The great carb debate

[Mjhayes]

Hi very new to this forum - I’m looking at purchasing an air cooled van this weekend I’ve done lots of research and am happy with what I’m buying say one niggle. The van has had extensive engine work with lots of new bits and has been converted to a single carb, Webber I believe, which I’m not totally against it’s a wait and see for me I’m hoping to use as a daily driver btw. - my question is if I want to convert back to twin set up what sort of money am I looking at? 

thanks 

 

[Da dan]

As long as it’s running well, why change? I found my old dg ran well on that carb. Maybe a little more juicy but not really noticeable. Precious metals classic cars in Billericay for a good mechanic. Good luck


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Mjhayes]

Precious metals thanks for recommendations - I agree if the van runs well I won’t change it I’ve just heard that they struggle in the cold weather on a single carb ? Fingers crossed

Thanks

[Aidan]

You can't buy genuine Solex carbs now afaik, I don't know about copies, but old ones tend to be problematic, worn spindle bushes and leaks and the like, you'd need to talk to a carb specialist like BromyardVW to find out what is currently possible I think

[Mjhayes]

I’m hoping the single carb works well and I don’t have to change it but thanks for recommending someone should I need it

[toomanytoys]

Spend the money on someone that can rolling road set it up properly, the generic jetting they come with out of the box is the issue.. and very few people do anything about it so the poor old carb gets a bad rap....

[Mjhayes]

Yeah I was hoping to find a specialist to give it a proper tune up - the issue is finding someone ?

Any suggestions?

[DoubleOSeven]

Type ‘rolling road near me’ into Google maps, then start calling them to see if they can manage your carb.

[Simon Baxter]

I never had much joy with those carburettors.
Some of the supplied hardware was too long and when you tightened down the carb on to the adapter the set screw bottomed out then and you continued to tighten unaware the new kit had the wrong set screws it bend the adapter wich then introduced an air leak.
I'd say it would be worth removing and checking the adapter is flat and sealed.
After that as Simon says, they were jetted far too rich and as a result it wasn't uncommon to see black smoke on acceleration, you definatley needed to tow a fuel bowser if you drove them energetically..
I've taken a few off and replaced with a rebuilt 2E3 and all good with acceptable performance and economy resumed (but even they they are never going to be great but kinda acceptable if you don't use them on a daily basis)
If it started out as a DF with the single Solex then I'd say keep the Weber, do the checks and get it re-jetted properly.

[Mjhayes]

So an update on the carb issue, so things went from bad to worse took it to a tuning specialist (not rolling road) seems that I have a lot of unburnt fuel/gas from the exhaust - it’s not backfire if or anything but the guy said that there is t anything he can do that is having an effect on that reading? Any ideas?

That wasn’t the worst of it, we changed to an electronic distributor and played with the time if and leaned off the fuel a bit - and cut a long story short I came home on a tow truck.

May be unrelated or coincidence I guess but from the messing about we did it was clear that I wasn’t getting fuel through.

Started up and ticked over fine then drove ok but I’d lost top end speed and after 10 mins driving I couldn’t get it to do more than 30mph !!!

AA guy came out we changed the fuel filter and that made it even worse - He took the fuel line off the tank and reckons that the tank is full of garbage as pretty much no fuel came out with the pipe unhooked !!!

So I’m thinking a new tank is needed for starters then who knows maybe have the head off and a bit of a rebuild if I’m getting loads of unburnt fuel at the exhaust -

In need of a guru badly ……… oh and a lottery win probably.

2 weeks into Aircooled life and I think I’m done with it !!!!

[Stesaw]

Yeah the pitfalls of buying a van that hasn't been looked after enough. If these vans are looked after they are great to drive and to own, but you might be spending £££ getting it sorted before you get to that stage! If you can do most of the jobs yourself you will save yourself a lot of money but that depends on how mechanically minded you are and how much you want to do it 

[mioba]

Anyone who owns a T25 needs to be mechanically aware and hands on. Garages are few and far between that can handle the simplicity of repairing these buses.95% of garages now are fitters and cant repair a leaking innertube.

If you are not hands in these vehicles will cost you.

[Mjhayes]

To be fair I bought the van with a view of it being a project, I’m happy to get my hands dirty and change parts (maintenance) but I don’t have the knowledge to diagnose problems - this case seems weird to me had the gases checked as part of tuning - high hydrocarbons unburnt fuel but the breakdown is a starvation issue? Hoping it’s a problem that doesn’t require major rebuild - the van was bought because supposedly a rebuild was done ??

[Gavrilo]

I also bought a T25 2.0l Aircooled with the DGV single carb fitted and found it pretty much undriveable when it was cold, what happens in a carburettor is that air and fuel are mixed in a certain ratio which is then drawn into the engine and burnt, without preheated inlet manifold the mixed air and fuel hit the cold tubes and the fuel falls out of suspension making the mixture lean, so you adjust for more fuel which cools the tubes more and so on. When I removed my DGV I poured petrol out of the inlet manifolds. I fitted a pair of original pdsit's, easy to tune once you understand them and if you also fit a wide band A/F ratio meter you save on paying someone who may or may not know what they are doing, you can also see if its running lean which will kill your engine very fast. Of course if you fuel tank is full of rust etc it will not help, but beware running too lean. 

[crazydiamond]

Bromyard VW is out of action at the moment, I gave him a ring a week ago and he is out of comission due to illness, so sorry. Hope he recovers soon.