly listed for MGs, but also the Rover Mini, while the one I've just fitted is a GSC2109, which is the one Google says is for Minis, yet eBay sellers say "Also fits other BL applications of the 45D distributor". Oh good. That's as clear as mud then.

[Morris McKinnon]

Does the other carb need an idle screw? I thought they work in tandem.

[balmy]

Does the other carb need an idle screw? I thought they work in tandem.

Both carbs have one.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[mickthefitter]

Its how you balance the twin carbs. Slacken the linkage, match the air intake between the two using the idle speed screws, then clamp the linkage up.

[Morris McKinnon]

Ah right. Something I need to know when I finally get a TC The dream will come true one day

[mickthefitter]

Yeah it was always a mystery to me till I got this, then when I read up on the procedure I thought "Is that all there is to it?" Still to find out if I can get it right yet though, after the rebuild. By now I've heard various 'preferred' methods of judging the balance between the two carbs, depending on who I talk to. I sold my crappy Gunson Carbalancer and bought a German snail-like instrument off eBay to try to do it this time, rather than use the piece-of-fuel-pipe-to-the-ear method, or A. Turner's suggestion that you can match the air intake visually by looking how high each piston has risen inside the venturi. I've also heard conflicting advice about whether one piston should rise momentarily before the other when you rev the engine. Some say yes, others say no, and that it would indicate a problem. It seems to me that a lot of folklore surrounds classic cars and their maintenance nowadays, sometimes in deference to sound knowledge.

[mickthefitter]

Yaaay!

[mickthefitter]

I should have posted this a week-and-a-bit ago, but I was short on time and then the server for this forum went down! A week last Saturday (or Sunday, I forget) I nailed the carburettors back onto the side of the engine. Unfortunately progress then came to a halt again, mainly because I found myself short of a few parts once again. I seem to be responsible for the main one - I can't find the choke cable trunnion. The tiny bit that clamps the cable. I believed I'd removed it when taking the carbs off for a rebuild and probably have, but while all my nuts and washers and everything else related to stripping the carbs off was safe and easily found, the choke cable trunnion has gone walkies. But seeing as I couldn't see the trunnion or where it fitted in any photos I took of the old carbs on removal, I started to doubt I WAS responsible at first because yet again, I've discovered some bits I got back from Andrew Turner are probably not my originals. The re-plated linkage bars came with the centre throttle cable return spring already hooked around the pin of the cable clamp, behind the split cotter pin and plain washer. But looking at the assembly diagram in my manual, and THEN my old photos, I found the spring should be hooked through a metal tag that dangles from the pin, not the pin itself, and also there should be a curved washer of some sort behind the cotter pin and plain washer. Not there....but present in my old photos of the assembled carburettors. And since it is apparent that much of the re-plating has been done with everything in situ, i.e. unscrew a nut and the metal underneath is rusty, then if these linkages were not dismantled, THEY ARE NOT MINE. Trivial, minor details perhaps, but more evidence that 'my' rebuilt carburettors were just an assembly of parts he happened to have. This is NOT the service he offered me. While it remains to be seen if the rebuilt carbs are up to a serviceable standard, and right now I assume they will be, if I have any need in the future of an S.U. carburettor rebuild service, I will be looking for someone else. Also I noticed my choke lever stop screws were slightly bent. Removing these for a better look also confirmed they'd been plated in situ, along with the butterfly operating levers and cams, because their threads had rust where they were screwed in. I managed to straighten the screws up a bit. I swear my old screws were not bent when I was originally playing with the carbs trying unsuccessfully to tune them, before they went away. Again - potentially these are parts from another car, not mine. All the cheese head screws on the carbs looked like used screws with slightly burred slots that have been re-plated, which my friend Dennis of the classic motor bikes said would annoy him. Also no spring washers were used anywhere and also the carb ID tags, usually fixed to the float chamber lids, which were present when sent away, aren't there any more. Well, what's the point? These carburettors are just an assembly of bits, not original carbs! It's a good job I'm not trying to re-create a concours example because I'd be completely stuffed trying to make my car look like a factory example under the bonnet if I wanted to retain the original details.

The better news is that after an unsuccessful attempt to get the cable attachment parts from an eBay seller who I bought some S.U. manifold gaskets off (as I was two short from Andrew Turner) I found them on the Mini Spares website, so that's where I've ordered them from. I know Minis only had A Series engines but some had HS4 carburettors and in any case, little parts like I need are often common to other cars, but I find the Mini Spares website in particular, and some other Mini websites much easier to navigate and identify parts on, than the likes of Rimmer Brothers or Moss.

While sorting through some of my spares that came with the car, I cleaned the muck off the old inhibitor switch that came in an old Lucas box along with an old fuel filter. Presumably it is scrap anyway, but wires were never meant to be soldered to the spade connectors, were they?

[mickthefitter]

I also went to the Nottingham Autokarna in the grounds of Wollaton Hall, purely as a spectator, on June 4th and possibly this was my favourite car there, although the photo doesn't really do it justice. The Roy Haynes designed Cortina Mk2, possibly my favourite Cortina, though I never owned one. My two were Mk3s. This one is a 1970 1600 DeLuxe with brown vinyl bench seats front and back, column change, umbrella handbrake, and it appeared to have been fitted with 1600E wood veneer door cappings, and it also had a wood veneer dash, but not the 1600E instruments, so I'm not sure what model the dash was off. Or even if this late on in production, it might have been fitted with it from new. Before I was old enough to drive, Cortina Mk2s were always a car I fancied having, possibly because they were just a typical car shape, with a bonnet, a roof, and a boot. That's probably why I prefer the Marina to the Allegro.

I suppose you could think of the Cortina Mk2 as the Marina's dad!

There were no Marinas and no Vauxhall Vivas at Wollaton, and there never are. (Except once I saw an immaculate green HC Viva but it never re-appeared other subsequent years). There were several Audax Rootes cars, Ford 100Es, Wolseley 1500s, Farinas, one Standard Ensign and one Phase 3 Vanguard, and even more than one example of older stuff like Lanchesters and Crossleys. And a sea of MGs, Morris Minors, Minis etc. But no Vivas or Marinas. Which apart from my past history with both, is why I think they appeal to me as a classic car.

[Morris McKinnon]

At least you'll have a wealth of knowledge on SU carbs I think I have some spare choke pivot tubes here. You can have one if you can't find yours. They always go bloody missing them things
Nice mk2 Cortina. My dad had a white one in 1973 (before my time) he said they were a gem of a car. Interesting note, the boot lock and catch are the same as the mk1 Marina, mk1 Cortina's and Escort's also

[mickthefitter]

Oh right! I didn't know the odd bit off Cortinas was shared with Marinas! More of a connection than I thought!
It's okay about the choke connection parts, the ones I ordered should be on the way. Thanks for the offer though. I did consider posting about that little problem here to see if anybody could help, but then after trying another S.U. 'expert' on eBay and coming up with nothing from Burlen's website, I remembered my bookmarked Mini parts suppliers and there they were.