Forget Atkins-Carbs are good, even SU's

A couple of weeks ago, Dad & I went to MacKay's to rebuild 2 sets of SU (HIF) carbs. My cousin gave me them, and I figured, It would be a good project to tackle. Our Red MGB needed new carbs at the end of last august, and we put off dealing with them until now. The plan was to rebuild these 2 sets, on the bench (so to speak) then replace the one's we're running on the convertible and GT, with these newly rebuilt carbs. THEN (are you still following me) rebuild the old sets and either keep them as spares, or sell them. The rebuild kits are about $100 for a pair of SU's, all new gaskets, jets, needles & butterflies. I figure rebuilding 4 sets would be about $400, and if we sell 2 sets of rebuilt ones for $200 a piece, we'll still be ahead of the game, breaking even cost wise, and now having 2 new sets of rebuilt carbs on our MG's.


Tearing them down wasn't that hard. There's not alot to them, but being gentle is always a good idea. Cleaning is the next priority. We used a wire wheel to clean up alot of the hard, caked on stuff, as well as alot of brake fluid cleaner. Rebuilding is pretty easy. The hardest problem was resetting the floats. The first set was pretty easy overall. The second set however, was more interesting. Opening up the bowls, the smell was horrible, it reminded me of an old wood shop, and the insides were caked with varnish, which was a bear to get off the surfaces. We finished 1 of the second set before Mackay closed his shop on Saturday afternoon. The second set wasn't as nice as the first set, but I think they'll do. A dremel with a wire wheel would have been nice to get into some of the more intricate areas of the casting.

A few days later we installed them on the red MGB. They went on easily. In prep for our Canada trip, we did some valve adjustments, and put a new rotor in (by advance distributors). The carbs set up nicely, and within a couple of minutes, the car was running real smooth. It's idling alot lower (around 900 rpm) and alot smoother. As I'm finding out it's never just changing or adjusting one component on these cars, it's always adjusting 3 or 4 of them that really makes the difference. The car ran really well to and from Canada. They run like junk while cold, but when they get up to operating temp, they smooth out.


The Carbs that came off of the Red car seem a bit better than the second set we rebuilt. I figure we'll rebuild them, and put those on Dad's GT. The "varnished" ones, when finally completed, will probably find a home on my Blue MGB at some point in the near future.