Breakdown!

I had a particularly unlucky day today! Seeing as the weather was decent I pulled on a jumper and scarf and got the top down and hit the road. Filled up with another tenner of Shell V Power and took a tour around the local fast A roads. Lovely!

I got home and agreed to have a coffee with a mate in Birmingham so I hopped back in the Spit and headed over there! Stopped to let a particularly nice Mk1 Escort pull out in front (and gasped in awe as I heard his dump valve and realised he was running the Cosworth lump) before getting caught up at the lights. Then I noticed I was idling quite high so I blipped the throttle to try and close the butterflies more firmly but to no avail and subsequent stops showed the problem was getting worse! Eventually I gave up and called the AA.

When the guy showed up he had a good look over it but was just as stumped as me. So I got him to tow me home and, after my first ever towing experience, I whipped the carbs off.

So far I'm still pretty stumped but I'm going to replace the really quite badly worn throttle shafts (see photo) and then put everything back together and hope I come across the problem when refitting!