What a great story! Thanks for posting it...
I'd be interested to know if he has a twin carby manifold lying around for my replica. But it's not really that important, I guess.
More to the point, as others have said, people with the kind of knowledge he's got are fast disappearing. I agree that you should arrange some quality time with him, with an engine in bits in full view, and let him tell you any tricks they used to have, any problems they used to find.
When they were having problems these engines were easy to find. These days it's a bit harder.
