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BJ8 Float bowl vent pipes

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John French

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After spending the last 4 years rebuilding the mechanicals on my 1967 BJ8 I have a question / picture request regarding the routing of the float chamber vents.
I got some excellent pictures from the forum of the manifold drains and now am moving on to installing the carburettors.
I have asked a few people about this and they seem to think the short, banjo, steel pipe with the 90 degree bend is all there should be.
My car has always (at least for the 30 years I've owned it) had some hard, black plastic hoses that extend the vents considerably. I'm pretty sure that at least one of them attaches to the heat shield with a "P"clamp.
Could anyone clarify and also confirm my belief that nothing goes through the 11/16" (or thereabouts) holes in the heat shield?
Many thanks in advance.
 
Both overflow tubes go down through the larger hole in the carb shield. They must extend below the engine and especially past the exhaust.
 
I think ther is a bracket that attaches to a pan bolt down close to the frame or I made one that secures the plastic drain hoses in place???
 
I think that this pic is an earlier car but I believe them to be the same
 

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Keoke said:
I think ther is a bracket that attaches to a pan bolt down close to the frame or I made one that secures the plastic drain hoses in place???
Click to expand...
there's a couple of pieces that attach to the pan bolts but they are for the copper intake manifold drains. Those need a rubber grommet because they can sometimes make weird sounds as the engine vibrates. I usually tie the carb overflow tubes together with black zip ties with the rear carb tube being slightly longer to aid in troubleshooting which carb is malfunctioning. The best tube material I found is tge drip irrigation stuff sold at the big box hardware stores and a heat gun helps you form the curves perfectly.
 
Mine need to be replaced. I bought the tubing from AHSpares. Ordered 2 meters and they sent me two feet. Not enough to clear the engine. The real problem is that the tubing doesn't come with the curved end piece that plugs onto the carb on my BJ7. The only place I could find the full setup is British Car Specialist in CA. They have a hard to find catalog. Bit pricey though.

I'd rather do the drip line but Steve hit on one of my questions. Patrick, what line did you use that takes the high temps? Lowes has polyethylene. Is that it? What about line size? The stated IDs aren't very close to 1/4"
 
I used plain ol' fuel line of the proper ID and tie-wrapped them to the chassis. Not concours, but they've worked for 100K+ miles.
 
RestoreThemAll said:
Mine need to be replaced. I bought the tubing from AHSpares. Ordered 2 meters and they sent me two feet. Not enough to clear the engine. The real problem is that the tubing doesn't come with the curved end piece that plugs onto the carb on my BJ7. The only place I could find the full setup is British Car Specialist in CA. They have a hard to find catalog. Bit pricey though.

I'd rather do the drip line but Steve hit on one of my questions. Patrick, what line did you use that takes the high temps? Lowes has polyethylene. Is that it? What about line size? The stated IDs aren't very close to 1/4"
Click to expand...
I used the stuff you can get at Lowes. Never had a problem with it melting and it slips right over the metal overflow tubes. They also have tubing in another department too, but I can't think of which one it is. I've also purchased the tubing from British Wiring in various diameters for wiring projects for my Healey. I'm 95% sure I used the drip irrigation tubing but I keep it all together in the same box so I could be mistaking. Drip irrigation tubing is the smaller diameter tubing. I think there's only two sizes. I also used it to cover my choke cables too for my BJ8.
 
John French said:
I have asked a few people about this and they seem to think the short, banjo, steel pipe with the 90 degree bend is all there should be.
Click to expand...
Not too long after I bought my BJ8 in 1984, I left home at 3 am with a full tank of gas to drive to a car event 350 miles away. Twenty miles out, I happened to look at my fuel gauge and saw the needle bouncing around 1/4. At the next lighted place, I pulled in to investigate and found that the float in the front carburetor had sunk to the bottom of the bowl, allowing all that gas to be pumped out the overflow vent, which had no plastic tubes attached. At that time, I wasn't aware that tubes were supposed to be there. I was in a rural area and my immediate problem was how to get home on 1/4 tank when it took 3/4 to get that far. Fortunately, five miles back toward home I found the only gas station in that twenty miles open and was able to fill up. The tank was only half full when I got home again.
Obviously, my sense of smell isn't the best in the world because I never smelled any gas; but it still scares me to know how close I came to possibly burning the car up.
I have the tubes on both carbs running through the hole in the heat shield, and long enough to put any overflow below the frame rails. I tie-wrapped them to the hole in the engine mount support on the frame.
 
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