Morgana

Luckily I can borrow time on a lathe, so I turned a pin down from a bit of bar this afternoon, and it looks like it'll do the job!

Winter car too, steveo! 😉 No troubles with grip and the heater kept us toasty up to Edinburgh over new year. The wipers are pretty effective, but there are some leaks which mean more demisting than I'd like, and a gap around the seal on the passenger door front which makes a cold draft on the knees. However, with relays for the headlamps (PO running halogens through the dashboard switch with loose connections almost burned up the switch...) the lighting's better than my mother's modern car. I keep being astonished at how much room there is in a Herald for moving things around, too!

Have you tried the man, the legend Mick Dolphin?

Copper work hardening is a major issue, to the extent that it's a failure in many vehicle test codes (I don't know about the MOT specifically). Perhaps that's only a giant no-no for brake lines which are under high pressure, and you might be OK for low-pressure carburettor feed pipes as long as it's very well supported to avoid vibration. However, heating pipe at 8mm is not the same as fuel pipe at 5/16". I'd go to a reputable motor supplier and get 5/16" cupro-nickel ('kunifer'). All the malleability of copper for easy forming, but without the work-hardening, crack and then a fuel fire. I think copper needed twice as many supports as steel, which gives you some idea of the different strengths and resistance to vibration damage. Once they realised the troubles with copper, it was no longer approved and then cupro-nickel came along. From your photographs it doesn't look like there are many supports at all. Perhaps modern-style nylon would be the best like-for-like as mentioned above. If you use cupro-nickel, don't forget to put a bubble flare on the end where it joins any rubber hose (and yes, get kosher fuel hose from the club as Pete Lewis says). I don't mean a specific standard, but a half-formed double flare, just so there's a smooth bulge in the pipe at the end. Put the hose clip behind this bulge and then the rubber hose can't come off.

Thanks for the effort, Colin. It does need that shoulder since the hole in the stay is much larger than the hole in the bracket. I have the starlock bit but despite looking everywhere I can think of the pin remains elusive! I may have to do as you have done. I've got some nylon washers that might add some smoothness, as well.

Following on...I took the top pivot off too, and have now forgotten what it looks like when I'm rummaging, despite thinking I'd put everything in a carefully labelled bag. Is it a clevis pin with a starlock washer on? Any photos?

Cornwall's a good place to be - getting round bulbous SUVs in the lanes whose drivers don't know where reverse is, or where the corners are is a doddle in a Herald, and very satisfying! Pootling about and getting all the admiring looks instead of the wildly more expensive and ugly blacked out Range Rover in front is another bonus...

I have personally had problems with the brass nuts sold for this purpose as they have stripped the threads before tightening properly. Apparently bronze used to be used as it's stronger, but it's more expensive so is now very rarely available. I made my own bronze nuts from hex stock and have had no more problems, so if they're the same thread as a 1200 saloon I could make you some more.

Outer diameter can be misleading as newer wiring is 'thin wall' so there's a larger area of copper for a given diameter compared to your old loom. The only real way to ensure satisfaction is to calculate or estimate the load on each wiring element, then check the voltage drop along the wire length is not excessive. Taking the load off is also beneficial. Adding headlight relays over the front wheel arch with a new feed means the dashboard switch in the Herald is not in danger of catching fire as it was because of the previous owner's loose connections, and the headlights are brighter. You might find the attached table useful. I get wires from Auto Electric Supplies. They have a good range of colours that match the Lucas tables, and plenty of cross sectional areas available with recommendations as to their suitable uses.

Thank you both. My black bracket spacer piece has a spire clip on, so was fouling the top of the fuel tank on top of there being three different screw types in the holes! I'll make it look like Mr Lindsay's with some spires, self-tappers and a machine screw/nut combination and I think that will improve things no end.

After welding the snapped upper support bracket I'm ready to put the stay back on, and stop supporting the boot on my head. The base of the stay was held on with three completely different screws which I'm keen to return to something rather less wobbly. There was one 'J' spire nut, one nut and machine screw and one 'U' spire nut on the channel that clamps the fuel tank to the stay and the body bracket. None of the diagrams I've seen show in detail how this ought to be when it's right. I've attached some pictures of the order I think the parts should logically go in. I guess two 'J' spires on the green body bracket (to allow them to be installed from underneath without fouling the fuel tank like a 'U' would), and one (U or J?) on the separate (black) clamp piece, all held together with No.10 1/2" or 5/8" pan/flanged self-tappers? Does anyone have a picture or reference of the original fitment?

Does the pump get hot being attached to the engine? Epoxy resins like Araldite usually 'let go' around 60C. One possibility would be to thread both parts with a parallel pipe thread and fibre washer for the seal at the bottom of the recess. With the pressures involved a fuel-resistant dowty washer would likely not be necessary. A tapered thread hosetail would lock against a parallel female thread, but I would not think alloy would be suitable for that method. Depending on what the bottom of the recess looks like, perhaps an olive connection could seal there? Any mechanical method would seem better to me than a doubtful adhesive! 🤔

I haven't seen this style. Does it not have an olive and screw? It seems a problem waiting to happen with dissimilar metals otherwise!

My whole carburettor must be metric: the top cover only has the holes for the screws to go through and the female fuel pipe tube nut thread, and it's the bottom half that has the tapped holes for the M5x0.75 cover screws. The olive recess appears correct (I don't know if metric olives are made with different angles, like SAE and DIN flares), and the M12x1.25 nut is made for 1/4" pipe so I'll put the whole thing together with what I have and check for leaks. Assuming a metric nut was supplied with the carburettor when delivered new, it's not too great a leap to think it was all made for imperial pipe and fittings, but they saved machining costs by keeping the same metric internal thread for all models. Perhaps as you say it was a later alteration, so my carburettor could be a later addition. The other end of the pipe is the fuel pump's 1/2"UNF. A friend's coming over tomorrow with a flaring tool so I can make some hose-retaining bubbles on the relevant bits of pipe - yes, I'll be on the lookout for the rubber slivers! Then I'll report back.

The new (original era AC) pump is fine - it was when comparing the two I noticed the hole through the fitting into the body of the pump in the reproduction one is smaller than on the original. I've been given a new (old) pump by a local enthusiast with innumerable cars and a biplane in his wonderful workshop, as I wanted to solve the excessive spring pressure (and hopefully the oil leak around the fuel pump) once and for all. I've got a few different springs so I can see if the reproduction models can be improved with stock parts, and am making up the pipes to fit them before pressure testing. I'll try drilling out the holes in the reproduction one to 1/4" and compare. The car came with another reproduction so with the one off the car I have two to fiddle with. The new ones' springs are wildly different from the AC pump. Yes, Solex was a French concern which started in radiators before making carburettors after buying some French patents. I can only assume the designs were originally metric by nationality, and production in France only ended in 1988. The quest I had with the top cover screws shows metric is not alien (even if weird metric) to this carburettor at least, but it is interesting they seem to have made a UNF version as Colin Lindsay has. On mine the 7/16" is really sloppy though it will do up as they're almost the same TPI. The fuel pump's 1/2"-20 won't fit at all and M12x1.25 is ideal. Canley did say that this nut was not obtainable and that was why they didn't supply the fuel pipe from pump to carburettor for the 1200, so perhaps they've had the same confusing problem. Maybe it's one of those things the dogged and time-rich enthusiast can dig up that the professional cannot justify the time on. I bought all three parts Automec sell as M12x1.25, including one described as a 'Citroën carburettor' nut which looks like the original unrelieved fuel pump nuts apart from the different thread, so I'm going to try it first. They used Solexes so that fits, too. Alternatively, there is a UK and a European version of this carburettor, and at some point in the past it's been changed for reasons unknown! Though, as the previous nut threads on, despite being chewed on the head, it must have been with the carburettor and the fuel pipe been added at the same time, unless the end was not swaged and the olive could be removed. The whole assembly is cable-tied to a bracket near the water pump rather than being clipped as I believe it ought to be, so something's been done with it. That olive looks like the original ones on the steel stub pipes that were on my original pump. The new ones I have are shaped like a conical bifrustum rather than a barrel. In the reproduction fuel pump, that length of pipe cannot project as the fitting hole narrows too much, but that's how they're fitted on the original pump. The devil is in the detail, and in the archaeology!

Yes, new parts have arrived and M12 x 1.25 is the right thread for a Solex B30 PSE1. I have been fiddling with the new original fuel pump and a reproduction one. Interestingly, the original is drilled for 1/4" pipe (as expected for what's on the car) but the reproduction one is 3/16". This might be a problem as using 1/4" pipe with an olive, the pipe cannot be pushed far enough into the hole. The olive is right at the end of the pipe and in the couple of experiments I tried with new bits of 1/4" cupro-nickel pipe, compressing the fitting causes swaging of the pipe end to make a flange over the end of the olive. This is just the thing that has caused the fuel weep at the carburettor. With the stubs of steel pipe that were left in the original pump, the olive is some distance up the tube, with the part projecting beyond the olive sitting happily through the hole towards the body of the pump which avoids this problem.

There is a page in the Herald glovebox manual with a settings table for different conditions when using the heater/blower - window open slightly, distribution to windscreen, heat on with fan etc.

It's not 7/16" UNF at all. The thread profile is wrong and the 7/16" UNF nut that's just arrived doesn't fit. Left to right in the picture: original; 1/2" UNF from the fuel pump; new 7/16" UNF. Looking more closely, it's a very good fit for M12 fine. This is 1.25mm pitch, which is 20.3tpi - an easy confusion to make when expecting 1/2" or 7/16" UNF which are both 20tpi. This would also tally with the metric top cover screws in the bizarre M5x0.75 thread... Automec have a possibility which I will try next. Flexolite show a banjo fitting with M12x1.25 described as 'Solex Carburettor Thread' so I think I'm on the right track.

That's not a bad idea. I think the olive on one of the spigots on the original fuel pump is soldered. I guess not something to do with petrol around! Would you align the end of the olive with the pipe, or have some projecting?

Late to the party, but this thread (ha!) came up while I was looking for parts for my Solex. The thread for part 72 on my B30 PSE1 is 7/16" UNF - it's noticeably smaller than the 1/2" UNF fuel pump tube nuts, and the latter don't fit the former. Canley say the nut is unobtainable. I'm investigating a solution. Edit: It's not 7/16" UNF at all. The thread profile is wrong and the 7/16" UNF nut that's just arrived doesn't fit. Left to right in the picture: original; 1/2" UNF from the fuel pump; new 7/16" UNF. Looking more closely, it's a very good fit for M12 fine. This is 1.25mm pitch, which is 20.3tpi - an easy confusion to make when expecting 1/2" or 7/16" UNF which are both 20tpi. This would also tally with the metric top cover screws at the bizarre M5x0.75 thread... Automec have a possibility which I will try next. Edit again: Flexolite show a banjo fitting with M12x1.25 described as 'Solex Carburettor Thread' so I think I'm on the right track.

That does look similar, thanks for the Google-fu johny! The proportions look different from the one I have though (I've tried to make an equivalent perspective picture, attached), so I called Gower and Lee again but they only open Monday-Wednesday. I did get through to Canley Classics, and they say they don't do a B30 PSE1 kit because this nut is unobtainable! So perhaps there's more to it than meets the eye. I'll get one of the ones you show and do another comparison.

It's similar - the fuel pump is 1/2"-20 UNF as you say, but the Solex is 7/16"-20 UNF on the same 1/4" pipe (which has been, as one might think, confusing). I haven't done work on the brakes enough to get to know the fittings, but I'm aware of the principle of flared ends. The original fuel pump I've got had steel pipe ends (so presumably original equipment) with olives on in the inlet and outlet. The original nuts are both some yellow metal and have a cone/chamfer on, with the new olives I have sitting into the nut by a small amount. I have seen some on eBay and other retailers that show pictures of the business end where it isn't flat, but often advertised as for brake pipes. I imagine it's a bit of suppliers not knowing, buyers not knowing and variation in the manufacture. From a purely mechanical causality perspective, it seems logical that the olive ought to be compressed from both sides. If a flat-sided nut is used, the edge of the olive will be pressed forward and the shaped recess in the carburettor will compress that end, but the other will not be suitably shaped. In extremis, I could machine a truncated cone of the right angle into the end of the nut, but for something sitting over the hot manifold it would be nice to get it right first time! The new one's a lot longer, too. I've not been able to find a part at Canley from the diagram, as their 'fuel' section stops at the pump inlet, and the carburettor doesn't have a piece of pipe associated with it. Aside, my pump to carburettor copper line is cable-tied to a mount at the front of the water pump, but from reading on here I understand it was originally rigidly mounted with one of the bolts for the pump to some sort of clip. The pipe I had to file the swage off in order to remove the useless olive and nut from is quite ropey, so I was considering replacing it with the cupro-nickel length I have just bought, but if doing that I may as well mount it robustly to the pump if that's where it's supposed to go.

I got some nuts, olive and pipe in an order today. However, I think the nuts are for double flares rather than olives, as the ends are flat. Am I right in thinking they ought to have a conical inner surface to compress the olive successfully? Attached is a picture of the mashed nut off the carburettor (originality unknown, but with a flared inner surface) and the new one. I've not heard back from Gower & Lee to see if they have pipe nuts to match the carburettor. It's tricky as most of these fittings I've found are advertised as brake rather than fuel, so aren't made for olives. I understand olives are not suitable for brake lines as the pressures are too high, hence the flare fittings for those applications, and the alternative styles of 7/16-20 nuts...

Thank you both. Pete L - I don't think I'll be sure of anything again after my experience with the M5x0.75 thread on the float chamber cover! 😁 PeteH - 1/4"BSP actually measures ~1/2" across as it comes from the bore size of steel pipe, and allows for threads to be made on the outside. In this case, the outside diameter of the thin-wall fuel pipe is 1/4" and the fitting will be made with an olive and a male tube/pipe nut. The examples I've seen for sale of this type of nut are UNF or metric. I have found a chap locally who has boxes of spares and is going to have a rootle for me. I'll see what he turns up...

I've not been able to get hold of Gower and Lee, and can otherwise find no reference to this part on the carburettor drawings. The pipe nut holding the fuel pipe into the carburettor was mashed on first getting the car, and didn't fit any metric or imperial spanners. After a weep where the only way to get it to stop was really mashing the nut, I need to redo the connection. It's an olive compression fitting, and since I find the olive can rotate on the pipe, which has flared out slightly beyond the olive, I guess this is the source of the poor seal. Flexolite for example have a 7/16" nut for 1/4" pipe, but with prior experience of unusual metric threads on the carburettor cover I think it's as well to seek further expertise... In passing, does anyone have concrete evidence that the carburettor's name is PSEI or PSE1? The Solex manuals are inconclusive as the sans serif typeface makes the numeral and the capital letter look identical! I'm tempted to think it's an 'i', since Gower and Lee who sell the parts have a PSEI-2, which would imply PSE2 if it were a numeral.