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fitting rebuilt carbs and manifold

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Woodie

Woodie

Jedi Warrior
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I am thinking of fitting the carbs (already on manifold with heatshield) to the midget today. I have never pulled a manifold off a car before. I assume that there are 4 bolts that hold the intake manifold in place. I also figure from looking at it that these 4 bolts also hold the exhaust manifold in place along with 2 more on the outside edge of the exhaust manifold.



So in sequence would I



1) disconnect the fuel line

2) disconnect the throttle cable

3) disconnect the choke cable

4) loosen or remove ? the four bolts

5) remove old manifold and carbs and install new, and go back up the list.



Question is there a torque value for the bolts or just do them up tight.?



If all goes well (I get the bolts out easily) this should take about 30 minutes..right ?



Any thoughts??
 
Disconnect the battery so that you do not accidentally short it.
 
Allow extra time to clean the old gasket material off. Do you own a good scraper.

Why not just replace the carbs? Is this a different manifold?
 
oh yeah good point.

So trevor thats it? no torque values?

and do I have to remove or just loosen the 4 bolts?

and of course once done tune the carbs
 
Cross-post
 
The carbs are already mounted on a manifold that they came with. I was just trying to save time.
 
It would (IMO) be much easier to just switch the carbs. Then you do not have to spend a bunch of time scraping away at an old manifold gasket. ...And what if one of those studs snap off in the head?
 
I have looked at various catalogues and the only gasket I see is the aluminum one between the block and the two mainfolds. I was led to believe that I wouls be able to reuse this as long as it was not damaged (bend it) What are you refering to when you say scrape off gasket material?
 
It is not aluminum. You almost always need to replace manifold gaskets when removing and replacing a manifold.
 
You can pretty much bet on it needing replaced! And even if not, while it is off, why not replace it, clean it up right and eliminate any possibilities for vacuum leaks! If no such problems exist, I agree that it would be much simpler just to replace the carbs!
 
Nod yes. To all the above.
 
well after reading all you advice, I called the PO, who in the fall of 2004 pulled the engine. He replace all gaskets then and never drove the car again. I had it running as you know for about 3 months last summer, and had the carbs off once. I asked him about the manifold gaskets and he had replaced them with new in 2004. So I thought I might as well gamble and at least see what happened when I loosened the intake. I loosened the bolts and the manifold fell away from the gasket with absolutely no sticking. SO I figured try the straight swap. 20 minutes later wit the car purring, I sprayed carb cleaner all over the place. no changes in idle. All seems tight an with no leaks. The gods of MG were smiling down on me today. I will save the effort to change gasket when I change from standard exhaust to headers some time next year.

Please do not think I was not listening, I was and trust you guys with my car, I really did not want to try the exhaust manifold in the time I had today and if the intake had not simply fallen off as it did I would have stopped and tightened every thing back up until another day and suffered from poor performance, irratic idle , and annoying things for a few more days.

Thanks again for your help and comments
 
It's the same piece for TWO manifolds (intake and exhaust) in a '70 Midget. If you break the seal on it the BEST practice is to replace the gasket, involving removal of both manifolds.... Better to just R&R carbs as those gaskets are less work.

Just my tuppence worth.
 
No worries Greg, I'll admit that I've tried to get away with a quick intake swap without messing up the gasket. I wasn't as lucky as you.

How are the new carbs working out?
 
well the new carbs seem to be fine. It is 36 degrees here and this afternoon when I changed them the car was warm form the drive home from work. The car fired right up and idled nicely at about 1000, I adjusted down to about 850. Took the car for a short spin all seemed fine. Last weekend I had put on new NGK wires and plugs BPR6ES and a new cap. So this afternoon was the first drive since near the end of last year when the car did not mis fire and loose power and not idle under 1200. I still will adjust with colourtune that I bought over the winter to ensure they are set correctly. The balance seemed ok as well.

This evening I went out and went for another short drive, it started with a bit of choke, and needed choke for a few minutes, I unfortunalty, and thanks to DPO have a manual choke that does NOT lock. Which means I must shift and adjust choke constantly for the first few minutes. Once warmed up it was fine. Now all I need to do is install pertronix and matchin sport coil and regap the plugs to .032.
A question, Can I install just the sport coil and regap the plugs tonight and do the pertronix this weekend. ??
 
Try carrying a clothes pin with you for the choke. Pull out the knob and pin the cable. The knob will be pulled against the clothes pin and the car will still be choked. Drove that way for a year before I replaced the cable with one that would lock.
 
You're "good-to-go"!!!

My post was being 'formulated" as you posted the result!!!


Drive it 'till you *need* to change things! /bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif
 
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