[Fot] Bent SU needles

[J Wagner]

Okay, I got a story, but it’s not bent needles....

I bought my first Triumph, a TR4A, from my brother for $700.00 when I was 15.  He had driven it for about a year, but he wasn’t a tinkerer and the car needed restoration.

After many months of restoration, I finally had her running again and started looking at the SU’s.  It was my first experience with SU’s, as my older brothers tended to be American V8 fans, so looking over shoulders didn’t help much.  Something wasn’t right, I felt like there should be more power!  I took the filters off and studied the action to try to understand these foreign gizmos.

I immediately noticed that at theoretical full throttle, those round discs (the butterflies) weren’t opening all the way.  I got out a wrench and adjusted the linkage.  Soon I could see that full throttle would actually be full throttle.  I took the car for a spin.  Now, for the first time, the car burned rubber like a V8 and the top speed was where it was supposed to be based on the literature!

The fun was giving my older brothers a ride, particularly the one that had owned it for a year.

They had no idea the car had that sort of power!  No one had noticed the poor linkage adjustment.  
The teenager with his first car figured it out!  

I never had a bent needle over the years.  In various cars I often found poorly centered needles wearing the sides of a needle and/or sticking.  And I discovered similar poor linkage adjustments in a couple cars.  

Fond memories!

—Justin


> On Nov 15, 2018, at 4:47 PM, Kas Kastner via Fot <fot at autox.team.net> wrote:
> 
> I too have been there with the S.U's in pieces Bob , my wife sitting in the psgr seat being VERY nice about it all and countless tries finally got things working well enough to drive home form the dealers shop. They had kindly allowed me to use the shop afer a compettion but failed to leave some one to guard me from myself. I guess that is how you learn, especially in the olden days with no manuals or internert, duh.............. which part is the jet? all this circa 1952. 
> Never be beaten by equipment.
> 
> 
> 
>> On Thu, Nov 15, 2018 at 4:06 PM Robert Johns via Fot <fot at autox.team.net> wrote:
>>  
>> 
>>  
>> 
>> Sent from Mail for Windows 10
>> 
>> I got to tell you a story about bent SU needles.  The very first sports car that acquired was in Germany in 1954.  I was Air Force and one of the flying officers got in deep trouble with the civilian governments and the air force and was what they called “riffed” and sent home.  He had a 48 MG TC that he had taken over to Germany from the states, that got left behind, when he was sent home. Through a fellow sports car club member, we negotiated a deal, and I got the MG for about  $400, I think.  We towed  it to the hanger that I worked out of, and I started to learn something about MGs.  Some where along the line I took one of the SUs apart. I took the screws out of the bell and lifted the bell up.  Guess what, the piston came up also and proceeded to drop to the ground. The needle was badly bent but was not broken.  So, I proceeded to do the roll trick and straightened it the best that could.  The next time I had a day off I drove  to Koln in the MG and got a new set of needles from the importer. End of story.    
>> 
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