Kate's MG, Part 9

At the end of Part 8, I was impatiently waiting for carburetor parts from Virginia-based Moss Motors. In actuality it only took a week, and most of that was not Moss' fault. I ordered the parts on a Saturday, and they shipped Monday morning, via USPS. Not UPS, but the post office. According to the post office tracking site, the parts sat in the Richmond, VA postal facility for about four days! But finally they were delivered yesterday, and today after church I got right to work. This little pile of stuff is what $100 worth of MG carburetor parts looks like:

I already had the carbs off the car and the leaking front carb on the stand. Swapping the seat and needle valve was trivial, and then I needed to adjust the float level. Fortunately, I had found a video detailing exactly what to do (link). The adjustment is made by bending the little metal tab on the float:

According to the video, there should be just a tiny bit of clearance between a straightedge and the float at the center of the curve. When I first installed it, there was a LOT of clearance:

In the video the very experience technician just bent the tab with it installed, but I decided to be hyper-cautious, and removed the float each time, holding it at the back where the tab is riveted to the plastic, and carefully bending it. It took several tries, but finally I had both carbs where I wanted them.

I was feeling pretty confident. The technician talked about the "strong spring" in the needle valves, and the spring in the new valves was noticeably stronger than the ones I removed. I was able to successfully do the "air test" where you blow into a clean hose attached to the inlet, and stop the flow of air by moving the float. Ready to test! I reassembled everything, put it on the car, and hooked up my custom overflow bottle I made in Part 8. 

After a test, I learned two things:

1. Double-dog-dang it! Now the rear carb was leaking!

2. My overflow tank was useless - the gas still leaked from the carb and onto the floor. I could hear the carburetor gods laughing. "You just thought you were going to avoid another gas spill!"

So, off came the carbs again - remember, you have to remove them as a pair because of the linkage between them. I reinstalled the rear carb on the stand, and took it back apart. It all looked OK, but then I remembered that in the video, the technician mentioned that although the specification in the manual has a gap, he always installed it so the float touched the straightedge. I re-bent the tab to accomplish that, put it all back together, and tried again. And it worked! Here's a brief video of the engine running sweetly, with no leaks.

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So, I'm all done with carburetors, right? Not quite... take a look at this picture:

See that little tab pointed to by the red arrow? That's supposed to be over where the blue arrow is! In my excitement to try again, I managed to install that part of the linkage upside down. And yes, the only way to fix it is to remove the carbs one more time. No biggie - at this point, I think I could remove those carbs with my eyes closed.

So next time I'm in the shop, I'll fix that mistake, and change the oil. That's a real necessity, because when the carbs leak like this recent disaster, it pollutes the oil with gasoline. I got a great deal on some Valvoline "racing oil" with a high concentration of zinc - just what you need for an older engine like this one. 

Once that's done, my work on Kate's MG will come to an end. It will go to John Zimmerman's detailing shop for a good cleaning, and then I'll create a good Craigslist ad to help Kate sell the car.

Continue on to Part 10...