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Thought I would share my sunday fun with you guys since you all know the feelings. Also a way of introducing you to my "relationship" with my Midget.
Yesterday I had the time to work "a bit" on my Midget (77, daily driver that I inherited from my mentor half a year ago and done nothing much with so far). Since my wife and little daughter were gone I had all day so I decided to "clean" the carburettor. It was all dirty on the outside and when I had opened the top and inspected it was all gunky inside as well, so a cleaning was in place... Ohh man was I in for a number of surprises...
First I hate the ZS carburettors with a passion, I had a dual of those on my old saab 900 from early '80s and they are a apin to deal with.
Anyways taking the thing off was easy, taking it aprt as well and then dumping the parts in solvent can. When the carburettor came off it was apperant that the air injector plug was loose (connected to the exhaust manifold) and I had probably exhaust comming out of the hole. Should get fixed before the carb goes back on...
While the carb was soaking I thought I'd just fix the hand brake spring mechanism, so out the seat went (much easier than I thought) and I got the hand brake free, just to realize I have to take the wire off the hand brake to be able to work on it.
Ok so I crawl under and loosen the corroded nuts at the fastening point under the car (I just love using corosion solvent etc when lying under a car).
Anyways off goes the hand brake and I swich back to cleaning carburettor).
While at it I just thought Id replace the accelerator wire (the old one was pretty beat up) since it only takes 5 minutes to do. When I was standing there on the left front trying to get the new wire through the firewall my left knee hits the left wheel and it clonks. So when the accelerator wire is in place I take my hands on the wheel and jiggle it, and yes it has waaay to much play, so off the wheel goes and the dust cap and a lot of black dust comes out and the ball bearing inside more or less used up, not a sign of grease there.
/sigh
So I need new wheel bearings and when looking at the rotors... ohh yes they better be replaced.
Ok back to the all frozen up handbrake assembly, add lubricants and stuff to loose up the corrosion. And then a stint of carb cleaning and back to the hand brake. After a couple of hours of this and a lunch the handbrake peices are loose enough to be taken apart and seriously cleaned washers replaced lubricated and back it goes. Well....
Now the brake wire adjustment threading is totally coroded and now "all" I need to do is clean up and make it useful. Wohoo this is so much fun to do under the car. EventuallI get the wire in place and the handbrake in place and it is time to go back to the carb. drying all the peices and putting it together is all pretty straight forward, "except" that the needle adjustment wont budge. So did I clean the whole thing for nothing?
Anyways the carburettor gets assembled but by now it is 11:30pm and there is no energy left to work more, and there are still things that need to be made before this little gem will be on the road again. So alternative means of transport will be needed to get to work, I look at the bike hanging in the garage, arghh...
Now it is monday morning and new wheel bearings and rotors are ordered, but I have no solution for the air injection nut in the exhaust manifold. The dirty version of glueing the old almost threadless nut into place is seeming very atractive as a stop gap measure, since I need to get the car working.
Yesterday I had the time to work "a bit" on my Midget (77, daily driver that I inherited from my mentor half a year ago and done nothing much with so far). Since my wife and little daughter were gone I had all day so I decided to "clean" the carburettor. It was all dirty on the outside and when I had opened the top and inspected it was all gunky inside as well, so a cleaning was in place... Ohh man was I in for a number of surprises...
First I hate the ZS carburettors with a passion, I had a dual of those on my old saab 900 from early '80s and they are a apin to deal with.
Anyways taking the thing off was easy, taking it aprt as well and then dumping the parts in solvent can. When the carburettor came off it was apperant that the air injector plug was loose (connected to the exhaust manifold) and I had probably exhaust comming out of the hole. Should get fixed before the carb goes back on...
While the carb was soaking I thought I'd just fix the hand brake spring mechanism, so out the seat went (much easier than I thought) and I got the hand brake free, just to realize I have to take the wire off the hand brake to be able to work on it.
Ok so I crawl under and loosen the corroded nuts at the fastening point under the car (I just love using corosion solvent etc when lying under a car).
Anyways off goes the hand brake and I swich back to cleaning carburettor).
While at it I just thought Id replace the accelerator wire (the old one was pretty beat up) since it only takes 5 minutes to do. When I was standing there on the left front trying to get the new wire through the firewall my left knee hits the left wheel and it clonks. So when the accelerator wire is in place I take my hands on the wheel and jiggle it, and yes it has waaay to much play, so off the wheel goes and the dust cap and a lot of black dust comes out and the ball bearing inside more or less used up, not a sign of grease there.
/sigh
So I need new wheel bearings and when looking at the rotors... ohh yes they better be replaced.
Ok back to the all frozen up handbrake assembly, add lubricants and stuff to loose up the corrosion. And then a stint of carb cleaning and back to the hand brake. After a couple of hours of this and a lunch the handbrake peices are loose enough to be taken apart and seriously cleaned washers replaced lubricated and back it goes. Well....
Now the brake wire adjustment threading is totally coroded and now "all" I need to do is clean up and make it useful. Wohoo this is so much fun to do under the car. EventuallI get the wire in place and the handbrake in place and it is time to go back to the carb. drying all the peices and putting it together is all pretty straight forward, "except" that the needle adjustment wont budge. So did I clean the whole thing for nothing?
Anyways the carburettor gets assembled but by now it is 11:30pm and there is no energy left to work more, and there are still things that need to be made before this little gem will be on the road again. So alternative means of transport will be needed to get to work, I look at the bike hanging in the garage, arghh...
Now it is monday morning and new wheel bearings and rotors are ordered, but I have no solution for the air injection nut in the exhaust manifold. The dirty version of glueing the old almost threadless nut into place is seeming very atractive as a stop gap measure, since I need to get the car working.
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