Well if you've all followed my various tales of woe this week regarding how I've been bent over and raped by a scum sucking pig of an Ebay Arehole. (I was so incensed that he'd left me a negative after taking my money and not sending me the item that I accidentally left the "S" out of "Arsehole" in my reply to his negative feedback)
But we also touched on the subject of a set of Dellorto 40DHLA carbs, which of course were "De Rigeur" (the ducks nuts, dog's bollocks etc depending on your local slang) of the 1970's racing (and posing) fraternity, that were on Ebay here in Melbourne, Australia, and that I wanted more than a blow job from Jennifer Anniston, were eventually snapped up by a wealthy American for a tad over $1000.00, (about 750 US) which was well beyond my meagre means. Bummer!
Well I soon discovered that Dellorto 40DHLA carbs, while quite rare, are still more common than some things (like my beautiful ARD Magneto) and a guy in Italy reconditions them and sells them on Ebay, mainly to purveyors of horrible underpowered Euro trash "Sports" cars. (and we ALL know that if it aint got at least 8 cylinders, there's nothing "sporty" about it!) Anyway, he offers a heap of services, including setting them up with the correct jetting per your particular application, all for the "giveaway" price of $300.00 "Buy it now". "Hmmmmnnnnn", I wondered to myself, the "adapter plate" for adapting these carbs to a CB750 looks pretty simple to fab up, as I have a lathe and mill, mig welder set up for alloy etc at my disposal, so why not dip my toe in the water and buy a set?
I PM'd him on Saturday (in Italy) but still haven't received a response which always worries me a tad when we're talking about committing 300 bucks plus over 100 more for shipping, and I was relating this story to one of my staff yesterday, who said "well I've got a set of those Dellorto carbs at home, would you like to buy them?" I almost whispered "how much?" and he replied "How about 100 bucks?" I fainted...................
I woke up with a cold compress on my feverish brow and there he was, looking down on me, the late afternoon sun reflecting off his deep blue eyes, somehow reminiscent of Jennifer Anniston, er, sorry, I was getting a little poetic, anyway, I croaked "how about 200 mate?" (about $150.00 US) As you all know, I am a man of low morals, but even a scaly creature such as myself knows that while you should never look a gift horse in the mouth, you shouldn't bite the, er, hoof (?) that feeds you either? (If you understand my meaning, even though I'm not sure that I do)
Anyway, this morning Rob (my new best mate) brought them in, and he even threw in a book on setting them up, a set of new manifold gaskets, and a new set of K&N pod style filters, woohoo! (they probably won't fit on the bike, but I can sell them and put that money towards a set of smaller filters) Now I've kept the pics of the Ebay carbs with the proper "Lynx" adapter plate (first pic) and I reckon that it won't be too hard to replicate, and I think the new K7/K8 inlet rubbers that Mike Rieck sent me will be best suited due to their compact design, I'll machine up some "spiggots" the same OD as the F2 carbs and weld them to the adapter plate, which in turn will be bolted onto the Dellorto's.
Then, with a little more fabrication for things like throttle and choke mechanism, a bracket to hang them off the bike frame and of course some experimentation with jetting, (Rob was running them on a small ford 4 cylinder sohc car engine) they should be good to go! Have a look at the pics and let me know what you think! Cheers, Terry.
