MGB: How do you remove intake manifold / carb questions

Knowing that my carbs probably need some level of rebuilding I decided to take them off. Then I looked ion a rebuild shop website recommended by a friend, sucarbs.com, and quickly noticed that in most of the photos the carbs are still attached to the heat-shield and intake manifold. I guess I’m supposed to take off the heat-shield and intake, and then re-assemble as a subassembly prior to sending off huh?

If so, how do you remove the intake? And I’m going to need a real good diagram that shows how to hook them back up to each other.

Thanks,
Chris

Remember me? I’m not really qualified to be doing any of this stuff, but I am anyhow. My car is currently not running, it wasn't before I took the carbs off either!

All you need to remove are the carbs.

I pulled all my stuff off , put each piece in a plastic bag . stuffed the bags in a box full of peanuts and shipped it all off to Jimmy Hilton. Figured he new more about it than me .

Once the carbs are off, the heat shield will slide off with a little bit of force. Then there are four 1/2" nuts with corresponding thick washers that must be removed before the intake will slide off the studs. Hope this helps.

For the inexperienced person starting some mechanical endeavor like this:

B4 you start, take a picture of the thing
and maybe take some pix during disassembly of whatever the item is .
In these cases, a picture is worth a thousand hours when reassembly time comes around.

putting them back on will be harder. Ubless you really studied (and can remember) the linkage hookup. This is where a shop manual can rescue you.

Someone with 50 years of working on cars can completely screw up installing his first set of SUs because there is nothing comparable in the world of old Fords or Chevies or Deusenbergs or...

Mac,

That's what the camera is for. I thoroughly agree with you that these things are put together quite differently from common American hardware. If you approach working on these cars having only seen American iron, and think you can work on anything, you're in for a real learning experience,
The British specialized in complex mechanical puzzles, and they shared their expertise in that area with us. They seem to have worked hard at making things uniquely and difficult to work on. Few parts have true symmetry, so they only go together one way. In addition, many subassemblies hide the attachments for the larger assemblies, often making it quite difficult to take things apart in a simple way.

I think the only reason I like working on them is I've figured out how to, and it's an ego satisfaction thing. After I've put one of these things together, I'm always surprised that these things work so well since they are built of from so many funny looking parts which go together in such a contraintuitive way.

Scott's right about the pictures. Take one before you start. Then take off the air cleaners and take a few more from every angle you can think of. After you remove anything - take more pictures. You'll be glad you did when you start to put things back together.