I drove down PCH all the way to Dana Point and picked up Interstate 5 at San Clemente. It took about 4 hours to get home, but I managed to avoid the California Highway Patrol and the local police along the way. The car was put to bed in my garage, and I started the process of figuring out how to best fix that sick Solex carburator.
Once you accept the car, you are basically on your own getting it out of the lot. The lot attendent carries a battery charger and jumper cables because many of these car sit for weeks waiting to clear customs. I anticipated that the battery might be dead, so I brought a spare Interstate battery to replace the dead one. Sure enough, when I turned the key I received with the paperwork, the car was deader than a doornail.
It took my about 15 minutes to swap out the battery and replace it with the one I brought. Once that was done, I tried firing it up. It would crank, but it would not fire, like it was out of gas. After several attempts, I was getting close to draining the new battery. Finally, I figured out that this car had a manual choke and after pulling out the knob on the left of the steering wheel, the car fired up. Even with the choke, you could tell that there was something seriously wrong with the carb. The car was running very rough, it wouldn't idle and the throttle response was poor with huge hesitation. But it was running!!!
I managed to get it running enough to limp it out of the parking lot with my saintly wife and 1 year old following in the X5. After it warmed up, I took off the choke and it did manage to idle, but it was still not running right. When I tried to push it, the car would hesitate and buck. Driving out of the port, the top speed was between 45 and 50 MPH. The plan was to take the coast road and meet some friends of my wife in Malibu. I slowly headed out to Highway 1 and tried to keep up with traffic. Every time I hit any kind of grade, the car would go slower and slower with no power, like the car was starving for fuel. Eventually, we reached Malibu and had a late lunch.
The installation was pretty straight forward. I did have to run a 12 volt lead from the coil to the fuel cutoff solenoid, but it bolted right up. The air cleaner needed to be modified slightly to get it to fit. I removed the rubber donut and then took a grinding wheel to the opening to get it over the larger throat. Even with the donut removed, the car is taller than the stock, so the clips on the air cleaner did rub the inside of the hood.
The stock jetting on this carb didn't do much for the performance. I eventually did find a rebuild kit for the Solex and put the original carb back on. This was definately the right decision, the car is running perfect and performing like a true giant killer.
