The value of planning: A simple trick when prepping the intake manifold

As we prepare to re-build the carburettors we first turned our attention to the intake manifold. It is a wonderful cast aluminum piece that was looking a little tired and dirty. To really get it nice we immersed it in carburettor cleaner and then scrubbed it clean with a soft plastic bristle brush. The result is a factory fresh looking part.

As always we got it ready to accept the carbs by pre-assembling it with all of the nuts, washers, and gaskets it would need. It is a good tip to do this at this stage because your brain has the whole assembly all fresh in its head and it is double the work to have to come back to at build time to figure out what fasteners go where. This way it is ready to assemble with the minimum of ramp up time.

Lastly we fitted the 4 long bolts that fix the manifold to the engine block as these cannot be installed once the carbs are on. It would be a real shame to have to take everything apart because we overlooked this little detail.