New SU float needles and seats

Technical advice Q&A

Topic author
swindler
Posts: 61
Joined: Thu Jan 11, 2018 5:56 pm
Great Britain

#1 New SU float needles and seats

Post by swindler » Fri Oct 08, 2021 4:37 pm

Hi all

I'm just about to replace the float needles with a new Burlen kit (along with fitting unsinkable foam floats as a precaution against ethanol after the solder on one of my brass ones gave way - on E5...). I've taken the first old one out and two interesting points. Firstly the tip on the old one looks to be intact but has stretched/lifted slightly from the needle. Second, and i've measured this a few times, the new one is shorter by 0.5mm overall. Put together this will mean the valve is closing with the fuel level about 1mm higher than before. I don't know how sensitive this is - the arms are set to the correct 7/16". Will I need to retune the carbs/reset the base of the jets?

Cheers
3.8 OTS 1964
Original RHD. Close ratio moss box

Link:
BBcode:
HTML:
Hide post links
Show post links


christopher storey
Posts: 5698
Joined: Sun Mar 09, 2008 3:07 pm
Location: cheshire , england
Great Britain

#2 Re: New SU float needles and seats

Post by christopher storey » Fri Oct 08, 2021 5:11 pm

IMHO Highly unlikely to need alteration of float height, for these reasons :
1. 1mm is less than a 10% alteration in the depression of the float at shut off ( and a much smaller percentage of the mean "altitude" of the float above jet level

2.The buoyancy of the new floats is likely to be different from the original copper ones ( certainly that seemed to be the case with the ones I fitted to my Daimler 2.5)

3. It is virtually impossible to achieve a resetting to an accuracy of +/- 1mm

Link:
BBcode:
HTML:
Hide post links
Show post links

User avatar

abowie
Posts: 3890
Joined: Wed Sep 07, 2011 9:15 pm
Location: Australia
Contact:
Australia

#3 Re: New SU float needles and seats

Post by abowie » Fri Oct 08, 2021 10:16 pm

I'm with Christopher.

Just check that you have the float lever height set correctly. The jets should be fine.
Andrew.
881824, 1E21538. 889457. 1961 4.3l Mk2. 1975 XJS. 1962 MGB
http://www.projectetype.com/index.php/the-blog.html
Adelaide, Australia

Link:
BBcode:
HTML:
Hide post links
Show post links

Post Reply Previous topicNext topic