The Solex carb on my wee Land Rover was giving me some grief, and not running right. I took the first step of buying a refurb kit for the carb and fitted all new gaskets, diaphragms, and needles. Sadly this did not cure the problem.
Then a friend suggested using a ultrasonic cleaner, these are often found in such as Dentists and hospitals to sterlise medical equipment, and clean using ultrasonic waves through water with an added cleaner agent. He had come across their use in the Motorbike world for cleaning, yes you guessed it, carbs.
The above is an example of the type of cleaner, these can be found on online with prices varying depending on the size of unit.
So this is the state of the Solex carb before the clean.
As you can see the outer body is not that clean, and would be regarded as fairly normal on our Land Rovers.
So on the table it goes, as you can see, the dirt is everywhere around it. These pictures are for ensuring that once I take it all apart I can put it back together again!
The strip process now begins, starting with the needle, as you can see is nice and new. Count the number of turns it takes to remove it, and note it down, so when you put it back in, you are close to your previous settings. This makes setting up the carb later easier.
Stainless steel bowl, (it's a cat feeding bowl, ideal for this kind of work!)
Now to start and split the carb.
Again, you can see the new gasket in place, carefully removed so it can be re-used in this instance.
Just working around the carb, removing the various screws and levers.
Now to start and remove the diaphragm part of the carb, note which bolts go where, as you see they are different lengths.
All this was replaced earlier with a refurb kit, including the spring, so all was put to one side for reuse.
Keeping track of all the screws as I remove them.
And now splitting the main body, taking care in this instance as I wanted to re-use the gaskets as they were only put on recently. (wished I had know of the cleaner before putting the refurb kit on.)
Keep a check on everything, photo's always help.
Progress is been made at removing every item.
Always note where ever screw fits.
Be careful with items such as the spring and ball bearing that is used in this carb, very easy to loose one of these parts as you remove it.
Now everything is put in the tray of the cleaner, the cat bowl contains all the small parts while the main body parts are laid loose in the mesh basket.
For cleaning, I used hot water plus washing up liquid, the starting temp was around 50C during operation this increased to around 70C by the machine. To really clean this carb, I did one clean for 30 minutes, followed by moving the position of the items, and putting fresh water back in the machine.
As you can see, even on the second run, the water was really dirty after.
After I wash all parts with fresh cold water to remove any residue left from the the cleaning process, and then left to dry before putting back together.
Back on the Land Rover, as you can see, it looks like new, and it worked spot on, the deep clean provided by the Ultrasonic cleaner got to places inside that normal cleaning processes, did not. A slight tweek on the mixture screw and the engine was running as sweet as anything.
Hope this helps with any issues you have with a carb that does not provide the performance you expect. It was a cheap way and in my case transformed the carb back to like new.
Then a friend suggested using a ultrasonic cleaner, these are often found in such as Dentists and hospitals to sterlise medical equipment, and clean using ultrasonic waves through water with an added cleaner agent. He had come across their use in the Motorbike world for cleaning, yes you guessed it, carbs.
The above is an example of the type of cleaner, these can be found on online with prices varying depending on the size of unit.
So this is the state of the Solex carb before the clean.
As you can see the outer body is not that clean, and would be regarded as fairly normal on our Land Rovers.
So on the table it goes, as you can see, the dirt is everywhere around it. These pictures are for ensuring that once I take it all apart I can put it back together again!
The strip process now begins, starting with the needle, as you can see is nice and new. Count the number of turns it takes to remove it, and note it down, so when you put it back in, you are close to your previous settings. This makes setting up the carb later easier.
Stainless steel bowl, (it's a cat feeding bowl, ideal for this kind of work!)
Now to start and split the carb.
Again, you can see the new gasket in place, carefully removed so it can be re-used in this instance.
Just working around the carb, removing the various screws and levers.
Now to start and remove the diaphragm part of the carb, note which bolts go where, as you see they are different lengths.
All this was replaced earlier with a refurb kit, including the spring, so all was put to one side for reuse.
Keeping track of all the screws as I remove them.
And now splitting the main body, taking care in this instance as I wanted to re-use the gaskets as they were only put on recently. (wished I had know of the cleaner before putting the refurb kit on.)
Keep a check on everything, photo's always help.
Progress is been made at removing every item.
Always note where ever screw fits.
Be careful with items such as the spring and ball bearing that is used in this carb, very easy to loose one of these parts as you remove it.
Now everything is put in the tray of the cleaner, the cat bowl contains all the small parts while the main body parts are laid loose in the mesh basket.
For cleaning, I used hot water plus washing up liquid, the starting temp was around 50C during operation this increased to around 70C by the machine. To really clean this carb, I did one clean for 30 minutes, followed by moving the position of the items, and putting fresh water back in the machine.
As you can see, even on the second run, the water was really dirty after.
After I wash all parts with fresh cold water to remove any residue left from the the cleaning process, and then left to dry before putting back together.
Back on the Land Rover, as you can see, it looks like new, and it worked spot on, the deep clean provided by the Ultrasonic cleaner got to places inside that normal cleaning processes, did not. A slight tweek on the mixture screw and the engine was running as sweet as anything.
Hope this helps with any issues you have with a carb that does not provide the performance you expect. It was a cheap way and in my case transformed the carb back to like new.
