22touring

Rogillio wrote: "What do you mean when you say 'wood body'?" In 1924 the DB management came under a lot of criticism because, despite an earlier large expansion of the factory, production was still not able to keep up with demand for the car, so they bought bodies from Fisher in order to produce more cars. Those Fisher bodies used wood in their construction, the same way many other makes of cars did at the time. Of course earlier DBs featured the Budd-designed all-steel body.

Hope this helps. (Ignore that rubber hose in the second picture. I am working on the fuel system right now.)

Right. In the middle of the rod going from the gas pedal to the carburetor, there is a thingy to which the throttle lever connects. Need a pic?

It's a throttle lever, Gary. It is supposed to connect to the throttle linkage going to the carburetor. If you really need a picture, I'll take one for you.

So might it be a Coach model that had a body built by Fisher? I think these were only made in 1925 and '26, and they were sedans, not coupes, but I think they had wood in their bodies. I have heard that at the time a lot of the DB old-timers thought this was utter sacrilege because DB had become famous for its all-steel bodies.

If I may hazard a guess, it sounds like you've got your metering rack set too lean and you need to richen up the basic mixture.

Yes, that is the customary procedure. You can't install the pump when the actuating lobe on the cam is facing toward the pump. When the pump is installed on the block, the lobe can act on it much more forcefully than you can when you are trying to install it.

Have you tried to rotating the crankshaft until the cam lobe that actuates the fuel pump arm is facing away from the pump?

34Dodger wrote: "We first met Niles and Irene in '86 at the 2nd DB meet in Reno." I met him at the national DB meet in Reno in June of 1988. His car was really nice, and I remember that he also had a nice enclosed hauler truck for his DB. Was the DB national meet held in Reno in both 1986 and 1988, or did 34Dodger perhaps intend to refer to the 1988 meet?

Vintage, figure that a DB accelerates and has a top speed similar to a Model T. In other words, don't plan on doing any tours with your local Model A club.

RobertB, the air valve on your Stewart carburetor is different from mine. Mine is mushroom-shaped and has no holes like yours has. Maybe they used different air valves Down Under than they did in the States? The Stewart carb may have been OK for its time, but it is very primitive in a number of respects. (Remember, it dates back to 1913 or before.) It has relatively poor mixture control and throttle response. When you think about it, its method of operation (the way it lifts the air valve) really conflicts with Bernoulli's principle! The fact is, just about the only reason auto manufacturers used updraft and sidedraft carbs back then was because downdraft carbs were considered unsafe. But the Stewart carb is reliable because it is so simple that almost nothing can go wrong with it.

No, Austin, I don't believe there is a check ball of any kind in the Stewart carburetor.

In order for a vacuum to develop in the inner chamber of the vacuum tank: (1) the vacuum valve must be open; (2) the atmospheric valve must be closed and must seal properly (both of these valves are in the top of the tank); (3) the flapper valve near the bottom of the inner chamber must be pulled closed by the vacuum in the inner chamber, and must seal properly; and (4) there must be a good air and fuel-tight seal separating the inner and outer chambers. In addition, (5) the intake manifold tube must actually be delivering vacuum to the vacuum tank; and (6) the fuel line must be air tight all the way back to the gas tank. And perhaps most importantly: (7) There cannot be any mud dauber nests or spider webs blocking any of the fuel or vacuum lines. When you get those, you need to push successively larger gauges of wire through the line until you have pushed the largest possible size wire through, because that is the only way to be sure that you have removed everything.

When I originally posted this, I had forgotten about this really great article on vacuum tanks which appears on allpar.com! It contains the troubleshooting procedure that I was looking for. http://www.allpar.com/fix/fuel/vacuum-tank-fuel-pump.html I really like that allpar.com site! 22touring

My windshield pivots are clean and lubed, Jay, so do I just push on the windshield sections to rotate them?

Thanks for the reply, C.A. I like the way Dykes explained it. My vacuum tank is supposedly rebuilt, and to my untrained eye it looks good. Before I pull it again (not that easy), I would be curious to see if anybody can suggest any diagnostic tests to determine, maybe using a vacuum gauge and pump, whether the problem is the vacuum valve, the atmospheric valve, the flapper valve or that it is plugged up. I can feed gas to the engine from a separate source, so I can test the vacuum tank with the engine running. Where's that Bob Scafani when you need him? I know he has worked on scads of these, and he must have a troubleshooting procedure. And I still cannot for the life of me figure out how to rotate the windshield sections, although they are obviously intended to rotate for automatic air conditioning.

Sure would like to have answers to these two questions concerning my late '22 touring car (similar to a '23). Thank you kindly in advance. 1. How do you rotate the upper and lower windshield sections into their horizontal positions? and 2. What would cause gas to dribble out the bottom of my vacuum tank rather than flowing out freely?