This is the final "before" shot of the twin carbs and engine prior to the swap.

The intake is off and ready to begin the header pull back and cleaning
of the cylinder head for the new gasket.

Note the tight fit between the old manifold and the header flanges.
Why am I starting to wonder if this will go as smoothly as planned?

While I'm in here I might as well see if there is any build up on the valves.
Nothing much at all for 54,000 miles, so onward we go.

I won't bore you with the cleaning, but trust me, it was done.
The new gasket is in place and so is the missing center dowel pin.

Never throw an old gasket away until the job is done and gone down
 the road.  This is what we used for a template to layout what had to
be ground of of the new manifolds to fit the headers properly.

This is the old manifold.  Note the shape of the bottom of the manifolds

This is the new manifold.  See the difference that must be ground away?

Just to prove how much is to come off and no better way to do it accurately.

The small black pen marks are the areas to be removed.

A few purists on BCF wanted to see the swirls in the intake, so here they are.

This is center cylinders with the important dowel pin in place.
Without these three pins in place, you will have a hard time getting
the manifolds lined up initially .

All masked and covered before the real fun begins with the grinding and filing.

Erik took the bulk away with the Dremel grinder, but hand filed the
last of it for a very close and smooth fit..

After six or seven trips back and forth as an assembly, we finally agreed
that the manifold and linkage must be disassembled and rebuilt and
aligned individually on the cylinder head to do this correctly.

After a few more trial fits as individual units, the manifolds are ready to be aligned.

The rear section needed about 1/8" taken off of the shaft to allow the
proper fit between the carbs.

Now the really cool stuff starts.  The easiest and best way is from the
back to the front of the car.  Trust me, we know this to be fact.

Just another view of the first intake in place..

After a few thousandths more off with the files, number two is in place.

And after more filing and fitting back and forth, number three sits in place.

This shows how the linkage moves during the torquing of the manifold..

***************************************************************************

PLEASE NOTE THAT I DID NOT END UP USING THE SOLID COUPLERS

THESE ENGINE WITH TRIPLE AND EVEN DUAL CARBS NEED THE STOCK FLEXIBLE COUPLERS

*****************************************************************************

Oh-oh!  What's up here????.

\

Getting much closer, but this is like watching grass grow.  Very slow
and tedious work to get these perfectly aligned. 
Two is easy, three can be tough.

That's better.  Now the sleeves fit in place smoothly

In order to get the linkage to clear the fast idle screw as the throttle is
being opened, we had to move the fulcrum back to the left about 5/8".

I cannot stress enough how important it is to get these perfectly lined up.
The solid couplers must slide back and forth over the two shafts like
they were sliding over air to protect against wear in the carbs and
binding in the linkage.  No one needs a  sticky gas pedal.

The linkage and alignment of the shafts is done and ready for the hoses.

Next, we start to make the emission lines fit and added the chokes
to the front and rear carbs.  The cables fit well in those positions and
it looks neat and professional.

Here's the final installation pictures.

I need to reset the timing and play with the retard unit a bit.

I had a slight stumble off idle that wasn't there before and disconnecting
the retard unit took 90% of it away.  Very similar to previous timing
issues, when timing was slightly retarded.

Tomorrow is another day..............for tweaking.

And finally, the master at work.  Erik Nygaard, owner
of Her Majesty's Service in Swansea, MA.

A great technician who owns and loves British cars.