Starter sticking?

The time spent means nothing to me as I am currently unemployed and this is a great excuse to keep from doing something useful. Does any of that ring a bell with any other coupe owner?

This afternoon I got the starter back together with the solenoid and hooked up the battery cables and a momentary (remote starter) switch as pictured in one early post. The starter spins like a champ and the pinion gear extends and retracts just fine. It seems the whole problem was probably that there was too much crud in the bendix for proper pinion retraction. Another fine data point for the joys of coupe ownership and old cars generally!

The apparent answer to my most recent post seems to be that without the solenoid, the pinion gear should in fact "fall" back and forth by gravity alone. Tomorrow I will reassemble, synch carbs, and if all goes well, sally forth for a drive. We've had great Hawaiian weather: sunny and upper 70s for a hour followed by quite a drizzle for as long as it takes to down half a liter of homebrew, then clearing in half an hour to sunny again. And again. Literally, if you don't like the weather, wait five minutes.

I've been through the carbs and don't want to go there again. The manifolds are another story, and no one has posted useful dope about cleaning them or the corrosion on the rear manifold. As it happens, I know a lady who operates an aircraft servicing operation and she has quarts of both Alumaprep 33 and Alodine in stock. I have some zinc chromate primer left over from a friend's nautical adventures, now all I need is some two part epoxy paint that looks like aluminum... which I think I may have. Apparently I like hazardous chemicals and clean parts rather than unfinished original casting.
 
aluminum

Bead blasting the aluminum parts usually cleans them up nicely. If the white scaly stuff is deep into the hose collars then you may need new parts.

I have had some success cleaning aluminum with a brass brush and Bar Keeper Friend.
 
Today I had at the manifold with various things I had in the inventory.

Elbow grease and a screwdriver removed most of the caked on stuff.

A stainless wire brush removed most of the scale where it could reach. A small wire wheel got in closer.

Simple Green and a toothbrush got rid of the remaining grease except where there had been corrosion and pitting, those areas remained stained black. There is no point in making further effort in the pitted areas and I'll have to assume they are "adequately" degreased.

I brushed some Ospho over the manifold and am letting it sit out to dry. Their website says little about using their phosphoric acid solution on cast aluminum, but I have seen a caution about using Ospho on copper alloy aluminum. The manifold casting says "Si Cu" so I will watch for developments.

I have enough 2-component zinc chromate paint to do both manifolds but then I'd have to topcoat. Think I'll just shoot a couple coats of rattle can clear when the Ospho is dry and see how long it lasts. This isn't supposed to be a term paper...
 
I coated my recently bead blasted aluminum valve cover, thermostat housing ets with Shark Hide and it has held up very well so far for 6 months.
 
The manifold was cleaned (after the Ospho treatment and overnight drying) with mineral spirits, shot down with carb cleaner and given several coats of rattle can clear. It looks much better than before and now I have the distinct pleasures of starter, carb and manifold reassembly. And to synch the carbs, if I discover that the starter pinion no longer refuses to disengage from the ring gear, which got me started on this adventure in the first place.
 
It's over - and it starts right up and runs about like it did.

Although, just to yank my chain, the rear carb linkage was partly rust-stuck and I had to R&R the choke setup to free things. This went easily and well; apparently I didn't lose any of the little bits.

The rear carb has run too rich for too long but I will deal with that. I could surely use a double AFM setup on this, I don't trust my eyes and ears to get the carbs set right. I have a factory carb hood and Uni-syn, though mostly I use a home-made manometer attached to the vacuum ports to assess balance.

It's got me thinking of Motronic. I have an early production 735i sitting in the driveway which I've had to defend to the Mrs. as a temporary storage unit for the next engine (which it is). I also have a complete E12 Ljet head and injection system stashed...
 
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