Epilogue:
People going through my site for the first time might get
confused when they see this section about rebuilding my carbs and what a great
job Jeff Palya did..............and then read through the TBI Conversion section
and see that I'm no longer running a carbureted car, but a fuel injected one.
There's a long story behind the change-over, but it has absolutely NOTHING to do
with the quality of Jeff's work. I will continue to recommend Jeff as a premier
rebuilder/refinisher of carbs. You'll have to read the TBI section to find out
why I changed. :-)
The Rebuild Story:
Every Winter I try to do one "major"
project on my car. Some years I do all the work, like last year's alternator
conversion and installation of Dan's wire harness. Some years I pay other to do
the work. This year I decided to have a professional rebuild my carbs. I was
vacillating between the usual "Big Two": Apple Hydraulics and Joe Curto. I
polled the Triumph Mail List for advice and they overwhelmingly recommended Joe
Curto as The Man. I was ready to pull the carbs and send them to Joe when a List
member sent me a link to an eBay auction. That auction was for a rebuilt and
cosmetically refurbished pair of carbs by
Paltech Micropolishing. A visit to their
web site showed many examples of outstanding work. What really got my interest
was the process he developed for the cosmetic restoration of both the carbs AND
the intake manifold. To quote his website:
"The Micro-polishing
process was developed by myself in order to restore antique auto parts to their
original condition.
The Micro-polishing process does not remove any of the parts material; it merely
removes the metal oxide layer. The Micro-polishing process will polish parts
inside & outside and will also polish down & into engraving, stampings, casting
marks ect to keep the part as originally manfactured. The process seals the
micro pores in the material to provide a long lasting finish. The process finish
will outlast typical bead blasting restoration finishes by at least ten times in
similar environments."
I emailed the owner, Jeff Palya, and
we subsequently had a long phone conversation where I learned about both his
long time Triumph passion as well as his chemical engineering background. He's
also been rebuilding carbs for 20 years and lists very specific details on
exactly what is done when he rebuilds a carb. This was a quite different from
the others who were a bit fuzzy on what they do and don't do. When I asked one
of the others what they did to the carbs, the answer was "whatever needs to be
done". It was about this time that I got a few "off List" emails about their
disappointment in the quality of the cosmetic refinishing by one of the "Big
Two". From a price standpoint, it was a no-brainer to go with Jeff. I could get
both the carbs and the manifold micro-polished and the carbs rebuilt for about
the same price as the others. After our phone conversation, I knew he was my
guy, so off came the carbs and manifold and off they went to Paltech.
He got them on Jan 10th and I had
them back on Jan 26th! That's a lot better then the 4 - 6 weeks I was quoted by
one of the others. The best way to describe them is by the
"Wow" my wife said when she came home
and found them on her kitchen counter. And No......she wasn't upset that they
were on her counter. She couldn't believe they were the same ones I had sent
out. They look brand new, both inside and out. Even the inside of
the manifold gleams! Every screw, bolt and nut shines. All of the linkage
has been powder coated as has the fuel line. There's not one speck
of dirt, oil or grime anywhere on the carbs, manifold or linkage. I won't be
able to put them on the car until next week so right now I'm focusing on the
cosmetic quality of the work which is outstanding.
The
installation process is
documented here ~~>
The thumbnails below will take you to
much larger before and after pictures so I hope you have a broadband connection.
If you're still on Dial-Up, it'll be worth the wait.
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