Is this part of the carb???

[Peter FeredayParticipant]

About six years ago I came across an 11B abandoned in a front garden in Dordogne, France. The car was beyond repair, but, after a bit of negotiation, I managed to aquire a few parts off it like the dynamo, regulator, inlet and exhaust manifolds and the Solex 32PBIC carb. You may remember this car because it made the front cover of Floating Power – a forlorn site with trees growing through it and guarded by a platoon of garden gnomes.( see photo)

The regulator was pressed into service on my 11B some time ago and works fine. The dynamo was cleaned up and is now waiting for it’s time to perform again. In the current lockdown, I decided to have a look at the carb. A bit corroded but not beyond salvation I thought. Maybe get one of the club refurb kits… So I started to strip it down. Top cover off with the three bolts removed. Float easily removed. But…….I then realised there was a small cylindrical metal plug which appeared when the carb body had been turned upside down – didn’t see where it came from at all. Is it part of the carb or was it lurking beforehand on the the cloth the carb sat on and nothing to do with the carb? The plug is definitely not threaded, is not a jet, just a small cylindrical piece of alloy. It does fit down one of the holes on the top of the carb though……..? I have trawled through the drawings and diagrams of the 32PBIC in the club archive and can find no mention. Anybody out there have any idea?(see photos)

 

 

 

[BernieParticipant]

Petrr,

 

I don’t recognise it and, unfortunately, I no longer have an old carb I can inspect

But …is it cylindrical ? I ask because when I enlarge your last picture it appears to be very  slightly tapered, larger on the left than on the right,  which might indicate a blanking plug  … but that might just be an optical illusion created by the camera angle.

B……

[Peter FeredayParticipant]

Ok Super Sleuth – it IS very slightly tapered, 4mm one end and 4.3mm at t’other. And just fits in the hole in the carb body show in the yellow box, fitting flush with top of body on its taper. And note the gasket has no hole through at this point – other yellow box, so maybe it is a blanking off plug? But why?

Any way, reckon you’re right. Many thanks.

 

Peter

[BernieParticipant]

Peter,

Without inspecting the hardware a definitive answer is not possible but here’s my best guess …..

There is probably an internal passage which could not be cast or machined without this access hole which must then be blanked off for the carb to function as designed.  Possibly a feed from lower in the float chamber to the choke mechanism?

We have recently overhauled the carb from Stephen Prigmore’s 1932 C4G, purchased as a non-runner.  For a “simple” carb, it had a most tortuous series of passages and galleries to get additional fuel to the choke “jets”.  Much of the route was heavily blocked and even the gasket did not have appropriate holes to join the respective passages in the two halves of the body.  It was not surprising it would not start for us and I cannot believe it could ever have run with the carb in that condition.  The one blind passage in this carb is sealed with a brass screw-in plug making access reasonably straightforward.  So, after heavens knows how many years, it’s now a runner.

Sherlock ………

[David FaulknerParticipant]

Peter this is a picture of my old Solex 32 PBIC base when I stripped it for a correction jet failure. I tried to rotate it to a similar angle to your image so you can compare them… I don’t actually have it now as I binned it as beyond repair.

[Peter FeredayParticipant]

From your picture David it is clear that the same hole is blanked off with a plug – so that must be where mine goes. Interesting that the carb may have to have been machined like that Bernie. Just spotted another seemingly identical plug on the side of the body just below it. Or perhaps it was configured differently for different cars? – it looks like the same 32PBIC was used on Land Rovers, Jeeps, Fiats and even Porches……!

Will now have to see if it will clean up…..

Thanks all round for the advice.

[Author]

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