We often get kind emails from folks saying thanks when we help them out, but this one was kindly posted on the UK Flathead Meltdown forum by Alan Boxall a few days after the UK Pendine Sands Hot Rod Races. You just can’t pay for this kind of positive feedback (and we didn’t!) so huge thanks to Alan. We’ve copied it word for word because it’s also a lesson for every hot rod builder. Always ensure your pedal hits the floor or the interior stop at the same time as the Stromberg throttle lever hits its stop. If not, you’ll be forcing the carb lever, with dangerous possible results. PS. Send us a pic Alan, and we’ll add it here!
Not sure if Clive from Stromberg is on here so I can publicly thank him for a fantastic aftersales service, if not just letting you lot know. At Pendine I was having intermittent problems with either not getting full open throttle or the revs not going back to idle. Being fairly busy all weekend I never really investigated the former and kept bodging the latter by putting more tension in the return spring as this was showing signs of stretching. However, on the way home had a major problem in that could hardly get any revs at all – luckily I had access to a trailer nearby and towed the T home. Next day I had a look and noticed the throttle lever was spinning on the shaft about 1/8 of a turn -so giving me both my problems dependent upon which way it was finishing up on the shaft – my fix with the return spring was only making it worse. I rang Clive and explained and his immediate response was ‘we can’t have that’ and offerred to fix the carb if I could mail it to him. He didn’t query or quibble, nor even confirm the carb was one of his. We chatted further, and in the end agreed he would send out a new throttle shaft for me to fix at no cost, as this would be quicker – I was due at Curborough the next day. We also discussed possibly causes for the failure, the most likely in Clive’s opinion was a lack of throttle pedal stop, with the carb throttle lever doing this instead and causing excess stress on the carb. Notwithstanding this Clive was still happy to send out the parts. After the call I looked at my set-up and discovered my throttle pedal stop was not totally efficient – following a hasty welded repair to the pedal whilst at Atomic earlier in the year it didn’t provide a full stop when stomping heavily on it – and heavy stomp was par for the course on the sand. So just before Curborough I adjusted the pedal stop, made up a replacement 97 from bits and had a ball as reported elsewhere. On returning home were the parts from Clive as promised. So a very big thanks to Clive for exceptional aftersales service, and if you’ve ever thought about his new 97s don’t hesitate, I’ve been running 3 for years – up until now trouble-free – and they really bought the engine to life. Couple this with the aftersales service they are a winner!