Carburetter

Well, while waiting for the Bantam engine rebuild to get moving (I'm waiting for the crankshaft to come back from Rex Caunt) I've been plating fasteners using a kit from Gateros.

While I had the tank out, I thought I would get the Ariel carburetter ready and plate the steel parts. I've been experimenting with aluminium cleaning with an electrolytic soda bath, along with various household products.

Here is a household product with which I have become acquainted:

I started with a spare Zenith mower carburetter I had knocking around:

I attacked one of these with Cillit Bang descaler and got this in a few minutes:

The electrolytic bath didn't help much. I started with the Solex 26 AHD from the Ariel, which looked quite horrible to start with. These carburetters appear on several small french cars - they were specified by Ariel because the constant vacuum from the four cylinder engine can prevent a spring return slide from closing:

But after a couple of hours with a small brush & Cillit Bang:

This is what it is supposed to look like:

The next step is to make some decision on how to plate the steel parts. I fancy a nice yellow chromate passivate...