Slowbrick's adventures in Astron, SWB Paj style

Weber fitted this afternoon and the results are nothing short of "Astronomical" ha, get it? Astron?

I'll see myself out.

In all seriousness it's a whole different car. Next up are a set of headers I got from eBay and a 2 1/4 inch exhaust at the local place. Should wake it up a fair bit.

Went and saw the sun come up and took a photo.

Have been driving this around and its been doing just fine. Fuel consumption is pretty abysmal atm though. Getting about 20L/100 which im putting down to the carb not being tuned. The exhaust is also pretty well blocked up and not a whole lot of air comes out the back but its serviceable and there are a few competing priorities so will get to that when I can. On thursday I followed a guide to set the cruise/idle mix and its idling way smoother and bottom end pickup is much better. The transition from primary to secondary is less harsh and it pulls (as hard as an Astron can) to 5k which it didnt before. Gave it a run out on a private road and saw 140km/h on the speedo before I let off which was much higher than the 110 I saw when i first did the swap. Also added about 4 degrees of timing which it has taken to well.

It has been fun and quite interesting working on something with a carby. All my other old cars have some version of EFI and this is my first carby car ive owned that I actually use that isnt just a paddock basher.

Astron still resides on my driveway and has been doing well. Fuel consumption has settled at around 12 - 14 which isnt great but that isnt the reason why I own this. Picked up some wheels from a local wreckers and gave them a lick of paint. I always hated the black wheels and couldnt wait to get them off the car. Havent really had to do much to it to keep it going aside from the original radiator leaking and balljoints + steering arms to make it drive a bit better, its been a pretty solid little thing. Towed a dingo with it when doing my driveway and it handled it fine. I think its rated to 1500kgs tow capacity and the owner of the dingo said the machine + trailer was ~1400kg so right on the limit. It was the middle of summer and I was worried about it possibly overheating but it trucked on through Newcastle city and up the bypass without a worry. Im planning to hold onto this thing until something else requires me to get rid of it. Until then im very happy driving it around. I really enjoy its simplicity.