Putting in a carb spacer

Finally it was time to put the new carb spacer in. I'd never removed a carburetor myself so that was pretty exciting for me. Removing a carb allows you to look into the intake manifold and I had no idea what to expect. I thought it would be very dirty inside because my old carb looked real dirty inside as well...

So I got started.

Removed the air filter.

And removed the carb. Easy job really. There's not too much to detach before you can remove this type of carburetor.

So there was my first ever look inside any intake :-) It probably sounds like nothing to many of you but if you have never done any engine work this feels like you're taking the engine apart!

The inside of the manifold is remarkably clean!

I was going to add this carb spacer from Edelbrock. Hopefully this is going to keep my carb cooler and therefore give me less issues with vaporizing fuel during and after a drive.

The bolts came with the spacer. I seperately ordered the gaskets. I like them blue ;-)

When you're working with an open manifold, I think it's wise to put a cloth in so that nothing falls in to it. I can't imagine the shit you get into if for example, a nut drops in or something smaller and it falls into an open cylinder chamber. I think I'd get a panic attack...

I cut one of the gaskets to fit the dual plane (2 hole) manifold. You don't want to have any unused gasket dangling which eventually can get sucked in to your engine.

Adding the spacer itself.

And a 4 hole spacer on top.

Nice.

Then it was time to put the carb back. Also pretty easy.

And finally the air filter.

After checking if everything was in the right place I cranked for just over 10 seconds. After a small pause I cranked again and the engine fired almost immediately. I was SO surprised with all the starting issues I had over the years.

I also took the car for its first spin this year. It's been hibernating during the winter here in the Netherlands. It was a really nice day and everything went great :-)

Finishing my trunk

This is what my trunk looked like before. It started rusting after some tosser left it outside in the rain overnight with the cover on and put it in the trunk before I came to pick it up. I was not impressed...

And before the rest of the story, this is the finished result. I am quite pleased with the improvement but I'm still gonna put one more layer of clear coat on it. I'll explain why.

I bought a can of Eastwood Rust Encapsulator and a can of Trunk Paint. I thought the trunk paint would be black/grey with white splatters but it apparently is ONLY black and white splatters...

So this is what it looks like up close.

This is from a bit further away.

I had a few spots with the old black paint on it which now is visible. It's not too bad though. So just a clear coat and it will be finished.