I’ve gotten most of the ancillary components stripped out of the engine bay except for the intake and exhaust manifolds which are coming off tonight. I pulled the water pump out and I’m still debating on replacing it with a new one or keeping the one I have now. It only has about 40-k miles on it and seems ok…I’ll have to think about this some more. I also pulled the distributor out and boxed it up for rebuild. I’m going to send it to THE distributor guy I know from the MG forum and have him make it all happy and new and set me up for a conversion to electronic ignition.
I degreased and sanded down the extreme forward part of the engine bay including the hood locking platform. I put a layer of etching primer and then a layer of gray primer and then I painted the area with Krylon gloss white paint. The finish looks great which it always does if you take the time to properly prepared before spraying. I am so tempted to paint the entire car that way. I’ve done it before and if you prep it right and know how to wet sand properly, it comes out looking just as good as a mid-priced paintjob. But, since there is no hardener in spray paint, I’m gonna avoid that temptation. I’m going to get a spray gun and real paint and do it right.
After I pull the intake and exhaust manifolds off I’ll clean the intake up and wire brush the hell out of the exhaust manifold. That will be followed by a few coats of gloss black high-temp paint. I use the brake caliper paint instead of the engine paint because it seems to hold up better to the temperatures experienced by the exhaust manifold.
After one more cleaning and a final pressure washing, I’ll finish out the engine bay by painting the engine block and then prepping, priming and painting the inner fender wells and firewall. I’ll also be pulling the valve cover and smaller tubes and brackets to sandblast and paint them. I need to run to Sears to get a new tip for the sandblaster and more blasting media so I can start cleaning up all the parts I have that need a good blasting.
I haven’t gotten the heater box all the way out yet but the front panel is off and the heater core is finally out While cleaning it up, I discovered that it has a leak on one of the edges. Hopefully it can be repaired since a new one will cost upwards of $100.00.
9-21-08
I also found a replacement for the throttle and choke securing plate from one of the people on the MG forum. He lives about 30 minutes away and he only wants $20.00 for it so I’ll take that deal. It’ll be much easier to replace the old bracket than to drill out the broken screw and retap it.
9-22-08
The oil cooler is out and I sprayed out the inside of it with carb cleaner. I then filled it up with more carb cleaner and hooked one of the oil cooler lines that I pulled out of the engine bay to the cooler. I looped it around so that both ends of the hose are connected to the two cooler ports. I move the cooler around and shake it up from time to time to let the carb cleaner soak and break down the gunk in there. After a few days, I’ll drain it out and repeat the process a few more times to make sure it is nice and clean on the inside.
9-23-08
I got the rear cockpit (bulkhead, rear deck and inner wheel arches) painted today with the good old Krylon spray can paint but it turned out great. Nice gloss, good coverage…its all in how you prep what you are painting.
I looked into the prices of all the little stickers that go into the car (you know, the valve cover and air cleaner stickers, the emissions stickers, the negative earth sticker, etc) and, while they don’t cost that much, when you buy a bunch of them at once it really gets expensive. Since I had no desire to spend $40-$60 on some stickers I opened my Canvas-9 illustration program and drew up a bunch of them. It took about a half an hour and they really look good. I’m gonna print them up as both water-slide decals and stickers, the decals going on the parts that don’t get really hot (like the bonnet platform and battery bay) and the stickers going to the hotter places (like the valve covers.) I figure I’ll have about $3.00 cost in all of the stickers and about an hour’s worth of work (the time it took to create them and the time it will take to print them up and cut them out) Not too bad, especially if you’re a cheapskate like me.
9-24-08
I got the fiberglass laid on the rust holes over the driver side floorboards. It looks pretty good and has cured well. I may or may not put down another layer over it. I’m gonna stand on it and see how strong it feels, if it doesn’t seem strong enough then I’ll put down another layer. If not, I’ll move on to the passenger side floorboards and do the fiberglass there. When the floorboards are finished to my satisfaction I’m going to go ahead and spray the Dupli-color truck bed liner. In the few weeks that the floorboards have been sitting with just the primer on them I already see some rust forming so I need to get them cleaned up and sprayed as soon as possible. Then I’ll finish up the rest of the cockpit, spray it with truck bed liner and then get it painted all nice and purrrrrdy.
9-24-08
I got the fiberglass laid on the rust holes over the driver side floorboards. It looks pretty good and has cured well. I may or may not put down another layer over it. I’m gonna stand on it and see how strong it feels, if it doesn’t seem strong enough then I’ll put down another layer. If not, I’ll move on to the passenger side floorboards and do the fiberglass there. When the floorboards are finished to my satisfaction I’m going to go ahead and spray the Dupli-color truck bed liner. In the few weeks that the floorboards have been sitting with just the primer on them I already see some rust forming so I need to get them cleaned up and sprayed as soon as possible. Then I’ll finish up the rest of the cockpit, spray it with truck bed liner and then get it painted all nice and purrrrrdy.
You may have noticed that I still haven’t pulled the dashboard off of the car yet though I‘ve been saying that I will for weeks now. Yes, I keep putting it off because I know it will be a giant pain in the ass. I’m hoping that my father-in-law brings back his pressure washer in the next day or two so that I can do the final engine bay, suspension and undercarriage cleaning rather than pulling off the dashboard. I figure that if I keep writing that I’m going to pull the dash, it will be LIKE pulling the dash. And, of course, spending the time talking and writing about it takes up the time I would use for actually pulling it…I do so love avoiding unpleasant things.
9-25-08
So I’ve been trying to figure out how much time I have to spend working on the B between now and June. Like most people I have a busy life and I was beginning to wonder if I’d be able to get her done by my target date of June 2nd. Then I did some math. If I only work on the B for 1 hour per day, five days a week between now and June it adds up to over 200 hours total. It might not sound like a lot but I estimate it will only take about 50 actual hours to do the body work. Even if I’m wrong and it takes 100 hours to do the body work, that still leaves over 100 hours to do everything else. Of course, I forget that me adjusting the carburetors myself will probably take about 200 hours so maybe I should increase my estimated time to finish the car.
And, as always, the problem isn’t the time, it’s the money.
So I’ve been trying to figure out how much time I have to spend working on the B between now and June. Like most people I have a busy life and I was beginning to wonder if I’d be able to get her done by my target date of June 2nd. Then I did some math. If I only work on the B for 1 hour per day, five days a week between now and June it adds up to over 200 hours total. It might not sound like a lot but I estimate it will only take about 50 actual hours to do the body work. Even if I’m wrong and it takes 100 hours to do the body work, that still leaves over 100 hours to do everything else. Of course, I forget that me adjusting the carburetors myself will probably take about 200 hours so maybe I should increase my estimated time to finish the car.
And, as always, the problem isn’t the time, it’s the money.
Your thought for today…
“I’d rather push my MG than drive a Miata.”
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