Weber throttle plate frustration

I havnt put the plates back in my other set of carbs, but I assume it would be simular to other Webers as well as anything else. I hope you had the foresight to mark the plates so you are installing them in thier same bores on the same shafts and in the same orientation, if not I suppose it could become more complicated. In any event...

You will note the plates have chamfered or angled edges 90 degrees to the shaft bore, so the plates will close completely. So assuming you have the correct plate, make sure its turned right side up, and rotated correctly. Slip it into the shaft, and work it around trying to close the plate to the bore and simultaneously rotating the shaft to the closed position, wiggle wiggle slip and slide, it should line up with the screw holes and you tighten it in place. Once you have one that shuts tight, do the other bore. Dont stake any screws until you have both plates secure and in correct position. Fun isnt it?

 

I remember back when I couldnt believe the figures people were throwing around, back when a particular dealer wanted almost $7K to do a 308 major service. I just knew it was all BS. Boy was I wrong, its a lot of work if you do it all. The problem isnt that they cant eat up that much labor, so much as some places charge the labor but dont do the work. But your correct, you get your nose in there and the further you look, the deeper you go. Cam belts turns into hoses, hoses turns into a carb rebuild, now you may as well redo the distributors, buy new ignition, ceramic coat the exhaust, rebuild the brakes, buy a pretty muffler, rebuild the suspension, and on it goes. Its a sickness I think.

 

Oh. Carbs? Read the GT/4 OWM until you can almost recite it, and only then, read Birdmans description. Same with points ignition, if you understand it its simple, if you dont its a rubics cube nightmare from hell.

On the seals, I swore I read someone telling to use sealer, which ive never used on seals. So like a moron I smeared them up with some copper RTV. Well, all four pushed out before I even had it running. Wipe the sealing surfaces of the seal and the metal with laquer thinner so they stay put. On the gaskets, work a very very fine film of permatex copper RTV into the paper with your fingers and thumbs, and set them up to take a good set. Use a sharp razor to cut the gasket to fit the head around the cam ends. Best to do that before you smear them all up

I dropped a cam cap washer in the head once, and watched it go down the oil return hole, making me remove the sump and look for an hour until I found it lying back on the gearbox shelf, right at the bottom of the return. I couldnt see it even with a mirror, and I couldnt get a magnet back there, even though I knew it had to be in there somewhere. I finally stuck a piece of tubing on the end of an air nozzle up there and blew it a bit. Tink tink out it came. When I think about it I put a flob of clean grease in the return holes so it wont happen again. Just clean it out after so the heads dont fill up with oil before the grease melts. With 40 cam cap nuts and 40 washers, its pretty inevitable youll drop one sooner or later. Rags or paper towels in the intake ports isnt always a bad idea either.

 

Lost a cam cap washer like that once. Looked on the garage floor for weeks. By golly there it was in the bottom of the oil drain pan about 3 months later, when I changed oil.

 

If you are not going to replace the alternator now, I might recommend turning the pivot bolt on the bracket around so when you decide to take it off, you don't loosen it only to find that it butts up against the dipstick. Or you could become one of the many Ferrari DIY'ers that have a 17mm box end wrench cut in half! Just food for thought...

 

Chris, this will not help you and I don't want to hijack this thread.
But I'm looking for informations how tight the fit of the bearings is in the carb housing and on the butterfly shaft.
Reason; since a while I'm thinking about design and fabricating a special tool for removal of the shaft bearings WITHOUT replacement of the throttle plates. Some kind of a mini puller which grips between the inner and outer race of the bearing. Once the old bearing is out, installing the new one seems easy.
Or am I completely wrong ? Any thoughts from those of you, who have replaced the throttle bearings would be highly appreciated.
I assume I have never replaced the throttle bearings. During my last carb overhaul 4 years ago I skipped this task because I feared exactly arising those problems described by Chris. I cleaned the carbs, replaced all gaskets, needle valves and pump diaphragms, and restaked the dreaded lead plugs.
But I would love to replace the bearings with sealed once one day.

Best Regards from Germany and thank you in advance

Martin

 

It seems that when I had problems with butterflies on throttle shafts in the past, I lubed them up good with heavy oil. (Without the oil they would stick in the bore too easily and not move to find the sweet spot.) With the screws loose, let them close and find their own center. Then tighten & stake screws. You can always remove the oil afterwards...