Re-sleeving carb inlet threads; anyone done it?

[Colin Lindsay]

I've been tearing my hair out trying to get the Estate started and have gone through three Solex B30 carbs in the last two weeks, refurbish / fit / no start / remove / check / replace with another / no start / remove again / refurbish and so on. Some of them have been in the spares pile a while and it usually becomes clear on fitting that the threads on the inlet no longer hold the pipe to make a good leak-free seal, which is probably the reason they've been put away in the first place. I'm assuming it must be possible to have these re-sleeved, like a Helicoil type thing? I've looked online for 're-sleeving' but it's usually re-sleeving the bores of moving pistons, so no help there. As always I just want to determine any pitfalls before I try it, or send the carbs off to have it done. It's a shame to waste good carbs for this one fault, it must be relatively simple to do, and I'm sure some business does it somewhere. Any thoughts?

[Pete Lewis]

an alternative is screw a taper threaded fir tree hose fitting in and connect up with fuel hose 

Pete

[Peter Truman]

6 hours ago, Colin Lindsay said:

 I'm assuming it must be possible to have these re-sleeved, like a Helicoil type thing? I've looked online for 're-sleeving' but it's usually re-sleeving the bores of moving pistons, so no help there. As always I just want to determine any pitfalls before I try it, or send the carbs off to have it done. It's a shame to waste good carbs for this one fault, it must be relatively simple to do, and I'm sure some business does it somewhere. Any thoughts?

A friend in the local TSOA Vic here advised me the other day that they were successfully heli-coiling the fuel pump inlet/outlet female threads.

Similarly I have numerous successfully heli-coiled the UNF threads in the alloy engine front sealing block

Also check the olive on the fuel pipe is tight over the years of tightening the fitting it swages into the pipe and can become loose allowing it to rotate on the pipe which will let air be drawn in I solder the olive onto the pipe to ensure a good seal.

Edited October 15 by Peter Truman

[PeteH]

Helicoil repair kits are available, at a cost, ranging from circa £35 into the stratosphere! (several hundred pounds). One issue I come across regularly is that suppliers will retail metric tube/fittings as "Near enough" to imperial sizes. Trying to fit metric olives to imperial or even vice versa is rarely a sucess!

Do you not have a small engineering company who would refurbish the threads for a "consideration" locally?. That would be my "go to! solution?.

Pete

[68vitesse]

I put a small O ring pump side of the olive on the pump to carburettor pipe, never needed one on the supply pipe.

Doesn't help with your query though, how much call is there for those carburettor body's?.

Regards

Paul.

[Colin Lindsay]

20 minutes ago, 68vitesse said:

Doesn't help with your query though, how much call is there for those carburettor body's?.

Well, most 1200 owners kind of rely on them to make the engine run...  I have five carbs, maybe even seven, and the price they go for on eBay shows some kind of rarity, but for my cars I need at least three working carbs and at present have only one that doesn't leak at this point. I hate to dump them, they're no longer made and getting harder to replace so it eases my conscience. I've replaced the olive a few times, the fuel pipe gets shorter by the 1/4 inch almost weekly, but I'd still like a better and more secure seal.

As Pete H says, I've fallen foul a few times of metric pipes being fobbed off as 'close enough' so usually source the original Imperial olives and fittings.

The In-Law's Engineering firm could do it for me, but I want to keep the original fittings and not hash up some metric replacement or rely on PTFE or Hylomar too much, so I am checking to see if there's an off-the-shelf solution they can use so as to keep 'distraction time' to a minimum.

[Pete Lewis]

this is what i thought would work  carbuilder.com/products/straight-brass-8mm-hosetail-18-npt

not saying this is the correct thread but you can seal it and use fuel hose   no more leakers 

Pete