Sidevalve carb wanted

[DAVIDMCCULLOUGH]

Ive been having a lot of trouble with hot starting on the MM, its fine when going and on the move but if you stop for 5 minutes and go to restart it doesnt want to go.

I looked at lots of sidevalves at the national and noticed the newer cars had the float chamber at the front, towards the radiator were as mine is at the back only about 2inches from the hot exhaust. Not the best idea! Also the petrol pipe is only about an inch away from the exhaust.

Ive already fitted a heat shield to the float which has helped but still not elimated the problem. Next Im going to re route the pertol pipe over the gearbox and along under the battery box. And lastly i would like to find the later carb with the float to the front, also the bracket for the throttle if possible and fit these.

Does anyone have any other ideas that might help?

Thanks
Dave

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[mike.perry]

Fuel vapourisation is a familiar problem with the lowlight MM. It is caused as you have pointed out by the fuel pipe running close to the exhaust pipe. This can be cured by re routing the fuel line or cutting the pipe and sleeving it with a length of modern plastic fuel line which will act as an insulator.
The float chamber and linkage on the carb can probably be stripped out and reassembled the opposite way round but not really necessary.
On the later engines there is a bakerlite spacer between the carb and the manifold and I know from people who have made a heatproof spacer that it is very effective at curing hot starting problems.

[Scott]

I had the same problem with mine. Fitting a spacer (2 in my case) as decsribed by MP solved it for me.
I still have the fuel pipe in the original spot & no heatshields at all. She's fine in 40+ degC temps - I just wish I was .

In regards to mounting the bowl at the front; it should be possible to do this with your own carby but unbolting the bowl & fitting it the other way around. You'll need to swap over your throttle spindle + choke fittings too.
(Disclaimer: I haven't done this myself but it looks feasible if you can't get another carb).

[tortron]

i have done the above with a spare carb i had (the choke piviot point was broken)
you may need a little fettling to mount the accelerator cable on the head, also some may be needed for the choke cable (perhaps a longer cable)

[DAVIDMCCULLOUGH]

I finally got around to cutting the petrol pipe and making it longer. I cut the pipe roughly were the exhaust heat shield is and used about 3ft of rubber pipe, the rubber bit went over the gearbox with a cable tie to the steering rack to keep it out of the way and then out above the starter and joined to the copper again and ran along below the battery box.

This seems to have made a vast difference, the car now ticks over much better. Before you had to keep revving it to keep it going and if stopped for a few minutes would not start again until it had all cooled down. Very frustrating specailly if it stopped in the middle of a junction if you forgot to keep the revs up.....

A good test was getting stuck in traffic yesterday at school time and it kept running.

[stevey]

good, glad it made a difference. Can I have another go? wont break it again, i promise, ah go on go on go etc.....