This morning, making use of the dry weather, I sorted a few jobs out on my Audi before mid morning then moved onto the 914.
All went well first thing. I turned the engine over by hand (spanner on the alternator nut) and revealed the timing marks on the fan. I gave them a degrease with a small paint brush soaked in cellulose thinners, before using a very fine modellers brush to paint the thin line white. I carefully continued this across the fan blade to cover the width of the fan in a bright thin white line.
With the relay replaced yesterday I started the engine and warmed it through. The alternator output was checked and by meter was 13.44 volts so no issue there, which was a relief.
Next I set and checked the timing to the 27 degrees mark at 3500rpm with the vac pipe off. It was a tiny bit out but nothing to shout about. With it reset spot on I did up the clamp and put my strobe light away just as a friend turned up with his dwell meter.
A quick check of the dwell and it was all good at 45 degrees.
I was just about to fine tune the idle speed and the engine died, just like yesterday?
Today in daylight I could see better than yesterday evening and after initially suspecting the relay (I took it out and tested it….but it was ok) I noticed the fuse on the relay board looked burnt.
On closer inspection it had blown but in a heated slow way which meant that the two halves touched when cold and parted when hot. This was causing the issue yesterday. When the engine was cold it ran up, when it warmed through it parted and cut the engine out.
This was a 25A fuse, so something was amiss?
I spent the afternoon chasing myself around in circles and discovered a partial earth on the 87 pin of the fuel pump relay connection in the relay board when the 14 pin plug (nearest the bulkhead) was disconnected?
At first I thought it must be a fault in the relay board so removed it from the car for testing but all seemed good. After a bit of head scratching and staring at the Haynes wiring diagram I noticed in very fine print, a take off from the fuel pump relay pin 87 (built into the relay board) that feeds pin 12 on the 12 pin connector at the rear of the relay board (nearest the boot). This has a white wire that feeds the FI Supplementary Air Valve that I’d removed when fitting the Carbs. Inadvertently when I reconnected up the main wiring loom I’d got one spare male spade in a single housing and one female spade from Temperature sender II that were both located by the coil. With everything reconnected and the FI loom off the car I’d foolishly connected these two wires together on the basis that they were the only two connectors left and were the correct position on the engine as the loom lay to joint together. WRONG!
So in reality I’d put a resistance to earth on pin 87 of the Fuel pump relay via the Supplementary Air Valve cable…Doh! It was a slow heat of the fuse on the relay board that eventually blew it.
Having realised my mistake I disconnected the wire just as my friend who was googling “blown fuse on 914 relay board” came up with a short on the Supplementary Air Valve wire!
Suffice to say I swapped the fuse over for a 16 Amp (instead of a 25A) as I have no rear heated window and to give a better earlier indication of any future faults.
It wasn’t a relay after all, just a self made error.
The voltage regulator still runs warm to the touch, but as there’s a vent opening under it in the relay board and I’m measuring 13.44V, I suspect that its normal to run warm?
On the bright side though....I have the carbs running sweetly. No nasty spitting back or popping that you usually get as a compromise with Carb conversions.
Just need to sort out the advance curve now on the dizzy.
) and won’t get home until late when it’s dark, so fingers crossed after dropping my son off on Christmas afternoon I’ll have an hour of daylight in the garage to get them back on the car. 
Very funny, let’s hope "her indoors" doesn’t read your review of her cooking! 
