In the last post I told you about how Soph and I went to the NSRA Southern Swap where I picked up an Offy intake and the 390 Holley for the T Rod. I have come to realise why it was quite so cheap.
I set about rebuilding the carb and luckily only found one missing part, the accelerator pump needle valve, which by all accounts is very common. That's not a big deal, they're about 91p or so. The carb had clearly been apart and not worked for quite some time, the floats were completely out of whack and would have flooded instantly and there were tons of gaskets and seals missing etc.
If you ever have to rebuild a carb, something I like to do is to use four bolts and 8 nuts to make a simple and stable carb stand to make working on it a lot easier, you don't have any interference with the throttle mechanism and can open up the butterflies and not damage anything, I think I used M8 x 100mm bolts but could be wrong, you can see how it works in the pic above
The bigger issue came when I started to clean up the intake. I soaked it in degreaser and let it sit for a while thinking it would be better to get the chunks of gunk and dirt off of it before blasting, as I scrubbed away and started to clean up the mating surfaces it became apparent that what I had purchased was more of a paper weight than a performance part.
Please excuse the quality of the photos, I only had my laptop webcam to hand in the shed. I'm going to attempt to repair the crack with HTS-2000, a low temperature aluminium repair rod, not dissimilar to brazing for aluminium. If, for whatever reason, it doesn't work then I'll have to pay a visit to an engineer friend and see if he can TIG weld it for me.
I've been pretty busy this last couple of weeks. I've also made up a new seat box. New probably isn't the operative word, what I have replaced was actually a very basic 2 x 1" wooden frame that served very little purpose. What I replaced it with on the other hand is a series of 11 mm OSB triangles 4" at the front tapering to nothing at the back, this should help alleviate the knee and lower back pain I was experiencing when driving the T Rod.
As with everything I started by measuring the width at the front edge for the seat to determine the width of the front of the riser, which is the part resting on the bench. I then cut out the triangles where the top length will be the depth of the seat, the height is the 4" that I want front to be raised by and the remaining dimension, the base, was pre determined by the other two measurements and the angle of the front board. To assemble the cut boards I used parts of the cut up old frame, glued pre-drilled and screwed together and left it to dry with a brace keeping the back end in the right place, that's the nasty bit of wood at the top of the picture with some right angle brackets on each end.
I left the basic frame to dry over night, it was getting late and I was getting very sore, so I decided to call it a day. The next evening I got back out into the shed and made the top, again from 11 mm OSB, a glued and screwed construction boxing all of the joints and adding a lot of rigidity to the seat box. What you cannot see is the additional 2 x 1" bracing I have cut to fit with matching angles at the upper front of the box and along the sides to add more rigidity and a sufficient enough structure for me to attach mounting brackets. I cut out the bases of the driver and passenger seats in case this works out as well as I hope. This will enable me to attach seat webbing to the base in the future so I have the option of re-upholstering the seats and replacing the current foams etc.
For a bit of added protection, and to disguise the little bit that pokes up above the carpet, I painted everything in a black metal paint, a no name Hammerite alternative, which is also suitable for use on wood, I simply applied a very thin base coat and an average top coat to ensure I had good adhesion to the board.
At the beginning of the seat box construction, after just a few cuts with my circular saw, I had a bit of a strop. I've been in need of a decent, by DIY standards at least, table saw for quite some time and decided to throw down my tools, check the net, place my reservation and head out to the tool store and pick up a saw that I have been lusting over for a good few months, the Evolution Fury5, with the added bonus of a £20 discount.
The Evolution Fury5 is a 255 mm table saw that not only cut wood but also up to 3 mm steel. The only real issue was that straight out of the box the saw was set up very badly, with over 7 mm of run out in the blade angle, it took me quite some time to square the blade, I ended up having to remove the grille on the bottom of the saw and undo 4 allen bolts that mount the saw, align the blade and attempt to keep it there whilst tightening the bolts. I had to leave one of the bolts out as when tightened, even slightly, it would move the blade out of line. Eventually I managed to get it all lined up right and it now cuts a two foot length of board with no run out at all. It is a shame that it wasn't this good straight away, but I'm happy that it works so well and made making the seat box a pleasure, and a damn sight easier than using my circular saw.
As we were heading to the tool store Soph and I were chatting about whether I should buy my new welder while we're there or leave it until it was needed, I came to the conclusion that it would be better to leave it for another day, not wanting to tie up cash in something I don't need just yet. I had decided that I'd just walk in, go to the counter and collect the saw that I'd reserved, not look around, just get in, get out and get back home to assemble it and get the seat box finished.
As I went through the door I had that "kid in a candy store" type feeling and went against my decision and had a look around, attempting to convince myself that I don't need loads of shiny new tools, I turned to Soph and said, "Nearly done, we just gotta go check out the cheap bit, always worth a look." The store has a section, at the back, set aside for returns, refurbs, ex-demo, ex-display tools, boxes etc. I'm glad I changed my mind. Sitting in the corner, on the bottom shelf, was a little Clarke 151EN Gas/Gas-less welder with a huge £80 discount, it'd been used in a demonstration at a trade show, or an in-store demo and was in excellent condition, having been fully tested just 12 days prior. I was devastated, I had only bought enough cash to purchase the table saw. As I was grizzling that I'd left my cash card back at home, Soph piped up that she had her purse in the car and was happy to loan me the cash to buy the little welder. Needles to say, I walked away a happy man. With welder and table saw in hand, well... carried by Soph and on a sack barrow by one of the guys that worked at the store, they loaded up the car and away we went.
I'm still finding it all a little too coincidental, how I had my sights set on just getting the saw and getting home, not buying a welder, waiting until later etc. Then going against everything I'd said and finding exactly what I wanted, at a much lower price, with no more money in my pocket, to be rescued by a friend with a money card, and come away with my new welder. I guess life's just like that some times, and that day, I won and in the end that's all that matters.
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