THE PORTAL HUB - Pinzgauers, Haflingers, Volvo 303s and more!

i need my carbs gone thru thoroughly. a great old car mechanic here says he'll try it but he's never seen a pinz. i could hold off and send'm to a real pinz guy but it might be easier (and cheaper?) to let this guy here do it. i'm wondering if there's any risk having a non-pinz guy do it. and i'm not enough of a car mechanic to know if i'm goofing up.

Based on what I have heard, if he has worked on these type of carbs before than he should have no problem, it is not the Pinz, but the Zenith carbs he is working on. I am sure others will chime in with better advice, but for now, do a search on carb rebuild in this forum and print it up and take it with you...

If he has never worked on a zenith carb..... might want to go elsewhere.

Look for a Porsche mechanic that works on the old Speedsters and bathtub Porsches. Ask if they know the difference between a choke system and fuel enrichment system...... ( two ways to accomplish the same ends)... if he doesn't know the difference, you don't want him learning on your carbs.
If in doubt, take your carbs off and send the to either Jim ( Goatwerks) or Dennis ( linden Eng.) and have them gone through.

It better to bite the bullet and have them done right, than to have someone fiddle with them and you believing all is right with them, and start looking for other "white elephants", and the original problem may still exist.

Dave Dunn

ka,
I agree, especially after working on your carbs (unsuccessfully), and seeing that you need shaft bushings and some other parts. A local may be able to get things up and running again, but you will still need the shafts redone. It shouldn't take too long to ship them out to one of the pros who support this board, then you know that they are done right and ready to go.

dave and mike - sounds true. i'm gonna just send'm off. i'm so tard (REAL tard) of being the victim of incorrect workmanship. and i sure don't need more worries of any kind, especially re something i'm driving.

thx yall.

yeah kirby, i was thinking along that vein as well but now i'm just gonna spend the bucks for the real pinz mechanic. guess i'm just tard by now.

[img] http://i177.photobucket.com/albums/w205 ... end001.jpg [/img] I disagree I think if you are close enough to drive to a pinz mechanic than sure take advantage of it.But there's nothing nicer than being able to take it to a local repair shop and have the repairs done. There surely a european car shop in your area. I take mine to European car care here. He tunes my carbs for the seasons and check valves and so on. just remember once you take the carbs off to ship them your going to have to sync them when you put them back on some times its just nice having it done locally. If you don't have a set of manuals that would be my first by I don't imagine Scott or Jim like phone calls from a repair shop because your to cheap to purchase the manual. Just my two cents i really in joy taking the pinz some were locally most of the time they seem to find parts or have them made locally as well. from what my mechanic tells me is that the pinz is relatively easy to work on.

hmm... well synching them is very easy. and i have the manual and parts book. michael712m and i just tuned EVERYTHING up a couple days before this weird crap started happening to them and it was very easy. this last time we broke the pump rod and one has super high vacuum that we can't fix. the linkages to the peddle were way too short, too.

but that's another weird thing - there seem to be no carb mechanics left in salt lake city! actually, i found one that might work out well but i haven't gotten together with him yet.

intereesting advice, eric712m. i'll do more research.

Ka, good luck, man we have five european shops with three miles of each other.A half dozen classic car shops in town that I know of. You would think a city of your size would have quite a few classic cars and specailty shops.

Cars out of the 70's and earlier usually have a " regional mentality" to how they are put together and operate. British engineering was done one way, German another, American vehicles still different yet. Unless you find a mechanic that doesn't think "he's smarter than the designers", they can mess up your car much worse.
Growing up with different cars back in the 60s and 70s, I've seen more British cars trashed by "American car" mechanics because they didn't understand something and changed it to what they "thought" was right., then blamed the manufacturer when it didn't work. Each regionally engineered car has their own "quirts", and need to be understood. I've had British cars for 30 + years and know their quirts, same as German vehicles have their.

Back when I was in school ( long ago ), I had early VW transporters, and the first time I sat in a Pinz in 2000, that " German feel of design" came back to me, and an instinctive "feel" for how to care for it mechanically too.

That is why I suggest a early Porsche or VW type 3 mechanic.

Dave Dunn

I would guess you have a twisted shaft If the throttle bodies are worn you need to replace them or re bush them and use new shafts

Dave, That would be why the manual is so important. I would think a good honest mechanic would ask for it every time the vehicle was dropped off. I got tired of not having it in the car when I dropped it off to have it worked on or serviced I bought a second set to leave there. From what i've been told its that way for all vehicles that are dropped off at the shop more important if its not a commin ride. Don't get me wrong it would be nice and I'm sure a lot cheaper to live next to a pinz specialist. But most of us don't have that option and making a relation ship with a local mechanic makes vehicle owner ship alot nicer.

jim, why do you think i might have twisted shafts?

ka wrote:his last time we broke the pump rod and one has super high vacuum that we can't fix. the linkages to the peddle were way too short, too.

Carbs cannot be balanced properly if they do not both drop down all the way(usually I can set them up between 6kph and 9kph on my syncro tester.
If you have a twisted shaft it will result in high readings and be very difficult to match. If they are brass shafts it is pretty common.
Personally, I test all Pinz carbs I build on a test engine and ship them pre adjusted to ease the fine adjustment process. This I will state, if the bases or shafts have wear and are loose, wiggle or leak, you will never get them anywhere in the ballpark as far as adjustment goes

I fought with carburators with worn shafts for years. I finially sent them to Thilo (T-Lo) in Prescott Az. He even machines the flat surfaces on a lathe. It ended up being very expensive and taking a long time (Thilo constatly overcommits himself), but the carburators have since been pain-free.

As others have said, with the worn shafts no adjustments or simple rebuild will ever get you around the problem.

-Evan (in Logan)