Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2010 18:25:52 -0700
Reply-To: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Scott Daniel - Turbovans <scottdaniel@TURBOVANS.COM>
Subject: Re: Friday NVC: British Carburettor hilarity
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what I found wore badly on SU's on volvo 544's , maybe 122's also ..
the tapered needle that withdraws from the jet, ( so more fuel is sucked in
the higher the needle is drawn up by air flow ) ...
the needle wears on the jet sometimes...
what was a precisely round hole with a taped needle right in the middle of
it..
the round get can get worn, and the needles wear ..
through off mixture and smoothness.
In about 1975 I worked in a volvo-vw-Citroen shop ..
worked on a ton of Citroens ( and owned a couple of D-19's ) ..and I was
'the volvo man' ..
3 guys in a small shop.
It would take most of a day to remove and strip down SU's on a 544 , mabye 8
hours until I was 110% done and satisfied with it and ready to hand it over
to the customer.
We'd replace floats, float valves , mxiture needles , main jets ...
a dozen parts probobly. We' soak all the parts in carb cleaner ..
And man did they work nicely after that.
As stated...being British, they are not expected to opeaate say 150,000
miles perfectly. .
I've seen the floats screw up on them too ..
like on Volvo 122's ...seen the float valves stick close, fail to close and
flood etc.
Amazingly crude that era and country's automotive stuff. ..
and it worked like it was crudely made to ...it 'sorta worked mostly.'
The official labor rate in that shop was $ 14 per hour.
I thought that was high then too.
what was gas per gallon then ?...
it was after the first gas crisis ....maybe it was around 80 cents a gal.
I was near the coast in northern california back then..
during the next gas crisis some native american dudes came by ....traded
some abolone they got out of the ocean for a gallon or two of gas.
Nice simple times compared to these days.
The shop was next to a winding two lane road that went through a canyon with
redwoods everywhere.
Nobody ever ever heard of an AK-47 then or terroism ..
'twas far simpler good times.
and here we are now !
going forward.
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Felder" <jim.felder@GMAIL.COM>
To: <vanagon@GERRY.VANAGON.COM>
Sent: Friday, October 15, 2010 12:51 PM
Subject: Re: Friday NVC: British Carburettor hilarity
The SU was a very clever and efficient design but there was a lot that
could go wrong with them. The Stombergs were bad news with their
rubber diaphrams and such. Most US mechanics screwed all of them up
when they first got their hands on them, and of course being
manufactured in Britain they wore out prematurely. I never learned
anything about a solex carburetor, even out of all the bugs and buses
I had, because nothing ever went wrong with them and I never took one
apart that I can recall. But when it did, you could grab another one
and tune by ear and go.
I was called on to balance multiple solexes on friends' Squareback and
Notchback VWs, but being out of balance was hardly ever the problem.
It is for one of these that I'm hanging on to my Unisyn : )
On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 2:08 PM, neil n <musomuso@gmail.com> wrote:
> I can't verify how accurate my settings were, but on one of my Volvo 145
> 's
> I ended up fixing the float on one. Then I set the carbs by ear. Seemed to
> work fine. (certainly better than it was) My *guess* is that a gauge would
> do a better job.
>
> IMO those SU's got a bad rap. In my limited experience, I had no issue
> with
> them.
>
> IIRC the Strombergs Volvo used were not as good.
>
> Didn't know about the Uni-syn
>
> pic: http://content.mamotorworks.com/img300/fr4987.jpg
>
>
> Neil.
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 9:41 AM, Loren Busch <starwagen@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Fri, Oct 15, 2010 at 9:12 AM, Jim Felder <jim.felder@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I almost laughed out loud at this. I just ran across my old Haynes
>> > manuals for SU and Stromberg Carburettors (UK spelling of course).
>> >
>>
>> So lets start the debate: Which is better for syncing a pair of SUs, a
>> simple rubber hose held to your ear or go out and buy a Unisyn?
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Neil Nicholson '81 VanaJetta 2.0 "Jaco"
>
> http://tubaneil.googlepages.com/
>
> http://groups.google.com/group/vanagons-with-vw-inline-4-cylinder-gas-engines
>
