Not much going on over the last few weeks due to work commitments and it's set me back quite a bit so I'm glad to have a long weekend free to catch up. My wallet has to take a light bashing too because I'm short of a few bits and bobs. So far this weekend it's been a battery and a new alternator. Jaysus have these things gone up a bit in price in the last few years or what? £45 for an alternator!!!
Well it would have been if I'd got it from the shop. Instead I opted for a "new" one off eBay that set me back £1. Yes folks, that's less than half a drink for this:
Shame the postage was a tenner but it's quite heavy. Don't know what it is but my cars have always eaten batteries, even since I switched to alternators from dynamos so I opted to spend a bit more and get the battery from Halfords so I can take the mick out of them with their 3 year warranty. Mugs. I also managed to leave the old dead battery in the shop by mistake, of course it was a mistake.
Kicking off today the foxes decided to eat about a foot of my extension lead so that needed dealing with first:
So glad I didn't just flick the switch because that would have gone kaboom! I don't normally do jobs this properly but I soldered and heatshrinked and wrapped it all back up again:
While I was doing that the weather started closing in (rain, wind, hail, wind, snow etc) so I decided to bring a few bits up and work from the warmth and comfort of the sofa. Brought up the inlet manifold, studs, carbs and hubcaps.
Now I need the aid of my all time favourite product, Chemical Metal. I've had no success with studlock in the past so I'm going to glue the studs in permanently with this stuff.
Used the tried and tested two-nuts method to screw the studs in and let them set. I totally forgot to check if the length was ok so here's hoping...
The manifold is a 105Speed pre-crossflow 2xDCOE inlet. Unlike a lot of pre-crossflow DCOE manifolds this one is one-piece rather than a pair and it makes mounting the carbs a lot lot easier and stops the carbs or one side of the manifold coming loose. It's needed a bit of modification to suit and the metal is a bit thin at the bottom but it's otherwise great. More about that later.
This little interior light fitment here is probably one of the hardest parts of a 105E to get hold of because it's brittle and breaks to bits when you take the lens off it. I scavenged this one for nothing but it broke up when I was taking it off. Bit of Chemical Metal and it was fixed:
Main job for the day is jet these buggers up and get them mounted on the manifold:
Basically I have a habit of over-carbing my engines so this time I'm doing the unspeakable and being sensible on my choice of chokes and jets. It'll also mean I won't run lean at the top end which I have done in the past by using oversize chokes in a 40 body. 34mm is the maximum you should use but you can get 36's from Burton. If you look at them they really don't throttle the flow very much in a 40 DCOE and thus don't draw the fuel in very well, the 36 is more suited to a 45 body. I'm going to drop down one size to a 34mm and rejet the carb to suit. It'll still have plenty of flow - don't worry.
Here's how you change the jets. There's four of everything, one for each carb barrel and they are all accessible from the top of the carb so you can do this in situ if you don't have access to a comfy sofa and coffee table like I do (yes, she's away again). Main and idle jets are under this cover:
Undo the wingnut and there they are:
Unscrew them and they slide out: