That’s a good thought. The pump has alway been sufficient in the past, but maybe I have a partial blockage in the line downstream of the pump near the tank. I can sometimes feel a slight misfire if I rev it manually, so using the bottle should eliminate flow from my suspects.Before you take apart the fuel system and rebuild the pump try running the car to fill the float bowls, disconnecting the fuel pipe at the carb, directing into a bottle and starting the car, time how long it takes to get pint of fuel in the bottle, hopefully before the carbs run out.
Convert your findings into GPH (GALLONS PER HOUR )
You can then see if the current set up is giving enough flow. If flow is down it may not be the pump, could be the pick up in the tank, or something else. At least it will take some of the guess work out of it.
Blimey, that’s a mess of problems. I did try a new cap as I had one on the shelf. Old one had some serious tracking on the posts. No change though. New rotor arm arriving today hopefully, although that seemed fine.I once was asked to look at a 3500S1 with a misfire. No 1 was bad. Pulled the head, and after a bit of poking around found the piston crown centre dimple was burned through. Replaced the piston, new shells, reassembled....one intermediate bolt hole had a short bolt in it, partial thread stripped. Got the longest possible bolt (ie close to bottoming, but not), tightened it very gingerly. Fired up - still misfiring - tracking in the dizzy cap - sorted by a new cap.
Well, the rings looked fine. I did replace the oil control rings with spares I had just to be safe.
All back together now, while I had things apart is was able to sort out the misalignment in the alternator bracket. Turned out it was just a spacer on the wrong side of adjuster strap pivot put that in the right place and all was square again.
Anyways, the engine is back together, carbs are balanced and mixture retuned. Car feels about as good as before she started missing a little. I guess I’ll have to wait a few hundred miles to check for oil on no. 2 spark plug, but I reckon she’ll be fine now.
The realignment of the alternator strap seems to have helped, no more squeak when you blip the throttle. Result!
Thanks Steve, Ah that's a new one on me. I'll give that a try this evening.There was a small puff of smoke on startup of sitting (classic stem seal smoke). Other than that it was fine. The rings I used when I went to 2200 pistons years ago. The only time I had to change a set of rings was when one set lost compression a few years ago. There was wasn’t noticeable smoke, but crank case pressure was present and oil would leak everywhere! In that case I think it was the compression rings that failed and not the oil control rings.
have you noticed a drop in brake fluid on your car? Smoke tends to come from a bad brake servo letting brake fluid into the engine. You can test this by removing the vacuum line to the intake manifold and blanking the port on the intake. Bear in mind you’ll not have servo assistance on the brakes, but if the smoke goes away - there’s your culprit.
Yes, front carb feed Cyls 1&2, rear carb 3&4.Steve one more question please. On the TC's does Carb 1 feed fuel to Cylinder 1&2 and Carb 2 to cylinders 3&4 ?
Thanks Steve, I got a UniSync tool and I'm getting a ColorTune tomorrow, see if I can get those Carbs sorted. And the exhaust flanges are on the way!Yes, front carb feed Cyls 1&2, rear carb 3&4.
Not at all, I'm with you.Excellent news! When it comes to tuning the carbs I like to start by setting the jets 1.8mm below the bridge (I use the depth gauge on the bottom of my digital calipers to measure). Make sure both are at the same point.
Then adjust idle screws to balance intake speed with the Unisyn. don’t worry about setting the final idle speed yet.
Now set the throttle bar fingers so you have no lost motion. When you just start to open the throttle both butterflies should open simultaneously.
Now adjust your mixture screws (turn both screws the same amount when you do) keep leaning off until the idle rises then drops. Back off until fastest idle and richer by about 1/4 of a turn on each mixture screw.
Now you can adjust your final idle speed.
One thing to be aware of: carbs are last on the list of adjustments you should make. Ensure that you have the valve clearances set correctly (a true PITA to set if change is needed - but well worth effort). That valve timing is correct, that the ignition timing is close to correct. Most importantly - people buy rebuild kits for carbs. That just replaces the needles, jets and gaskets. The real wear items on SU carbs are the spindles and bushes. If those have excessive wear you will never get it to hold a tune. You can do an easy test of spindle wear by having the car idle, and spray some starting fluid around where the spindles enter the carb body. If you see a difference in idle speed (up or down) you know they’re worn.
Sorry for the wall of words. I hope they make sense?