Gilby just passed it's Mot 1st time

[Admin]

Hi Derek/ Grahame
I see you guys have cracked it. Just to confirm 'her indoors' wanted a bit of time in Exeter so I took off to the VOSA Testing Station. I saw a very helpful man who copied the Testers Manual on the page on seats and confirmed that there has been no amendments since that print. Originality is enough to pass the test. If anyone wants a copy of that page just call me. I can scan and email. A point he did make is that there is a special helpline for Testers and if in doubt they should call in. They all should have the number.
Maurice

Maurice, Yes please!
From comments on this board and elsewhere MOTs are an area where the club could perhaps offer assistance in the form of guidance notes.
If no one else does, I will raise this at the AGM as a project, but in the meantime any verbatim contributions would be gratefully received.

[Greybags]

Maurice..

Time in Exeter????

Whereabouts are you as I'm just down the road in Plymouth.......

Coffee always on the go if you are aound

Grahame

[Maurice]

Hi Derek Grahame
Yes not far from Plymouth, in Bow half way between Crediton & Okehampton Coffee always going in this house . All welcome.
I take it Derek you would like a copy of the page from the Testers manual on seats If care to call on 01363 82867 and give me your address I will snail mail it to you. If I scan it I think it will be too small to be clear and frankly I am better with a spanner than a computor.
Cheers Maurice

[Waylison]

Hi All,

Just an observation .... when restoring a Healey 100M a couple of years ago we bought and fitted new seats and these hindged forwards and had no facility for locking in the upright position. Went through it's MOT without a remark on the seats.

Cheers,
Wayne.

[Richard Adams]

For any body interested I have finally manged to get the my GT B1000240 MOT'd and back on the road. It has taken me twice as long and cost twice as much as I thought and still a lot more work to do. Thanks to everybody that has contributed suggestions and help particularly Roger Spares. What would we do without him.

[Waylison]

For all of you who have been following my 'Winter Engine Rebuild' thread, we now have the final hurdle crossed and this afternoon my Yellow Beast (as Roger the Spares calls it!) went through it's Mot with only one hitch......near side headlight slightly too high.....that was fixed on the spot. It got a really thorough test, as you'd expect, and all was ok. Because a Gilbern didn't come up on the computer print out check list and no kerb weight was listed it only had to have a Tapley test, which is where a decelerometer was placed in the drivers footwell and the tester went up the road in the car, I don't know what speed, then applied the brakes and recorded the figure achieved on the gauge... 65 for the foot brakes and 18 for the hand brake. The hand brake is pretty poor, but was above the limit, so fine. If it had gone on a rolling road I'm sure it would have failed on the nearside rear handbrake. It's something I'm going to look into asap. So if you're passing through the South Lincolnshire area look out for a bright yellow Gilby blasting around.

A big thanks to all you out there that gave advice and comments through this process. I'm now much more 'up' on the problems encountered with these cars.

Also.... When I moved the rack up so the gaiter cleared the chassis without tearing it's had a knock on effect of making the steering much lighter! I'll go get it tracked next incase it's toeing out now.

Last plee for help....I have a 40 Dfav carb and it seems to be running rich. Any advice please?

Cheers
Wayne.

[Bitsa]

Wayne,

Excellent news !!

This link has some info that may be useful for the carb ....

http://www.tubetvr.com/essex.html

I've just sent the block off for a +60 rebore so will steal all your engine building tips.

Cheers

Chris

[Waylison]

Hi Chris.

Thanks for the link, just the info needed. The intake manifold has already had grooves ground into the base of it inside the chamber to help avoid the middle two cylinders running rich.

I'd like to get the 38 Dgas carb sorted because it's jetted to take the engine to 165Bhp, but I still get the revs hunting up and down at idle when the engine's hot. Dave who did the pre Mot check said it might be that the fuel in the float is boiling with the heat and to try poring cold water over float area when it does it to see it it improves. I must admit the carb is set up for a return to fuel tank pipe that I've blanked off and of course this would help cool carb down. I'm thinking of re routing the fuel line and running some copper pipe back and forwards infront of the rad so the fuel is cooled by air flow or when the cooling fans on. At the moment the fuel pipe runs along chassis rail between rad and engine so is getting blasted with hot air all the time. Might even spring for a 'cool can' as most American cars have. If I get many more carb problems then I'm going to stick the bl***y triples back on!

Wayne

[Bitsa]

Wayne,

Hmmmm

My 302 was a real pig to start when hot. I purchased an extra thermal insulator to go on the inlet manifold. I've also seem people put an alloy plate between the carb and the inlet manifold to deflect heat.

I'm going to be running a mild engine with +60 cast pistons on standard compression ratio with probably a V61 cam and standard valve unleaded heads with the 40 on top.

Does the 40 need a return feed ???

Where does the return line go into the fuel tank ??

I'm going to use 10mm copper pipe for my fuel feeds and run them close up to the bulkhead with a pressure regulator then run a copper feed to the Weber. I have a spare Holley fuel pump that came off the TVR that was too small but will do the Gilbern nicely and have run the pump power feed along the nearside chassis.

Chris

[trippdl]

AHA! One of my Mark 3s is an ex-tony Bull car, which had a reputation of being fairlly well sorted, with a 3.1 Essex. When I had the engine removed (to be replaced with a 4.0 litre Cologne), I took off the 38DGAS; underneath it was a phenolic spacer, in the region of 3/4 - 1" thick, which had attached to it a curious V-shaped piece of metal that extended down into the intake manifold. Steve, the ace mechanic, commented that it was a flow restrictor of some sort, but neither of us knew why it was there... Now the light dawns. If you'd like to borrow it as a pattern, Wayne, let me know. Paul or Richard Clarke can give you my phone number. Dave

[Admin]

AHA! One of my Mark 3s is an ex-tony Bull car, which had a reputation of being fairlly well sorted, with a 3.1 Essex. When I had the engine removed (to be replaced with a 4.0 litre Cologne), I took off the 38DGAS; underneath it was a phenolic spacer, in the region of 3/4 - 1" thick, which had attached to it a curious V-shaped piece of metal that extended down into the intake manifold. Steve, the ace mechanic, commented that it was a flow restrictor of some sort, but neither of us knew why it was there... Now the light dawns. If you'd like to borrow it as a pattern, Wayne, let me know. Paul or Richard Clarke can give you my phone number. Dave

The 'V' plate, or 'W' plate on the standard setup, forms part of the manifold gas flow to aid distribution to the end cylinders. With out it they run lean and 2 & 5 run rich.

[Admin]

AHA! One of my Mark 3s is an ex-tony Bull car, which had a reputation of being fairlly well sorted, with a 3.1 Essex. When I had the engine removed (to be replaced with a 4.0 litre Cologne), I took off the 38DGAS; underneath it was a phenolic spacer, in the region of 3/4 - 1" thick, which had attached to it a curious V-shaped piece of metal that extended down into the intake manifold. Steve, the ace mechanic, commented that it was a flow restrictor of some sort, but neither of us knew why it was there... Now the light dawns. If you'd like to borrow it as a pattern, Wayne, let me know. Paul or Richard Clarke can give you my phone number. Dave

The 'V' plate, or 'W' plate on the standard setup, forms part of the manifold gas flow to aid distribution to the end cylinders. With out it they run lean and 2 & 5 run rich.

[Waylison]

Thanks Guys,

I do have the "W" plate fitted, I was informed of what this was for very early on so made sure I retained it!

Chris....I also have 10mm copper pipe from fuel tank to carb, mine runs inside the car along the drivers side floor well. My 40 has only one fuel inlet so no return needed.

At least with the triple 42 Dcnf's theres no worries about to much fuel getting into the middle two cylinders, it's just a pig setting each one up! You've got 6 variables to play with and without lamda sensors on each exhaust pipe you can only really use the colour tune spark plug to see whats happening in each cylinder and thats not fun on the rear off side cylinder! When the Essex was new they only sent it out with a very basic set up, so as we try to improve it and fettle it all sorts of problems arise and each has to be over come. You could of course just give it to Ric Woods and cough £2000+, but we all like to feel involved with our cars, well I do, and do take pride in answering others questions because I did it, problems and all! Sometimes they puzzle over something I've fitted or modified and hopefully ask me why and I can explain why, what, wherefore. It's all part of the fun. I hope that if they know a better way of doing something they'll tell me, cos I'm always willing to learn.

Wayne.

[series4]

Congrats on the MOT
I'm not certain from reading this whether you've retained the phenolic spacer, they do make a big difference so if you don't have it, refit it and you'll notice the difference. Also try fitting a pressure regulator before playing with fuel pipe routing, that is a last resort usually only required by Triumph PI owners. Without a pressure reg you can force fuel past the needle and seat and flood the carb at low speeds.

Peter

[Waylison]

Hi Peter.

I do have the spacer fitted etc. I also have a pro flow regulator fitted, but after lots of head scratching and looking it was found that the new regulator was faulty and was letting through the full 8 psi of fuel pressure from the pump. A new one arrived today and fitted and all seems well, it certainly idles better and smoother. By the way, do you know what is the best pressure for the 40 Dfav carb? i've got the Hayes Weber book but no mention of fuel pressures in the chapter. I've set it at 2.5psi as a start.

Car is all washed and polished up ready for the off tomorrow, 6.30am, to Scotland. I intend to break the journey up into 3 sections of 2 hours each to see how things go with so much rebuilt or new on the car. I checked the tracking on the front wheels yesterday and found they were 60mm out! Sorting that will help fuel economy and tyre wear.

Thanks for all your helpful advice.
Wayne.