DCOE45-9 Restoration

[Ianashdown57]

Hi
I have a pair of DCOE45's that have been poorly stored by the previous owner and have suffered some quite bad water damage. The picture, if I managed to attach it, should show the situation.

Are these recoverable? What would be the process. I'm thinking a gentle media blasting, but what media? Maybe ultrasonic cleaning, but I'm not sure that will do the job.

I'd appreciate any suggestions or previous experience.

Many thanks,

Ian

[bitsobrits]

The exterior of the carbs are fairly easy to restore to near new condition by careful, low pressure soda blasting or bead blasting. Re-plate or replace all of the steel hardware and they will be looking great. I use soaking type carb cleaner, followed by ultrasonic cleaning, followed by bead blasting (in my cabinet 40 psi seems about right), with the carb interiors and machined surfaces masked to prevent beads getting embedded in the bodies, followed by ultrasonic again. As a final finish I use Gibbs oil help minimize external corrosion and make future stain clean up easier.

With carbs as cruddy as yours, you may want to start by soaking them in diesel fuel for a few days to make them easier to disassemble.

However, I would be very concerned about corrosion in the interior passages. Only after the carbs bodies have been fully disassembled, cleaned, and carefully inspected will you know the extent of any corrosion damage. Idle needle seats, jet seats, and emulsion tube mounting threads are fairly easy to asses once the normal crud/varnish has been soaked off. Blocked internal passages are harder to evaluate and may require removal of the lead sealing plugs, at which point you may be better off sending the bodies to a pro. But if internal corrosion doesn't look to be an issue, then bringing them back to near new is certainly within the capabilities of a modestly talented amateur.

[gino1]

Hi Steve,
Do you have the jet and choke sizes of these carbs with L1 cams as I have the same fitted to my Elan.
Thanks
Gino
Milano
Italy

[bitsobrits]

No, sorry, do not have any specs for DCOE 45's with those cams.