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Caesar, The Red 1275E


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#436 Vinay-RS

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Posted 07 July 2019 - 01:18 PM

Got the castle nuts torqued to the correct spec on Saturday after buying a suitably strong torque wrench on Friday.

The choke cable was getting very stuck when I tried using it. Turns out it had completely frayed on the inside, so I'll need to get a new one.

Sunday came along and I decided I'd tidy up the garage and pack away tools and stuff. I thought that perhaps the heater cable and choke cable were the same and I could use a brand new heater cable that I had in storage. They're not the same and the heater cable is shorter.

Anyway, a friend came through so that we could try and get the car going without the choke. Turns out there's a massive leak at the manifold gasket, so I'll need to get that replaced. Assuming of course that there isn't an issue with the actual inlet or exhaust manifolds. I wouldn't be surprised if there was. I like to think that Murphy has been sitting on my shoulder as of late and his law is affecting every part of my life.

I then tried to take apart the little throttle bracket on the manifold and proceeded to snap off that stud/bolt.

That abbreviation about the problem being between the seat and the steering wheel rings true right now. I'm very good at breaking the car...

#437 Vinay-RS

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Posted 09 July 2019 - 11:52 AM

Got the carbs off yesterday evening and found the source of the blown gasket. I have a feeling this happened when they knocked on the y-piece at the garage I took the car to for the exhaust. 

Dc96yeL.jpg

 

Bit annoyed but it looks like the chrome plating is flaking already, but the more solid zinc plating seems to be holding up well. Glad that they used both on this one. 

VPTgmVD.jpg

 

Also, I think I stuffed up when fitting the locating ring as this is how one of them looked when I pulled it out. It was very stuck. 

JtQKGSb.jpg

 

I did a thing over the weekend and checked if the little light I had would fit under the bumper, and yay! it did! 

RrfWFqH.jpg

 

Now to wire it up with the mkII lights at some stage soon. 

 

@Tim (timmy850), I checked the thicknesses of the two drive shafts. Mine were identical to within tolerances. The driver's side shaft was 25.87 mm, checked at 3 places, and the passenger side shaft was 25.72 mm. Guessing they're supposed to be an inch. 



#438 johnR

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Posted 09 July 2019 - 12:26 PM

That locating ring is an unusual shape - how on earth do you think it became distorted like that?



#439 Vinay-RS

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Posted 09 July 2019 - 03:41 PM

That locating ring is an unusual shape - how on earth do you think it became distorted like that?

I think I mangled it when I was getting it in the first time. Then when removing it, it got mangled some more. I'm going to try and get it into the correct shape, but I've ordered some replacements since either way the car is waiting on a new choke cable and gaskets. 



#440 Vinay-RS

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Posted 13 July 2019 - 01:34 PM

Got the manifold fixed by the folks at our university workshop. Turns out the stud on the inlet manifold has two thread sizes on the inside and out, so they drilled it out and tapped it to an M8 then dropped in a bolt. 

 

Got that back home on Friday, picked up a gasket from my good friend and got to work. Removed the manifold studs, popped out the old gasket. Fitted the new one and the carbs and then the throttle cable. This morning I got the car started and took it to my friend for some help to tune it. After what felt like quite a while we got it tuned quite well I think. It ran decently on a short drive, and it might just need some more fine adjustment after checking it on a longer drive. 



#441 Vinay-RS

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Posted 19 July 2019 - 04:33 AM

Some issues to report on. After a week of driving, the Mini has had some problems. I need to get the choke cable fitted firstly, as I know it will help with cold starts. I think the issues are more around fuelling and timing though. On Monday to Wednesday, the car was struggling to hold its idle speed and wanted to cut out when even I needed to stop at a set of lights. Then on Thursday, it decided to cut out on a rather steep uphill section of road, in bumper to bumper traffic. I got it going again fairly quickly, using both my feet, one on the throttle and one on the brake to keep it from stalling. Very odd feeling driving like that. Then this morning I decided to try and turn up the idle screws on each carb, as it should surely not need choke to keep the idle up after sitting in traffic for 10 minutes. I really need to invest in a carb balancing tool, as I must have messed up badly. When downshifting after a bit of highway driving, the car started to backfire badly, something that I've never experienced before. It then proceeded to cut out as I was getting into work and refused to start back up. I turned down the idle screws to close to the positions they were in at the start of the day, got it going and got the car parked safely. Not a fun experience with the twin carbs so far. 



#442 riktanius

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Posted 19 July 2019 - 08:35 AM

I know it is anecdotal, but you can find quite a few threads on here with people complaining about twin carbs. Might be a good idea to start from scratch and rebuild them identically and set them up identically. 



#443 Vinay-RS

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Posted 19 July 2019 - 11:21 AM

I know it is anecdotal, but you can find quite a few threads on here with people complaining about twin carbs. Might be a good idea to start from scratch and rebuild them identically and set them up identically. 

Check out the rest of the thread. They were rebuilt "identically" and balanced using a gunson carb balancer. I never intended to fit old carbs that weren't rebuilt to the car, I had head about those issues from other folks locally quite often.



#444 riktanius

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Posted 19 July 2019 - 02:25 PM

 

I know it is anecdotal, but you can find quite a few threads on here with people complaining about twin carbs. Might be a good idea to start from scratch and rebuild them identically and set them up identically. 

Check out the rest of the thread. They were rebuilt "identically" and balanced using a gunson carb balancer. I never intended to fit old carbs that weren't rebuilt to the car, I had head about those issues from other folks locally quite often.

 

Oh i saw, it is a GREAT thread. 

I just dont know where you go from here other than starting from scratch. 



#445 Vinay-RS

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Posted 20 July 2019 - 01:21 PM

 

 

I know it is anecdotal, but you can find quite a few threads on here with people complaining about twin carbs. Might be a good idea to start from scratch and rebuild them identically and set them up identically. 

Check out the rest of the thread. They were rebuilt "identically" and balanced using a gunson carb balancer. I never intended to fit old carbs that weren't rebuilt to the car, I had head about those issues from other folks locally quite often.

 

Oh i saw, it is a GREAT thread. 

I just dont know where you go from here other than starting from scratch. 

 

Thanks, man :)  Troubleshooting I suppose. Fit the choke cable, get the fast idle set correctly, check the mixtures and maybe turn the jets up a bit, next set the idle speeds with a carb balancer again. Basically, go by the book once the choke cable is fitted. 



#446 johnR

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Posted 20 July 2019 - 07:00 PM

Yes that's all you can do - get each carb running separately - checking by using the piston lifting pins, then tightening the linkages (after checking they move freely) I bought one of those 'snail shell' airflow meters which is really useful to quickly check that each carb is pulling the same air through.


Edited by johnR, 20 July 2019 - 07:02 PM.


#447 darkrider

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Posted 21 July 2019 - 09:13 PM

Hi I once had a friend who could tune twin carbs by ear! I sometimes wonder if he is still around or gone to car heaven!

#448 Vinay-RS

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Posted 22 July 2019 - 07:40 AM

Hi I once had a friend who could tune twin carbs by ear! I sometimes wonder if he is still around or gone to car heaven!

I've heard about this. It's very cool to see the experienced folks do this. I lack such experience so I'll try the balancing tool first. 



#449 Vinay-RS

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Posted 25 July 2019 - 01:15 PM

Got a hold of a balancing tool on Tuesday morning. 

8UiwYlV.jpg

 

The Mini has been running badly this past week. On Monday it cut out it traffic, started up straight away and then spluttered for 10 min before running properly on the way to work. 

Then on Wednesday it completely cut out just outside my house. Got some help to get it going again and then decided to try and sort it out that evening. 

 

Fitted the new choke cable and it turned out I had a proper fixture for the choke cable onto the carb linkages. Got all that fitted and decided to attempt to use the balancing tool. I failed badly at this so I might ask a friend for some help one evening if possible, when it isn't raining. Definitely need some training in this stuff. 

 

The choke is helping to keep the car going but it is clearly not happy and I think the mixtures to the different sets of pistons is clearly wrong. 



#450 Vinay-RS

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Posted 30 July 2019 - 10:26 AM

So, the Mini cut out on the drive home on Saturday evening from work on the on-ramp to the highway. Turned out, the bad running was misfiring (I now know what that sounds like at least). A friend came through, we fiddled with a few things and got it running and limped it home. The distributor cap was completely worn out apparently, so I needed to source one. The Mini has been parked up since then and turns out none of our local spares shops carry distributor caps or rotors. So I decided to eventually contact a supplier up country to get a few and a few rotor arms as spares for later. 

 

I also sourced the male and female connectors for the mkII/III taillights from a Mini spares supplier in Durban. I will solder them up and once the car is running, I'll fit them and attempt to wire the connectors up. 






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