May 3, 2009...Back to work with a vengance!!!

My friend Kevin came over Sunday around noon and we started working on the B again. Put her up on jack stands, pulled the wheels and got to turning wrenches.
We started on the front brakes.

Here’s what we did:
Pulled calipers, cleaned and painted them with red, high-temp paint, replaced the pads, retaining clips and pins, flat tab washers and the flexible rubber brake hoses with stainless braided Teflon hoses. It all went back together without a hitch.

While we were in there we also replaced the rack boots (always a royal frakkin’ pain in the ass)and cleaned the inside of the steering rack and filled it with 90 wt. synthetic gear oil.
We also replaced the jounce bumpers (as our friends in the UK call them) which are the little things under the upper control arm with the 4 rubber nipples that keep the front suspension from bottoming out. That job wasn’t too tough but it wasn’t easy either since the aluminum spacer on the passenger side had welded itself to the old jounce bumper.

I later painted the passenger side suspension with a black metallic paint and it looks really nice.

Bad news:
The shock absorbers on both sides seem to be leaking fluid at the pivots which means bad seals. I’ll be calling around for rebuilt ones or good used ones.

We then started on the rear brakes and that’s when the work ground to a halt.

I pulled off the rear passenger drum and found everything inside caked with greasy gunk. Much of the she lining was gone apparently from oil contamination..

It looks like the oil seal is leaking and , luckily, it only costs about $5.00 so I’ll be replacing them on both sides.

After much head scratching and a call to my buddy Paul (my MG lifeline) we finally figured out how to get the old seal out. I’m pretty certain we looked like two monkeys trying to figure out an iPhone. I cleaned and painted all of the parts on that side of the rear end including the backing plate and then went inside and ordered the parts from Chris Roop. ( roopsmg.com ) great prices and a great guy to deal with.
Late last night I put down the sound deadening material on the passenger side floorboards and footwells and the tranny tunnel. I used a foil-backed butyl rubber that I bought at Home Depot. The stuff is for roofing but it is the same stuff as Dynamat-type sound deadening material. I cut it up and put it on the floorboards in the same pattern as the factory sound-deadening material and completely covered the tranny tunnel and forwards part of the footwell and firewall.
Total cost for the material is $36.00 as compared to the $200.00+ for the Dynamat-type sound deadening material.

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I then glued down the bubble-wrap like thermal insulation and sealed it to the sound deadener with HVAC foil tape. I’ll do the same with the rest of the cockpit this week.

The total cost for sound deadening and thermal insulation for the cockpit will be around $100.00. Pretty damned good if you ask me.

For the record I did the following:
Fiberglass mat and resin on floorboards, two layers of truck-bed liner, two layers of urethane sealer, two layers of rubberized undercoating, one layer of Dynamat-type sound deadening material and one layer of the Mylar-bubble insulation.

All of that together should make the cockpit quieter, more comfortable and pretty much safe from rusting anytime in the near future.

SPEED BLEEDERS UPDATE:
They don’t fit…at least on the front calipers. The stock bleeder nipples seem to have a slight taper towards the end that screws into the caliper, the Speed Bleeders don’t so trying to put them in offered a great deal of resistance.

I decided to not put them in since there was a chance of stripping the threads out of the calipers. I’ll call the manufacturers this week and see if they have any suggestions. I haven’t tried the ones on the rear brakes yet or the clutch master. I’ll post it here when I get some more answers.

Once more into the breach dear friends

4-22-2009

Well it’s about time for me to get back to my work on the MG.
Since my work on the basement has come to an end (for now) I can devote my attention to my LBC.
I’ve been gathering materials and parts while the restoration has been on hold.
Here’s what’s going on.

Major change in plan. Instead of painting the B white with a white interior it will be silver (2005 Corvette pewter) with an Autumn Leaf interior. Of course, I now have to strip out the engine bay to repaint it as well as repainting the trunk and cockpit. Oh well, what’s 30 more hours work on a project 3 months behind schedule…

Have to clean out the garage again…three months of it being the staging area for major home remolding tends to make things a bit messy …

I found material for the cockpit thermal insulation. I found a bubble type material with Mylar on both sides and a strong yet flexible material inside…its an windshield sunshade I found in the Walmart auto section! They are $6.00 each and I’ll need five of them to do the entire cockpit but they look like they’ll do the job. I’ll still need some Dyna-mat-type material for the doors but $30.00 for the thermal insulation is a lot better than the $300.00 I was looking at before.

I think I’ll be having an all day work party on the MG on Sunday, May 3 so anyone in central NC who wants to come get greasy feel free to join in the fun...beer, pizza maybe even strippers!!!! I have no shame.

Since I’m heading into my busy season for work it’s going to make consistently working on the B harder but a few hours here a few hours there adds up.

It seems that my last few posts have had nothing to say except for why I haven’t been working on my MG…very sad.

4-7-2009 Why I haven’t done anything on the MG lately

Well, I’m embarrassed to say that I haven’t done a damned thing on my B in around six weeks now except for moving it around and piling junk on top of it.

Last year, our basement flooded while I was remodeling. Not too bad but just bad enough to get everything wet and moldy. So I’ve been working on that while the weather was cold. Not just because it needs it but also because mold us a major health concern and I’d really not have it all over everything.

So far I’ve finished the den and installed all new hardwood flooring and covered the fireplace, hearth and stair landing in a mix of Vermont and Indian slate…very nice. Aside from some finish trim work and other small things it is all finished. I’ve also finished the stairwell, gym, office and all I have left to do in that part of the house is the kitchen hallway. I’ll still have another hallway, a bedroom, the kitchen and a bathroom to do but I wanted to get the main common areas finished up. The rest is sealed off and can be done over the course of the summer.

I figure I’ll be able to get back to work on the B this coming weekend. I’m going to have to bust ass to get even close to my self-imposed deadline for finishing it by June 1st.

After cleaning out the garage (again) I’ll put her back up on jack stands and start to work. I’ll pull the carbs off and send them to Butch at Imports Europa in Burlington NC to have them rebuilt. I’ll also pull the oil cooler off to get it pressure tested and fixed since I recently found a nice little puddle of oil under it from an unseen leak.

I’m then going to pull off the wheels and do the front and rear brakes and steering rack gaiters and anything else suspension related. This will give me the chance to try the Speed Bleeders I bought and see how they work. I’ll also be replacing all the flexible brake and clutch master lines with Teflon/stainless braided hoses and checking the condition of the clutch slave cylinder.

While I’m down there, I’ll finish cleaning, sealing and painting the wheel wells and underside of the car. I’m also going to run the new wiring for the melted fuel pump wire plus a few additional wires to the rear end for future accessories such as an audio amplifier and the like. I’m going to finish cleaning up the wiring in the engine compartment and dash areas and finish sealing and painting the rest of the cockpit and inside firewall.

When the carbs come off I’ll check to see if the seals on the side covers are leaking or not. If they are, I’ll swear a bunch and then pull them off and try sealing them up again.

The mechanical stuff will be easy for me compared to the next step which will be the major body repairs. Sills, doglegs fenders rear valance and a bunch of other body panels have to be cut off and replaced. I’ve never done major metal repair this involved so it will be an interesting learning experience for me. I’m getting lots of good advice on the MG Experience forum so I’m hoping it will go well.

Getting back to the B

I haven't done much in the last few weeks. I've had to concentrate on remodling the basement in my house which has flooded twice in the last 4 years.

It has become a health issue since a lot of mold and mildew has formed on the walls so it's been tear out the walls, rebuild repaint and live with the smell of bleach permanently burned into my nose...yummy.

But I'm getting close on the final stages of the first phase of the basement so I should be able to get back to work by the weekend.

Plus, the weather has sucked here but it will warm back up by the weekend. We're supposed to get 4-8 inches of snow here tonight which, for North Carolna is a big deal. But it is going to be back near 70 degrees by next friday so I'll be getting back to work on my LBC. I'm now nearly a month behind on my schedule so I'll have to bust ass to get caught back up again.

1-26-2009

Broke the sandblaster out and got to work on the car again. This time, however, when it came out of the garage, it drove out under its own power! Runs rough as hell but at least she runs :)

I spent about two hours sandblasting on the car and in all that time, all I got done was the front right wheel and suspension and the trunk underside area where the gas tank mounts. talk about slow going. My compressor isn't small but it's not a big industrial unit either so you only have about a minute or two of effective sandblasting time before you have to wait for the air tank to fill back up again.
Plus, it's a Sears sandblaster which loves to clog up every 30 seconds or so...slow going to say the least.
I'm seriously considering just pulling the wheels off and spending $50 bucks to have them done at a sandblasing shop. It would be much easier and I wouldn't have to spend a few days picking sand out of every square inch of my body. Then I can just blast what needs blasted, the rest of the suspension, the underside of the car and the few random remaining parts that are too big to clean up with the wire wheel on the bench grinder.

I got my speed bleeders for the brakes and the clutch slave in today. They are basically bleeder nipples with built in check valves. you loosen them a bit and pump the brake pedal until the air is out of the system and the built in valves prevent air from being drawn back into the lines when you let off the pedal. Supposedly, it allows you to bleed the brakes by yourself.
I'm planning on flushing out the 15 year old silicone brake fluid from all the lines and replacing it (I'm sticking with the DOT-5 silicone fluid) by hooking up my Ezi-bleeder. It is a unit which sends pressurized fluid into the master via a special cap and on through the brake lines, pushing the old fluid out as it goes. I've never used one before but they are supposed to work fairly well based on what I've read on several MG forums.
When my latest parts order comes in early next week I'll be working on rebuilding the brakes so I'll let you know how the Ezi-bleeder and Speed bleeders actually work.

It's going to be cold and rainy here for the next few days so I'll probably alternate between working on small parts inside and working on the house. I still have to finish cleaning up the rust on the outside of the tank and seaing the pin holes on the top of it so that will probably be my next step.

I've also decided that in addition to documenting my restoration efforts photographically and here on this blog, I'm going to start doing them on video as well.
The videos will be a combination of how-to MG restoration and visual documentation. Hopefully, somebody out there will find them helpful. If not, then 20 years from now my kids can at least see what their lame-brained dad looked like when they were young.

Still not done anything on the MG. The weather has now just started to warm back up an I'll be getting some done tommorrow.

But for now...

THE STEELERS ARE GOING TO THE SUPERBOWL!!!!

Wifey got tickets to the AFC championship game in the 'Burgh and it was a blast.

I have a great wifey.

1-14-2009 Too damned cold and GO STEELERS!!!

It's too damned cold to be out working on the B right now so I'm back working on the inside of my house for a few days.

Wifey is trying to get tickets to the AFC championship game in Pittsburgh...I love my wifey.

All I want is to see the Steelers beat Baltimore 100-0...is that asking too much?

GO STEELERS!!!

01-01-2009

Let's see if this works.
Here is the video of my restart efforts on the MG.

Some r-rated language so this won't show up on the Disney channel anytime soon.

The funniest part in the video is my wife Laura. I was joking with Kevin (AKA Fieldbuilder here on the MGExperience.net forum) that she was an ex-Army MP and swears like a sailor so, of course, she goes out of her way to swear constantly...not knowing that I am taping the whole thing.
I showed this to her last night and she is so embarrassed.
The first half of the vid shows us trying to get the B restarted. The second half is after I replaced most of the ignition parts on Sunday and she actually runs.
I replaced the rotor, dizzy cap, plugs (NGK) coil wire and plug wires.
I still have to replace the points and condensor. She fired right up and kept running which I didn't expect at all.
Last saturday Kevin and I just managed to get her running for about 10 seconds at a time at the most. But, Sunday I discovered this ingenious device called a...um what is it...oh yeah, a choke.

DUH!

Pulled it out about 1/3 of the way and she fired up and kept running, much to my surprise. she ran for about 15-20 minutes on Sunday and got up to operating temp, the t-stat opened, no oil or coolant leaks and consistantly showed about 55-60 pounds oil pressure at idle. It's all even more surprising that she ran considering that the carbs and the balance of the ignition system haven't been touched in about 15 years...they built these things tough!
I even drove her back and forth in the garage...about 3 feet forward and back. At least I know the clutch isn't frozen up

Me very happy