Out of Hybernation




In early 2001 our family moved to Texas from Lowestoft Suffolk. Initially we were not sure if it was a long term move so I put the Fury in to storage for a couple of years. Once we realized the move was for the long term I shipped the car over to Texas involving a lot of red tape.

For many reasons I won’t go in to, the Fury sat in the corner of the various garages we had for over 17 years. I had an attempt to get it running in 2009, but it would not idle at all and disappointed, I let it go to rest again. 











Earlier this year (2019) I cleared the way to get it on the lift and was determined to get it back on the road. I had purchased an all-round disc brake conversion and 5-point harnesses in 2007 that had sat in the boxes they came in. As the pictures illustrate it all started with a good wash. 


So on March 27th this year the restoration began. 




After getting it up on the lift the first task was to get the carburetors cleaned up. The state of these was why it wouldn’t run properly before. When the fuel evaporates it leaves behind a sticky residue which restricts or blocks the galleries. After a lot research to see what others had done to clean carbs up, I settled on a combination of ultra-sonic bath using a cup of Simple-Green in water at ~140F, then over-night soaking in acetone and then a blast through all the galleries with cans of carb cleaner. 

 Before:
   

After:



The cleaning process didn't make them shine, I think you need to bead blast them to get an 'as new' finish. My engine bay is not that pretty so this will do. These are 40DCOEs which are a bit small for outright power on a 2 liter twin cam, but they make the engine very drivable and they were cheap (off an Alfa). During the rebuild I decided to switch the 32mm chokes to 34s and re-jet accordingly. The trumpets were new as well although these will be covered with a pipercross filter.

Time to get them back on the engine. This included a new fuel pressure gauge and the filter/regulator was cleaned out and fitted with a new element. After hooking up the battery, thankfully the fuel pump worked and so was not gummed up. I pumped out as much fuel as I could with the pump and syphoned off the rest as much as possible. All the hoses downstream of the filter were replaced and I'm relying on the filter to catch anything that comes off the tank or upstream lines.

I think the fuel system is ready to go.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Introduction

Image
When I first built my Sylva Fury in 1993, the internet was still in its infancy, for me anyway! I bought my kit from the respected Jeremy Philips, owner and designer of Sylva Sportscars. The Fury ticked all the right boxes for me, it had a race proven chassis (based on the Stryker) and had a good looking 60s style body.  Having test driven Jeremy’s British racing green demonstrator I had no doubt this was the kit for me. I picked up the kit in the summer of 1993. The donor vehicle for the engine and gearbox was a Fiat Mirafiori sport. Both the engine and gearbox needed rebuilding, which I did myself. The mk2 escort axle and hubs were sourced from the scrap yard, in the days when they let you climb around the wrecks and remove the parts yourself! The build was all done in a small steel framed, asbestos paneled garage that barely kept the rain out! Getting a rolling chassis was relatively easy but the bodywork took a lot of measuring (twice) and careful cutting to make all t...
Read more

HiSpec Rear Disc Upgrade on a Sylva Fury (Mk2 Escort English axle) video only.

Image
This conversion has been far more problematic than I'd ever thought it would be.  1. The discs supplied had to be machined to fit over the ends of the axle. 2. The calipers required a Sierra handbrake cable, my Fury was set up for the Escort cable. 3. I had to re-drill the holes to bolt the caliper support bracket to the axle casing ends. 4. When all was assembled the inside of the wheel rubbed on the caliper. I had read some poor reviews of the handbrake mechanism on these calipers and have to say when I tried to make it work on the bench it didn't look good. Coupled with the work required to make the Sierra cable work, I decided to take a completely different route. I adapted the caliper's mechanism to be 'operated' by the Escort cable, but also placed a hydraulic cylinder in-line to the rear brakes to operate the calipers hydraulically.  I realize there is some question of the legality of these 'hydro-hand brakes' on the road, but I think if the original ...
Read more