Ferrari Mailing List: Re: Was Hallett - now the thrills of syncing carb, etc.

[Erik Nielsen (judge4re]

The Russians source "dip" from here:

http://www.tractorsupply.com/tsc/product/crown-psc-1000-parts-cleaner-5-gal?cm_vc=-10005

Pretty sure that is banned in California. The original Safety Kleen is also good.

If you want something nastier and bespoke, I can give you a recipe for a witches brew that will give you cancer just looking at it.  Even stronger than the well-water out of East Newark...

Dr. "I think I picked the wrong week to stop sniffing glue" E.

Don't try this at home kids. 

Sent from my iPad

On Dec 29, 2015, at 7:08 PM, Doug & Terri <dnt [at] dock.net> wrote:

Birthday?  Wahl there Pilgrim – let’s start this little ol note off with a hardy HAPPPPPY Birthday.  Many happy returns.

 

About syncing carbs – picture this – 1972, our 1969 912 (our wedding present to ourselves) had a 12 foot stall.  Wazzat?  After stopping in an intersection to make a left hand turn and then getting a clear space I take off.  12 feet into a left hand turn the engine would cough cough, think about a few nano seconds, catch, and take off as if nothing had happened.  &^$&^#$%%^$ YIPES as headlight glared down on me as if to say “Banzai - - -.”

 

Took it to the dealership – “yeah, they’re like that with the smog carburetor.”  (^%#$&^%$)   I am learning.  Now there are two Solex PII-4’s with the same name but just a bit different.  Smog carbs for 1968 and ’69 and then all the other years back to James Dean’s 550 Spyder.  “They are exactly the same except for the differences”  Ahhhhh. ??  Well, enough of that – I am going to fix it.

 

Having disassembled and reassembled my 1966 VW bug carb nearly 2000 times – I was ready for this.  Undo the banjo bolts, drain carbs, and remove them from the black plastic coated smog intake manifolds.  Correct nuts are 12mm ATF and NOT 13mm.  See 13’s on Solex PII’s?  Tut tut.  Off comes the top (square screw heads?) and remove the little accel injectors.  I have the gazillion dollar glass vial to measure a two stroke volume and also have the two gazillion dollar float level gauge plus a special small screw driver to assemble the gauge.  All this is tucked away in a specialized, very nice, M26 hand grenade shipping container.  Quite nice really.

 

First thing I notice in the accel jet bores is a loose machined round brass plugs.  One in each of the accelerator pump jet injection wells.  They drop out easily.  Each end has a milled slit on each end.  Never have fathomed what these are for or why the expensive machining.  Old pre-smog PII 4 carbs don’t have these.  These go into one of my Gerber baby food fruit jars and there they sit today in my “Porsche” drawer.

 

Since the correct tuning of these carbs is to turn the idle mixture screw in until the rpm starts to drop then add (for the first go around) ½ a turn out.  I soldered some washers into the idle screw head slits.  A trick from old Mac chain saw carb / kart days.  To get a screw driver into those slits while the engine is running is chancy and aggravating what with the frame only a few inches away – no room.  And after a turn or two bouncing about - now where was I anyway?  Soldered in washers gives ample grip and a nice index where the dang screw thing is in relationship to turns.

 

Cleaned the parts in stuff only Russian missile refulers are able to get now.  I think it was Mechanics Brand carb dip from some car shop.  –rick and I discussed moons ago.  BOY that stuff was good - - - and dangerous and VERY smelly.  Came in a 1 gallon container with a with nifty parts cleaner basket.

 

Side note – was still a newlywed and we had set up the nest on the top floor of a three story 40 unit nice quad apt complex with a pool in the middle run by an ancient old lady who musta been in her 50’s – each apt had a nice deck with a heavy rubberized coating and a light tan sand painted surface.  Nice for catching some rays.  Now our apt manager, a fine lady who probably was cut loose from working the San Quintin State Prison just outside of San Rafael, CA, staff for liking her job too much would barely let a person wash their car let alone, oh my, oh my, change their oil. 

 

That didn’t stop me but I was selective when I did it.  So I clean the carbs,  A-Bomb cleaner is water soluble & I hose them off, take them inside, do the soap and hot and vacuum cleaner trick to get the water out of the orifices and tunnels and placed them in the oven on low to insure dry surfaces thru out.  No – no problems here – but wait.  I proceed to reassemble and we’ll continue there in a minute.  Back to the 1 gallon bucket of A-Bomb Cleaner.  Since it stinks, I place it outside on our south facing 3^rd story rubberized deck.  Still no problem - yet.  Sun comes out and I believe it was early summer.  Now the problem.  I am at work in San Francisco – about 45 minutes to an hour from our apt.  At about 2:00 o’clock in the afternoon honorable #1 wife calls – A-Bomb cleaner can exploded – top blew off and tipped the can over (with the nifty parts cleaner basket) – and the stinking caustic elixir gleefully ran down our deck and over the side down two stories below and into the bushes.  Deck rubber seems to about 3 inches taller.

 

OH GEEEE-sus.  I skedaddle home expecting to see Mgr. Broom Hilda with an eviction notice.  Nope.  Get a hose, hose down everything, and in a few days, but not more than a week the birds return.  There is only a hint of past trouble.  Our rubber deck gave up its plasticizer and returned to sort of normal.  Never stored that stuff where the sun could aggravate it and never heard a word from the manager.

 

Now back to syncing carbs.  All assembled and placed on the intake manifolds.  Throttle arms off, and start the engine.  The carbs are down drafts and are set up, on throat over each cylinder.  One carb over cyl 1 & 2 on one side and one over cyl 3 & 4 on the other, parallel to the midline of the car.  Rough it in first so it sorta idles smooth.  Then dial it in – the instructions say, ‘Sync the carbs from the rear throat to the front for each carb then from left side to right side balance each carb.  Here’s the rub.  I look at this and the “rear” throat is the one furthest from me - - - WRONG.  I later learn, rear is rear.

 

Since these are split shaft carbs I am trying to balance them using the variable throat!  I made a hash of it.  Idle goes up and down – never quiet – I’m in shorts and the backs of my legs are getting sunburned while my thighs are getting blistered because I am 8 inches from the horizontal muffler.  I spent an entire afternoon on it and got it to the point where it would sorta kinda idle if I was real gentle on takeoff and braking.

 

The next day, Sunday, at the auto cross, Burl Brown, the resident –rick, is there.  He too has a 1969 91.  I snivel to him about my (sob) problem.  Hmmm, he says – got your tools?  Ayep.  Within 10 minutes – give a take a few seconds, Burl had that engine purring.  Rear is rear, the throat CLOSEST to me.  The idle mixture, which could be set the previous day because the engine was hunting, is set with a tachometer and zip zip zip.  The final trick?  Pull up the radio antenna and look at it.  If no oscillations – idle is set.  And after Burl got done with it – the antenna look as if the engine wasn’t running.  Thanks Burl – where ever you are.

 

Onward

DOUG

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