rough ride after paint shop.

[toecutter]

I just drove my car home from the paint shop with it's nice new red paint job. It has been a long wait seeing it is a hobby car and left it in a freinds shop in which it sat for about 6 months before it was finally finished. The engine bay got vey dusty including my ramflow filters on the SU's. The drive home was slow, had to keep the revs up so it would'nt stall. Very rough idle, sounded like only 1 carb was working.

At the moment I'm in the process of putting all the new door seals and retrimmed int back into the car and will see to the carbies next. Before i start cleaning up around those carbies any tips to offer. Could dust have got through the spongy filter n into the carbs??? I hope I don't get hassles from them.

open to advice guys!

[JEFF]

When it comes time to check out the carbs. Be sure you drain the 6 month old gas out of everything and put in fresh stuff.

Try running it without the air filters on - maybe for a mile or two. If no change or little change occures then take the domes off the tops of the carbs, lift out the pistons and spray carb cleaner into the jet bung with the carb cleaner 'straw' attached.(be sure that you do not bend or damage in any way, the needles attached to the bottom of the pistons. Replace the domes(sameway that they came out), top off the damper oil and run it again with out the filters unless you cleaned/replaced them. If this trial does not fix the rough idle and power loss then your carbs are in need of a rebuilding. My thought is to have them profesionaly reworked if it comes down to needing it.

- Jeff

[beandip]

:classic: Had you been driving the car regularly before taking it into the paint shop? What I am asking here is if the fuel was fresh before the paint. If so I doubt the fuel is the trouble if only 6mo. old . You could have a clogged filter. Now this next possability could be the trouble as I have heard of it several times. Some one could have used your tank as a convient yurnal ,which puts some "water" in the mix. Especially if you dont have good relationship with the workers doing the preping. It does happen! :sick: Other wise having the car painted should have no effect on the running of the engine, the engine was not running when the painting was done so the air intake filters should only slightly effected , like driving down a dusty road at most. A water removal addittive may be good here and also filling the tank to delute any contamination . By the way you may still have the filters at the inlet to the float bowl of the carbs. and it could be clogged . good luck Gary :classic:

[JEFF]

Beandip - exelent thoughts!!

- Jeff

[Bambikiller240]

If these "Ramflow" filters are of the foam variety, the paint and thinner suspended in the air while the car was being painted, can get to the filters and depending on the foam, may have begun to dissolve the foam which actually closes of the air passages that the carbs breathe through. It can cause a major restriction on air flow through the foam filter. Easy enough to check, remove the filter & fire it up. Sometimes, just touching the foam filter will show you how the airborne thinners can disolve the foam. I've seen them simply fall apart from this kind of contamination.

just a thought

Carl

[toecutter]

Thanx guys-I pulled the domes off the other day and found the 1st carb to be empty of oil. It looks like they will need rebuilding. But for the moment I'm just gonna get it throught the pits for rego purposes. The sponges seemed ok although i will change them.

I'm gonna refill the carbs with transmission fluid. Would this be the correct oil to use? A friend of mine is using this in his.

I've also found that I've blown the manifold/exhaust gasket. Those washers on the headers I put on don't hold them very well even though I grinded back half of the bloody thing. Anyone have this problem with headers they've used on an L26?

...oh and urine in my fuel tank???...well what can i say, that's just left me speechless!!!...well hopefully that's not the case, but yes Gary I will definately check out the float bowls as you are the 3rd person to mention this so hopefully the problem will be fixed tommorrow seeing i want to get it registered and then lowered 2 inches as soon as possible.

thanx fella's, hope to post some pix soon!