Red: Epic Bad to Worse

Started with the easy job of swapping out the Left Cover (again).  This time for a new and very clean eBay one.  Went back to the cork-rubber gasket.

Then decided to swap out the Sheng Way carb #1 for the recently cleaned #2.  Swapped it over, went to start and no joy.  Engine would race and then die.  Could not hold steady idle. 

Felt like an air leak.  So decided to add the missing gasket from intake to carb that had been missing this whole time.  Stock gasket was a bad fit for some reason, so ended up cutting a new one from the Fel-Pro pack.  After cutting one, decided to cut a second and put it on both sides of the insulator.

Tried it again and no joy.

Removed the intake from the head to check the gasket there - and there wasn't one!  Could have sworn it had one all this time.  Thought that was bound to be the solve, but after adding a stock gasket, it was the same issue.

So moved the needle down to second from bottom but still very rough idle.