long time no see

A long while back when i realised that the Austin needed more than just a swift bodging together again and before i bought a welder (it was probably winter, i was looking for jobs to do) i decided that it was time to remove the carburettors. I'd never been able to get it running 100% as it should, mainly due to not being able to balance the carburettors correctly, not surprisingly as it turned out.
The spindles were worn, all the gaskets looked like they might actually be originals, the jets were oval and one of the throttle butterflies didn't close properly when the accelorator was released.
Replacing the spindles requires a bit of machining as it really needs to fit together properly in order to work as it should and this is something i was unable to do myself. Luckily lots of norwegians have old boats with old carburettors stuck on the engines so there are still a few spesialist carburettor workshops about. I stripped the carbs ages ago, cleaned up the housings and took them down to a spesialist for the necessary work at the beginning of March. He told the job was easy and that i would have them back in a week or two, fast forward 3 months, numerous emails, text messages and phone calls and i finally have them back. This is EXACTLY why i try to do everything myself. Grrrrrr.

So 3 months plus after i took them to pieces i was faced with the task of putting them together again. This is what they look like inside. :-)

I bought a comprehensive rebuild kit ready for this job ages ago, and it was actually quite straight forward. I love doing this kind of thing and working with properly engineered stuff, imagine finding something with brass levers on in modern cars.
I only managed to get one of them rebuilt though as i quite inexplicably left the needle for the second one at the workshop and i haven't been able to get there for a few days now. So the before and after pics will have to wait.

It's just a work of art.