It's not Man's Work unless you shed a little blood doing it

Polished half my intakes. Before and after picture. Little difficult to see, but the insides are much smoother. The parting line from the casting is nearly gone now. Flapper wheel and injuries (from trying to get the upper seal off) below.

Before & After

Flapper wheel: 80 Grit

Looked real bad before washing off the blood

Might have hit a major piece of Good Luck

So, when I went to drain the carbs on the Valk today, nothing came out. So, it is entirely possible that at some point over the last several years, I did indeed drain the gas out of the carbs.

Gods that would save me a lot of time and trouble if I don't have to tear all 6 of those gorram things apart.

Will tear one down and see how it looks. If good, I'll hopefully be able to avoid all of that work, and can just dump in some carb cleaner for the first couple of tanks.

Helpful Manifold Tip #1

So, after removing the first two intake manifolds, I removed the two screws for the third (in my case, the third was the left side front). Turns out that if you remove all 6 of those screws, the whole carb bank pivots up, which makes removing the manifolds much easier.

Right side intake manifolds

I'm certain it will be easier to install them that way as well.

I'm also going to polish the insides as long as I have them off. Rumor Mill says that should improve mileage by about 3 mpg. Certainly can't hurt anything.

Note to self: Note the position of that little bent tab at the rear manifold. There is one of those on the left front manifold as well. Not sure what it does, but I want to make sure it goes back in the same position.