cheers for the replies again guys, ill keep playing about with it till it gets better, going to measure at 1 height and then reduce by 1mm untill it gets better and then gets worse again, this may take some time but will hopefully be a worthwhile task.

im not sure about the jets as thats a bit beyond my mechanical knowledge, i pretty much learn things as i go along and ive not had a problem with these on any car in the past.

i originally found when i pulled the carb top off there was a tube which was at an angle and was pinning my float up?

am i right in putting this tube into the hole and putting the other tube attatched to the carb top inside that?

It could be possible that the floats have been changed in the past and are the wrong size, if this is the case this would always cause a problem with setting them if 33.8 is not achievable because if you use a larger measurement then there would be slightly less fuel in the float bowls.

jtbo, Have you weighed the floats to see if there is much difference?

Haven't measured weight as I don't have anything that measures so small, but I remember (barely and can be as true as me lunching with miss Finland) that other ones, that were in a car, did weight more when compared them on hand, but that method is really accurate so there is not much that can be said to direction or another about their weight

One measure that would be helpful is the height of float, what those black bits should be as an overall height, that would help to sort odd ones from good ones.

I managed quite some time ago drop floats and step over them, while tripping over (once again my balance is getting worse year by year), so I really have only the good one left, at least I think it was the good one, but now I'm again suspicious about that one too, must do some measuring I believe.