Triumph Repair: gas leak from carb, mosquito fog, haynes book

Question
hi i just got a 1979 spitfire 1500 and i really don't know too much about it so please bear with me.
I bought a carb repair kit and after putting it in, the car runs fine with the exeption of gas leaking from the choke assmebly screw holes. Now my car has a manual choke and only take 2 out of the 4 holes. so i was wondering if i did something wrong when installing the carb repair kit or if its something else.



and another quick question is the car seems to be blowing alot of blue smoke out the exaust
is there sopmething i can do to get rid of that without ripping apart everything?
like i said i'm just learning about the car so i would really appreciate some help

Thx

Answer
Chuck,

I'll answer in reverse order....

Blowing blue smoke?  Have you tried a compression test to figure out what shape the rings are in?  

Make sure the breather tube from the valve cover into the carb/manifold is clear and working.  Keeping partical vacuum on the engine will help keep the oil inside and out of the combustion chamber.

And what flavor of oil do you use?  I tend to use 20W50 in my Spitfires and that helps a bit.  There are some oil additives (I'll plug Bardahl's No-Smoke.. I don't get any kickbacks but it does work for my car) that will also help cut back a bit on the mosquito fog.

Now, about the carb.  Did it leak gas before the rebuild?  I'd have to pull out a spare carb from the collection to refresh my memory on the choke arrangement, but obviously something that's supposed to be sealed.. isn't.  

Do you have a good manual for the car?  The Robert Bentley repair manuals are a great resource for figuring out how the car should be put together.  The Haynes book can be a good starting point, but since they try to cover all 18 years of production in one manual it doesn't always have the applicable information.


Cheers,

Jim