A Leslie Wong Blog

Russ Neely, Brian Shorey and Stevan Thomas, people that I’ve known for years only through the Alfa Digest, all recommended that I get the gears lightened on my Alfetta’s transmission.

I’ve had the transmission apart for a while (to replace the clutch) and finally got around to having the work done.

Two people were recommended, Tom Sahines and Merritt Carden. Tom Sahines was too busy and he gave me Merritt’s number. I sent my gears and input shaft to Merritt at the end of July and went to pick them up 10 days later.

Merritt’s house is in sort of a cul-de-sac. There was a front-ended Kia in the driveway – his son’s car, waiting for an insurance adjuster.

His garage was his machine shop. It was packed with junk in addition to a (if I remember correctly, and old Bridgeport) mill, drill press, hydraulic press, etc. It was one of those shops where the owner knows where everything is, but if you moved one thing two feet, it would take him a month to find it.

I picked the gears up at the beginning of August. Merritt carefully unwrapped each gear to show me his work. In some cases, the gears were not only drilled for lightness but the walls were also machined – all this on hardened steel. The quality of the work was clearly apparent. Look at the photographs – they speak for Merritt’s beautiful work. More pitures here.

To contact Merritt Carden:

7475 Shady Hollow Dr
Newark, Ca 94560
(510) 797-2446

When I was unable to successfully rebuild the OE Zenith carburetors on our BMW Bavaria (no patience), I bought a pair of used Weber 32/36 DGAV carburetors (with the linkage and a manifold) on eBay for $99. I bought rebuild kits and some new jets from Pierce Manifolds (because they’re sort of close to me).

For some reason, I also decided to replace the mechanical push rod driven fuel pump with an electric rotary vane pump.

I found that Top End Performance had a discourse on the Carter 4070 fuel pump saying it was a good pump for Weber carbs. I first mounted the fuel pump on the firewall, near the overflow tank.

On the highway, I noticed that the car would occasionally stutter and I realized that the engine was becoming fuel starved because the pump was designed to be more of a pusher, closer to the gas tank.

I moved the fuel pump to underneath the car, just forward of the fuel tank. I used a Napa 1814U “Quiet Pack” that mounts the pump on rubber bushings to isolate it from the car’s frame and ran the 12v+ for the pump from the fuse box.

I also bought this Holley shut off switch that works off of engine oil pressure. Joe Weir, on the Senior Six Registry mailing list sent me a diagram that uses a relay (12 63 1 276 165) from a 320i for fuel shutoff.

The only problem I’ve had is with the electrical connections to the pump falling off – they’re held on by friction. To resolve this, I put a dollop of JB Weld on each terminal, then stuck the connectors on.

Carter fuel pump installation notes, pages 3-6 (PDF)

I don’t know what took them so long but it’s nice to finally have search capability on Google Reader.

On the other hand, looking at my stats, I wonder why nothing is interesting to me.

National Geographic News reported that a rare meteor shower this morning could have up to 200 meteors per hour. This Aurigid meteor shower is rare because the debris is from a long period comet that orbits the sun every 2000 years. That means the stuff is from way out there.

I happened to be up at what was calculated as the peak of activity – 4:30 AM PDT, so I took my camera and tripod outside.

I thought with a long exposure I could capture the streak of a meteor, so I started making 10 to 30 second exposures. Out of the 30 exposures that I made in an hour, I saw one meteor.

On a recent trip to Fry’s, I picked up a Fluke 114 Electrical Multimeter. After I got home, I realized maybe I shouldn’t have been so impulsive, because I might have bought the Fluke 115, which also measures capacitance (I’m always doing that…).

The continuity beeper was especially helpful in rewiring the headlights on the Bavaria after a short circuit melted a large portion of the harness.

I replaced my aging analog Micronta Multitester 22-203B, which was, “custom mfd in Korea for Radio Shack, a division of the Tandy Corporation.” I probably bought it back in the late 70′s, when Tandy stores still sold leather supplies.

The only other significant thing about this old Radio Shack (now RadioShack) meter is it almost qualifies as a Googlewhack – Radio Shack 22-203B, finds only a single result.