• Hi Guest!
    If you appreciate British Car Forum and our 25 years of supporting British car enthusiasts with technical and anicdotal information, collected from our thousands of great members, please support us with a low-cost subscription. You can become a supporting member for less than the dues of most car clubs.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Spitfire Rebuilt the "ZS" carb on my Spitfire

Share this page

C

CaptDon01

Senior Member
Offline
Just finished rebuilding the single ZS carb on my 80 Spitfire 1500. I had de-smogged the engine and still found it running rich. I had purchased an older intake manifold and ZS carb w/manual choke on Ebay. I ended up rebuilding my original carb and modifing it to accept the manual choke assembly from the old carb. This turned out MUCH cheaper than buying the auto choke to manual choke conversion kit, and it looks "stock". I learned a lot about the ZS carb from this forum, and John Twist's, (University Motors), web site before I tore into the carb. I took it all apart and soaked all the parts in carb cleaner before re-assembling everything, and the parts looked nice and clean. I had to mix-match and modify my throttle horns, and carb body to work properly, but much to my surprize, once installed she fired right up after the bowl got filled with fuel. I performed all the mixture adjustments and test drove the car. I was surprized to find her with a bit more pep. I let the car sit overnight and tried re-starting her. I simply pulled the choke, turned the key, and she fired right up! The job was easier than I expected, just took my time and learned first how the carb works. I find it's easier to repair stuff if I understand first how they work.

Now onto rebuilding the front suspension!

Don
 
Most excellent! The Zed-ess and SU's both are snot-simple once you "see" how they function. Bench setting them correctly will usually result in a no-hassle startup, and fine tweaking is about all that's needed to dial 'em in to work every time. I find eliminating the "automagic" choke rig is one way to make them that much more reliable.

"Good-onya!"
 
Congratulations the front suspension is not much harder, just more of it, a bit heavier, and dirtier. Be prepared with a big hammer to get some of the bolts out, and when that fails, an angle grinder is helpful.
Record where ( and how many) all the spacers should be! otherwise it will be rather difficult to get the car aligned again.
 
Congratulations the front suspension is not much harder, just more of it, a bit heavier, and dirtier. Be prepared with a big hammer to get some of the bolts out, and when that fails, an angle grinder is helpful.
Record where ( and how many) all the spacers should be! otherwise it will be rather difficult to get the car aligned again.
 
Back
Top