Forgot to update this a few weeks ago - so copied the below from another forum! It has since done 300 miles round trip and been part of my wedding (photos to follow). Just prepping it for Retro Rides this weekend now, fitting some Recaro front seats (putting the very good condition originals into storage) and refitting the Compomotive wheels with slightly lower profile and stickier tyres.
Got the Dolly out of the garage Friday in preparation for a fair bit of work on it this weekend, drove about 3 miles down the road and started smelling petrol. Turned out the pipe from the fuel pump was perished and very split as I was greeted with a fountain of the fuel when I opened the bonnet. Friday lunchtime was therefore spent replacing that hose and any others I could see. Drove it Friday evening and Saturday morning no problem but then driving back from work Saturday lunch time I could smell petrol again. This time it turns out it was flowing out of the overflow for the rear float chamber. I quick wiggle of the float (after I worked out what the hell was going on) and it resolved it temporarily, but was still dripping when I got home. It was the first time I've actually had to pull over and work on it on the side of the road, so am I officially a classic car owner now?
Sunday my buddy Taylor came over to tick a few things off the list with general tuning/tinkering. That float chamber was also added to the list and after blowing it through with some brake cleaner it seems to be ok, possibly some grit or something had got in there when changing the hoses.
We set the carbs up properly and adjusted the timing as it was waaaay out. Probably to compensate for the carbs being so badly set up too. It was running pretty well before but now it drives like a dream, so much torque and power all the way through the rev range. The only issue being the choke/idle from cold, which I'll find out if we've resolved when I start it this morning.
Next up was to replace the NSF brake pipe as it got a little twisted when replacing the hoses previously. Better to be safe than sorry and all that.
After that we set about on the headlamps and replacing the whole set with modern halogen versions. I wanted to a run a relay to protect the switch on the column, as standard all the headlamps run through that without any fuse, and I don't really like the idea of a fire above my crotch when driving.
We mounted a twin relay under the dashboard and connected that up direct to the battery, then separated the wiring out and connected it all up. The headlamps were a straight swap into the old carriers. And success! Well almost, all the lamps worked apart from the LHF dip beam. Bizarrely the flash main which hadn't worked before was now working. After checking the connectors and bulbs it became clear the wiring must be at fault somewhere. We pulled apart the loom under the bumper and it was immediately clear the wiring was well dead. It was probably 90% corrosion and blackness and 10% copper. As the day was getting late and foolishly I was running out of wire, we ran a new connector to the headlamp and new wires to dip and earth. I didn't have enough for main beam but at least it's useable. I'm going to have to redo the whole front lighting loom at some point as it's pretty knackered, so will tidy everything up then.
Last job of the day was to free up the rear suspension, as I'm going to be using it for one of my wedding cars in 2 weeks and with passengers it scrubs really badly on the new wheels. Unfortunately the rear struts are stuck solid, so won't be adjusting anywhere. Looks like I'll be chucking the original wheels for the wedding and sorting it out at a later date.
After that we went for a quick blast to fine tune the carbs and it was bloody excellent. Which put my mind at ease, I have 2 big trips this week in it, one to Classics on the Common in Harpenden on Wednesday where it'll be on display in the show, and then another to Silverstone Classic at the weekend. Can't wait to get out in the sunshine and do some miles in it.