So, if you don't troll around my site regularly (And I don't blame you), you won't know that
I bought a 1972 Triumph GT6. That'd be a Little British Car. A sports car, no less.
At any rate, the little car is my pride and joy right now. A delightful bucket of good
parts and bad parts that make up a shaggy looking tub of junk, that soon, oh yes, soon will
be a sleek machine gliding along the streets of middle-of-nowhere Iowa, making the rednecks
jealous and the girlies impressed. Right before my wife smacks me in the back of my head.

The only problem is that the car needs a little work. Not mountains of work. Well, alright. Sizeable
hillocks of work at least. Most of the mechanics are in very good shape, the body is actually
fairly solid, barring a couple holes in the floorpan (Easy fix) and in serious need of a good
sanding, puttying and painting.
The initial problem with getting the car running was that it's rear carburettor (That's right,
it has two carbs) leaks gasoline. Exciting is not the word I would use, but you might. At first,
not knowing enough about the CD carbs, I assumed that it was a leaking gasket.

After rebuilding the carb and getting them back on (Did I mention how much of a pain in the neck this is?)
and adjusted together, I had to start the car to get them properly synchronised. I hadn't started the car
myself, but the previous owner had shown me it running when I went to pick it up, so I knew it HAD run recently.
Piece of cake. Yah, right.
The fuel tank had been pulled, and it's fuel line pinched off, so I had a plastic gas can sitting
next to the engine with a hose running from the fuel pump down into the jerry can. I turned that
engine over for, well, a long time, and nothing was firing. I was getting quite suspicious. I went
through the usual 'What does an engine need? Fuel, Fire and Air' routine, while my wife's grandfather,
Maurie, who really is a car guy poked and prodded and offered advice. Finally I realised
that I had simply not clamped the hose into the fuel pump from the can on properly, air was getting
into the system, and everytime I shut the car off, all the fuel was running back into the can. Easy
fixed with a couple turns of a screwdriver.

Turned the engine over some more, and verified that the float bowls in the carbs were filling with
gasoline. So why is nothing firing?
Maurie decided that what the engine needed was a little motivation, so he went away and came back
with a small oil squirter can that instead of having oil in it had gasoline.

And here upon came my moment of clarity, if you will, as Maurie was bent over the engine furiously
squirting gasoline back and forth between the two carburettors as I turned the engine over and
over hoping it would fire. Fire being the operative word. All we needed was for this 30 year old
admittedly questionable engine to fart, sputter and backfire, and the poor old fellow holding
the gasolien filled squirt can would be incinerated where he stood.
I could just imagine the things my wife would say. There's just something about setting your
grandfather-in-law on fire that one simply does not do in a civilised family.

However, the moment of anxiety passed as the engine roared to life and settled into a gentle and
steady idle, perfectly balanced by some divinely guided hand. I leaped up from the ignition,
rounded the car quickly, slapped Maurie on the back and cheered, it lived! It lived!
And then I noticed the gasoline spilling out of the rear carburettor like a flammable Niagara Falls.
Even more swiftly I went back to the driver's side and shut the ignition off, facing the
distinct possibility that more than just the little old man was about to be blown to kingdom come.

Turns out I had the float settings in the carb all wrong, although I could have sworn I verified
it was ok. Nevertheless, with a bit more cranking and Maurie determinedly spraying fuel into
the car, the machine fired one more time and ran calmly without gasoline going everywhere, without
backfires and without anyone being set on fire.