Well final post for me tonight. Sorry to bore you all with my progress. If I can inspire only one person to have a go at doing some of these repairs it will be worth it.
Once I assessed the tail gate, I decided to blend the paint into the bottom of the guards. The result was even better than the tail gate. Rub back tomorrow and will put the final coats down.
I have a little rust in the passengers side door and spare wheel door (may see this in some pics). I feel very confident that I can repair these but have yet to make my mind up. Bring on another school holiday.
I said earlier on I would give a run down on how things went with the carbys. The old girl now really wants to get up and go from about 35 miles / hour onwards. There has been an improvement here. Is this due to the carbys or the increased compression ratio I am not sure. Possibly a combination of both. One detriment I have found and I hope this is because I haven't tuned the motor properly is that it seems to be guzzling the fuel. I haven't filled up since the first fill to measure the economy but just going by the mileage against the gauge there has been an increase in consumption even though I have reduced the size of the power bi pass jets. I have some 46 mains which I may try but I am conscious of not leaning it off too much. I suspect now that I have put Venturi Restrictors in and replaced and bushed the Throttle shafts that there has been a increase in vacuum. With this comes sucking more fuel into the motor. This is my theory. If anyone else has another suggestion I would love to hear from you.
This forum is absolutely great. I have learnt so much and thank you all for assistance over the years. Many of you have inspired me to have a go at doing things myself. If others out there like me who are hesitant- just have a go. The worse thing that can happen is that you need to employ some else to fix things up. The chances of that are minimal.
Interestingly I am good friends with the mechanics son who original owned the ute. He is a mechanic also. I have asked him occasionally for some guidance and his response has been "you know more about these than I do". This is testament to a lot of people here.
Thats enough for me for now. I will post some updates when the touch ups and good cut polish has concluded. As I said in an earlier post, if Mods would like to change the location of this thread feel free to do so. However its about finished.
