1970 Velocette Thruxton recommissioning /Happy New Year

 First off, Happy new year to you, hope it's a good one!  In  between the day events and family time watching the ball drop, I got a few little things done to the Velo. The biggest thing was getting a nice fat spark while kicking it over! Gotta love a rebuilt magneto, thanks Doug W.! 

Among the chores was shortening up a set of  bolts for the top of the fork tube caps to hold the speedo/tach brackets on.  I had some stainless bolts on the shelf. A pretty simple chore; hack the ends off by a few threads. file smooth the edges so that it starts fine without cross threading or binding. Then clean up the face from there. Not a super quick job, but satisfying way to spend time in the shop.

Initially, when I finished up the timing; I needed to make a new sparking plug lead. Still not having a dedicated solder station meant that the bench needed to be cleared off.  While cleaning the bench, I found the previous sparking plug lead in working order. Heck, let's put that on and give 'er a kick!  Bingo!  Now if we had oil in the engine, gas in a carb, the old gal would be ready to fire I suspect! Not quite ridable yet but well on the way for a spring time firing.

Jumping back to the carb; it had a few issues before I removed it. The first, the slide showed no motion and was quite stuck. There wasn't much in the signs of varnish, but the needle could be stuck in the jet; either corrosion or varnish.  I was able to get the slide moving and better still without damaging it. Using either plastic or wood to add leverage on the base of the slide and copious soaking of solvents can help. Slowly it came around, patience is key to success.  The only real snag was that the slide would stick at the top of the bore and that usually is a sign that the carb body is warped. I figured to deal with that when it was time, or close there of.

I knew that to re-install the carb, new gaskets were needed. The old carb to intake gasket was a thick ordeal and only having  one paper gasket that fit wouldn't do. So off to the bench to make a new gasket. 

There was a gap at the top on the trial fit.  Ok, off with it and time to give everything a check see...

So sure enough and not surprising, the carb body is distorted. This explains the slide sticking at WOT position. Well that won't work any.  I've dealt with this in the past. Light distorts are easy to just flatten on a glass plate or surface plate. Warped to the point of sticking slides; usually I'll just go and replace the unit. However, this is an Amal 1036 and they seem to be thin on the ground.

So there we have it, the next part of the puzzle- figure on a carb repair or replacement. Either bow or bend the body back, flatten the mounting ears or replace with a 1036 if one can be found, other choice is a Amal MkII or find the internals to a T5GP2  that also came with the Thruxton.  On to the next round. I'll let this one settle in the mind; some thoughts of using the press or bolts standing off the opposite side to try to bow back in the opposite direction. But we have spark, and that's a great sign!