I thought working on my RHD XK120 was difficult, but after reading the
messages about working on the XK150, I think mine is a piece of cake.
I install the rear carb before the front one and just double nut the lower
studs on the rear carb which has the least steering shaft clearance and put
them in after installing the rear carb. With the front carb off, there is a
lot more room to work, since the brake reservoir is also in the way.
Larry JDate: Sun, 28 Jan 2007 22:35:46 +0100
From: “Ken Green” ken.green@kgcc.co.uk
Subject: RE: [xk] Refitting an XK150 inlet manifold
In reply to a message from Jerry Oliver sent Sun 28 Jan 2007:
Well David all I can say is ‘‘your’’ carbs look great.
That was a whole lot easier than I expected.
I fitted the the whole carb and manifold assembly in one go.
It would have been easier if I’d had three elbows and two
wrists on each arm, also an option to unplug arms and swap
them to the other side so you could have two left or two
right arms on occasion would have be useful 
I started the afternoon off you removing the last 4 nuts off
the bottom of the manifold, the back four. Then bunged the
inlets and cleaned down the surfaces.
To fit the new carb manifold assembly I started by mounting
it all in one go. The water rail makes a great handle.
I then fasten up the middle top nut to hold the whole
caboodle in place. Then I investigated how easy I though
reaching all the bottom nuts would be. Well it seems much
easier than I had expected so I dived straight in working
from the back. Having got the back two nuts on I realised
why it was so easy. I’d forgot to hook back up the two water
pipes that run under the inlet manifold. I also realised I
had forgotten to remove the bungs from the 6 inlet pipes.
Oops! off again.
Fitting the the manifold assemble with the two water pipes
hooked on was much trickier. Hence the request for an
anatomical redesign. The bottom back nut (9) was OK. The
next one (8) was a total mare, the support for the water
pipe kept springing the washer and nut off every time I
tried to fit them. Evenutally I cheated and left off the
washer, there is the ring of the bracket between the nut and
the alloy of the manifold and I was using nylocks so
hopefully that will be OK. 7 and 6 involved much cursing. 5,
the middle one drove me insane and I gave up on it till
later. This was not a issue associated with having the carbs
all ready mounted, nut 5 is right behind where the choke
pipe bolts onto the manifold. 4 & 3 were mildly awkward and
2 & 1 you can get a socket onto Yippee!
The top row proved much harder than I expected. I just could
not get my fingers in between the water rail and the cam
cover enough to get the nut on to start. So off came the
water rail. Working from the front, backwards it was quite
easy then. Nuts 3, 6 & 7 would not take a nylock, there just
wasn’t enough clearance between the mounting for the water
rail and the top of the stud. So I popped normal nuts onto
those 3 positions. Then I popped the water rail back on.
Back to bottom nut 5, I worked out how to juggle it past the
water pipe so I could get a finger one side and the thmb the
other, then it was OK.
I’ll post some pictures tomorrow. I am really pleased with
the way they look.
In hindsight I should have taken the manifold off with the
carbs still attached. I should just have removed the water rail.
Now I just need to decided whether to replace the fuel pipe
that feeds the carbs (C12812). Order up a few bits and
pieces such as the pipe from the glass filter bowl to the
above, inlet bangos and filters etc…
Then one more session should do it.