High Carb Diet

Dual DCOE 45's

A couple of hours in the cold January outdoors with a soda blaster did wonders for removing the grease, baked gas & oil and general corrosion on the weber carbs. They came out of that experience generally pretty shiny. But were they up to the Alpine Garage standard? Time to turn to Wikipedia for some guidance:

Scope Creep in project management refers to uncontrolled changes or continuous growth in a project's scope. This phenomenon can occur when the scope of a project is not properly defined, documented, or controlled. It is generally considered a negative occurrence, and therefore should be avoided.

Typically, the scope increase consists of either new products or new features of already approved product designs, without corresponding increases in resources, schedule, or budget. As a result, the project team risks drifting away from its original purpose and scope into unplanned additions. As the scope of a project grows, more tasks must be completed within the budget and schedule originally designed for a smaller set of tasks. Accordingly, scope creep can result in a project team overrunning its original budget and schedule.

All quite depressing stuff here. And an accurate depiction of my 2002 project. As my mom would say: Scope Creep Bad! If Billy next door's project had it, would yours?

But reading further I see an out:

If the budget and schedule are increased along with the scope, the change is usually considered an acceptable addition to the project, and the term “scope creep” is not used.

Sweet. I don't care about time (budget I do), so full speed ahead.

So a quick project timeline - mostly in pictures for the verbally challenged.

Grotty looking original carb

Soda blasted and scrubbed

Off to the Alpine Paint Booth!

Meanwhile, in another section of the garage, electro-chemical magic was taking place.

Nuts, bolts and anything the dog wouldn't eat got plated

All new gaskets from Pierce Manifolds, shiny jewelery (plated hardware) and a pretty new dress (paint) and my Webers were ready for their Sweet 16 party.

I tried to match the original gray paint of the Webers, but this was closest I could do. But I am pretty pleased with how they turned out. The paint is bit darker than stock, but is nicely textured and makes the plated pieces stand out.

Now I'm happy, they'll look sweet on top of the engine.