Extreme frustration!

[daniel911T]

OK,

I had a set of webers on my car. They ran, but I couldn't tune them because the shafts were loose.

I said "Wow, getting my Webers fixed is expensive! I know what I'll do: I'll get a set of Zenith's for half the cost of repairing my Webers!" Sounded like a great idea.

I bought a set. They were supposed to be in good shape, but needing rebuilt. In this case "needing rebuilt" meant that the back two butterfly plates on both carbs were corroded/rusted to the point of being welded in place and the front shaft couplers were broken (surely from someone trying to force them free.) As a special bonus one had an idle mixture screw broken off in it complete with a broken housing.

Now I was out $400, and I had some nasty parts, and one marginally rebuildable body. I still took the time to torture them apart, with liberal use of torches and hammers.

Krik, a friend who sold me the engine in my car now, happened to have about 1.5 zenith's laying around that he wasn't going to use. Graciously, he donated the parts he had. One was partial, one was perfect for the front 2/3 then a corroded mess on the last barrel. I added them to my pile of parts and got to work.

Months passed. I won't bore you with the details, but I ended up buying tools totaling more than I want to know, rebuild kits, some new parts, a parts tumbler/vibrator, 2 electroplating kits, 2 expensive power supplies, more replenishment stuff, enough chemicals to set up my own lab, and I spent in excess of 300 hours working on these carbs.

Yesterday, I finally got them assembled. I've been working on them the last 6 days straight for 10-14 hours a day. I've had a wife free vacation, and all I wanted was to fix my damn car!

I put them on the car today and it's been a disaster ever since I started. As soon as I started the fuel pump, one of them shot a geyser of fuel straight up out of the bowl vent, the other made this sickening gurgling noise and slowly overflowed with fuel. In both cases I found issues with the floats and resolved them. At this point the car was so flooded that even sitting two hours with empty float bowls, all the spark plugs out, fuel pump fuse pulled, and a couple of long turning over sessions, it was STILL flooded!

So here it is, 9pm EST, Porschefest is tomorrow, and a solid week of work still does not have my car running. For the last two months, all I wanted to do was make Porschefest (Summit Point in WV) and even with a solid 7 days of work, DOING NOTHING BUT THIS DAMN CAR, I still can't drive it tomorrow. I'll have to go to Porschefest in a Diesel VW station wagon.

I've vented. Thank you for your time.

-Dan

The offending beasts:

[Mia911]

Wow....that sucks......

[paulgtr]

put the webers back on?

[daniel911T]

Originally Posted by paulgtr

put the webers back on?

Sold 'em. dumb.

However, they did go to a very good home. They're now in the care of Paul Abbot of Performance Oriented.

-Dan

PS I'm kicking myself for selling them.

[Augustus]

After I bought $600.00 in Weber parts, cleaned them and made my own shaft bushings, my carbs still didn't function very well.
Carbs are a very important part of the engine and since engine rebuilds are expensive I decided to have Paul Abbott @ Perfomance Oriented re build my carbs early this year. Although the cost was high its worth every stinking penny. My carbs function perfectly. I'm very happy.

I'm sorry that you've gotten yourself so deep in your carb project. Before I start any projects on the car I weigh all my options. I hate being penny wise and pound foolish.

[daniel911T]

Originally Posted by Augustus

After I bought $600.00 in Weber parts, cleaned them and made my own shaft bushings, my carbs still didn't function very well.
Carbs are a very important part of the engine and since engine rebuilds are expensive I decided to have Paul Abbott @ Perfomance Oriented re build my carbs early this year. Although the cost was high its worth every stinking penny. My carbs function perfectly. I'm very happy.

I'm sorry that you've gotten yourself so deep in your carb project. Before I start any projects on the car I weigh all my options. I hate being penny wise and pound foolish.

Penny wise and pound foolish is [sadly] my standard operating procedure.

If there is a lesson learned here it's this: SEND YOUR WEBERS TO PAUL! It may seem expensive, but it's much cheaper than ANY alternative.

-Dan

[Danimal16]

We all learn these lessons. Mine were many decades ago. Sometimes the pros really are the best value. I am very sorry to hear of your frustration, but remember that you are learning tons of stuff about your car (rather expensive tho they are) but you will be better off for it. Best wishes on the challenge, but be patient you are among many others who have shared the pain.

[daniel911T]

Originally Posted by Danimal16

We all learn these lessons. Mine were many decades ago. Sometimes the pros really are the best value. I am very sorry to hear of your frustration, but remember that you are learning tons of stuff about your car (rather expensive tho they are) but you will be better off for it. Best wishes on the challenge, but be patient you are among many others who have shared the pain.

The tragedy of this is that I rebuilt my Webers and they ran pretty damn well, I just couldn't fine tune them due to the loose shafts. I've rebuilt a lot of carbs in by life, and a couple of fuel injection systems (both Bosch L jetronic) and I've always had success. I just can't figure out what's wrong with these damn things!

The one that is just slowly filling up and overflowing.... the float level (on the float level gauge) is actually off the scale LOW, but somehow it's still leaking out the main jet and out the aux venturi. HOW THE HELL IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?!?!

[deep breath] As you said... patience.

...And I have learned a LOT. I feel like I fully understand fuel delivery (while running) in Weber an Zenith carbs. Paul Abbot was actually a great help, as was the Zenith full technical manual I found online. (willing to share if anybody needs it)

Pros... best value... yes. It's a hard lesson for the stubborn to learn, but if I had, I would have been driving my car for the last 5 months.

Thanks!

-Dan

[paulgtr]

deep breath is the best choice now. great thing about porsche get togethers is that there is always another one coming up. sort it out and make the next one.

[daniel911T]

I am a great lover of Belgian beer. When I gave up my dream of my car running tonight I cracked the last "Affligem" I had. Wonderful beer, has that distinctive "abbey" flavor (actually comes from the yeast) and is pretty strong at 7%. Not quite "Chimay" but still very good for beer purchased from a supermarket.

After the depth of my failure, albeit temporary, struck me, I felt the need for more good beer. I went to the nearest convienience store (for those on the East Coast, Wawa) and foolishly passed up my normal standby, Sam Adams, for the Belgian Stella Artois. I'm on bottle #4 and I don't feel like I've had anything to drink at all.

New lesson of the day: Stella Artois may be from Belgum, but this weak ass piss water may as well be Corona Lite. Sammy is always the safe standby. Lesson learned.



-Dan

[paulgtr]

dog fish head has a couple nice brews as well. I don't think you'd complain about them being weak!

[Plecostomus]

Throw them both in a vat of molten metal like in the terminator movie.

[daniel911T]

Originally Posted by Plecostomus

Throw them both in a vat of molten metal like in the terminator movie.

That would be SO satisfying.

[HawgRyder]

Loose throttle shafts are easy to fix.
Take them apart (plate out..shaft out)...ream the shaft hole to next oversize....buy new bushings from McMaster-Carr..or similar.
Now..choose bushings that are just about 1/2 the length of the original ones...push one in all the way to the bore...place a tiny "O" ring in the bushing hole (one that will slip fairly easily on the shaft)...then push in the next 1/2 of the bushing.
This gives you a seal inside the shaft hole that will last for centuries.
Even if the shaft starts to wear the bushings...the air will not get through.
I have done this for Webbers...Holleys..SU's...and Old Carters...works like a charm.
Bob

[ratpiper71T]

Loose throttle shafts are easy to fix.

Take them apart (plate out..shaft out)...ream the shaft hole to next oversize....buy new bushings from McMaster-Carr..or similar.

Now..choose bushings that are just about 1/2 the length of the original ones...push one in all the way to the bore...place a tiny "O" ring in the bushing hole (one that will slip fairly easily on the shaft)...then push in the next 1/2 of the bushing.

This gives you a seal inside the shaft hole that will last for centuries.

Even if the shaft starts to wear the bushings...the air will not get through.

I have done this for Webbers...Holleys..SU's...and Old Carters...works like a charm.

Bob

Can you show pics of this procedure?

To the original poster, sorry for your mishaps. I bought some webers recently and Paul will probably be doing at least a little work on'em! I still have my zeniths but the words of BA echoed through my head until I bought a pair of webers-'the zeniths and I have never been friends'...

[steve911T]

Daniel, sent you an email. Steve

[HawgRyder]

Have whipped up a crude dwg...should give you the idea.
Hope this helps
Bob

[daniel911T]

Today the car ran!

That old girl threw me for a loop. Yes, I did have float problems, but they were resolved the first time. It turned out that the carbs would have run at that point, but there was a second problem lurking.

The coil had gone bad. However that sneaky bastard only had a partial failure. If I pulled the coil wire and did the MSD white wire trick, I did get a spark, albeit not a very impressive one. It wasn't until I actually pulled a spark plug out and hooked it up to the coil wire, then tried the white wire trick, that I saw there was no spark. I tried three different plugs, three different gaps, some new, some old. I never got a plug to spark. Finally I did the electrical checks on the coil: total failure.

I searched the local area for a MSD high vibration coil, and again came up empty. In the entire DC area I couldn't find a single one anywhere. I ended up just getting the normal Blaster 2 coil and mounting it on the fan right side up. I had foolishly thrown away the Magnecor coil wire anyway, so I had no choice but to make a new one, if it was a bit longer it was no more trouble.

Got the install done, and she fired up on the first crank. She had good oil pressure, no obvious leaks, and a super smooth idle right at 900 RPM. The only tuning I had done was the set to the factory defaults.

I'm taking a break from setting the floats at the moment, but one side is done. She idles smooth, revs freely, and generally runs much better in an untuned state than the Webers ever did. A pretty clear indication that the Webers were just flat worn out.

The last major change I need to make is to go to stock idle jets. They should be 47,5, but I only had 5 of those. Right now I have a set of 55s in it. Thanks to Steve911T I now have a full set of 6 47,5s! Thanks again! I also installed Paul Abbot's tunable air correction jet mod, the stock jets are 145, which is HUGE. Thanks to Paul, I'm running 120s. This should make transition a bit richer, which I understand is necessary on today's crappy gas.

Here's some pics:



The coil move. I think the wiring is quite tidy.



Here's the sneaky bastard:




Thanks for the support!

Dan

[paulgtr]

glad you got it running! bummer you missed that meeting but you'll be more than ready for the next one!

[Charles Freeborn]

I've felt your pain on many a project, and yes, Stella is girls beer. The Belgians do make some nice suds, but that's not it.
-C