12-27-2008 FIRST START DAY!!!

Saturday was the day! Kevin came over and we worked on the MG from 10:30 am until around 8:00 pm to get her started, breaking only for lunch around 2pm.




















We spent most of the day safing bare wires, reinstalling things like the carbs, distributor fuel lines and about 100 other little things.

...there were problems, of course...

The fuel tank isn't back from the radiator shop yet so I hooked up a small gas can in the trunk with some extra fuel line. I put gas in the lines where it promptly spilled out all over the garage floor. Fixed that and then found it flowing out at the front carb. both were cases of loose or missing clamps.

The distributor would not go back in with the rotor facing the right direction so Kevin turned it 180-degrees around and it slipped right in (he then swapped the wires around)

When the wires were all safed we hooked up the batter. No fires, no sparks, no smoke and the fuel pump kicked on. After chasing problems for a while longer we tried to start it but no joy.

Ran the battery down cranking it to get oil pressure but still no start. When I hooked up the second battery I noticed that the first one whas hooked up out of phase! No wonder it wouldn't start.

After the second backup battery was hooked up (correctly) and we fiddled with the distributor some more (and sent the wife to the parts store for a new plug wire) we had our first backfire after cranking it for about 10 seconds! Not much but it was a sign of life.

We fiddled some more, determined that we were getting spark at the plugs and fuel at the carbs so we tried again and TA-DA- she fired up!

She only ran for about 10 seconds but she was running. The oil pressure was around 50-60 pounds, which is very good, and she ran surprisingly smoothly considering how old everything was. She started and ran for 10-15 seconds a few more times after that so I felt good calling it a day.

Next up, I'll be replacing the points, condensor, plugs, plug wires, cap and rotor. The carbs come next. They need rebuilt so I'll be sending them off to either Butch in Burlington or one of the other pros from the MGExperience forum.

Other than that, it's back to work on the other 12 buh-zillion things I need to do.

I just wanted to see if the engine would run and hold pressure so the rest is easy since that is the case. At least I can be relatively sure that when the car is ready to rollout, it will be drivable.

When she fired up for the first time in 10 years, I was laughing and smiling like my 7 year old son on Christmas day.

I taped it and will try to get the video posted here this week.

Merry Christmas to me :)

Well, there’s lots to catch up on in the last few weeks. The holidays are still cutting into the time I’d be spending on the MG but I got a lot done the last few days.

Some good news, some bad news; I’m going to try to start the engine up on the weekend between Christmas and New Years. On the bad side, when I pulled the clutch and brake pedals of to replace them I found that the push rod on the clutch master cylinder is badly egged out and the clevis pin is also shot. Luckily, my MG buddy Kevin who is going to be helping me try to get the B restarted, has an extra pushrod.

I got the heater core back from the shop, it only cost $25 to get it flushed, pressure tested and have the crack soldered. I reinstalled it back in the heater box and got the whole thing back into the car. The heater box is supposed to be a bitch to reinstall and I recall them being exactly that when I last did one nearly 20 years ago. But this time, I pre-compressed the big puffy seal on the back of the box by stacking a bunch of slate tiles on top of it for a few days. I pulled it out from under the slate tiles, quickly glued it to the back of the box, sprayed a little WD-40 on the seal, lined it up in the opening and it slid right into the opening on the firewall with just a light pop of the heel of my palm.

I got the radiator back into the car as well as the oil cooler and lines (I need new lines for the oil cooler, they are both way too long and look stupid) I have at least 60% of the wiring cleaned up and re-taped in the engine bay. I installed the new stainless braided fuel line hoses in the engine bay (they look sweet) and in the rear at the fuel tank.

The tank should be done in the next day or two. I’ll still have to reseal the top of it because it was in really poor shape but the rest of it was in good condition and since it is an original tank with baffles, I decided to keep it.

I reinstalled the blank plate on the top of the firewall on the passenger side. I used double seals and drilled out and added four extra securing screws since I got tired of it always leaking no matter what I did when it rained.

I got the exhaust downpipe reconnected to the exhaust manifold with lock washers and the brass nuts. It is a lot harder to get some of those nuts installed with the manifold bolted to the block but not too much harder.

My buddy Paul is looking at my alternator and hopefully will get it fixed before this weekend. If not, I’ll just have him put it back together and I’ll stick it on the car as is for the restart since the car will run with or without it in place.

I put the front of the B up on jack stands and a heater under the engine for a few hours to heat it up and then drained out all of the old oil. I got at least 10 quarts out of it! I then sprayed a bunch of brake cleaner up the drain hold and down the dipstick hole to clean out any gunk in there. When I was done I blew compressed air down the dipstick hole to dry it out. I’m sure that it didn’t get the sump completely clean but it knocked out a lot of any old gunk that may have been up in there.

I’m waiting on an order from Moss for the little doo-dads I need to get the engine running again. Hopefully they will be here by this weekend, but with the slowdown because of Christmas shipping I’m not sure they’ll get here on time.

As I said above, I’m going to try to start the thing on the weekend between Christmas and New Years so I’ll have the fire extinguisher and camcorder standing by. IF it works and I get it started I’ll put the video up…it will probably show me jumping up and down like an excited nine year old. I have no idea if it will start or not. The valves need adjusted and the carbs and the rest of the electronics are around 15 years old…keeping the fingers crossed!

Merry Christmas, happy Chanukah, Kwanzaa, Festivus, the winter equinox or whatever you celebrate this time of year.

So sorry good people for not posting much in the last few weeks. I have been recovering from second heart attack in as many weeks courtesy of the Pittsburgh Steelers. :)

Getting closer to the engine restart Got a few small parts yet to order and I'll have the lump back together. I'm using the NASA all-up testing philosophy. Put everything back together, assume it all still works and fire light the bitch off.

The alternator is not putting out anything but as long as it is in place the battery will hold a charge long enough to work. I replaced a few rubber bits in the carbs but I have no idea of their condition. Both of the return springs on the carb bodies are broken so I'll need those and it is missing the fast idle adjust screw and locknut but they were fine when it was parked...after 10 years sitting? who knows. Folks on the MG forum and Butch seem to think there is a good chance they'll work since I took the time to clean all of the old gas out of them when I first parked it in 1998 (doesn't seem that long ago...I must be getting older)

Oil cooler and lines are back in but I've always had that one line that is way too long so at some point I'll be replacing that. I still have about 3 gallons of oil in the engine to drain out and replace...that'll be fun. I still have to take the heater core and tank to get flushed/repaired but the guys on the forum recommended a place in Kernersville that they does a real good job...and it's close by too.

I still have the mess that is the wiring to clean up. I'm replacing a bunch of the bullet connectors and female receptacles and plan to add a relay system and second aux fuse panel for the stuff that takes lots of juice to run...don't now why but I just don't trust 35 year old British wiring to hold up.

I plan to try starting it weekend after next so if anyone wants to swing by for the fire...um, I mean start up, I'll keep you posted. Kevin, who lives over in Bermuda Run and is very MG knowledgeable, has offered to help and he has many of the tools I'll need. He's a really nice guy and has been a ton of help so far.

11-20-2008 TO 12-02-2008

Well the Thanksgiving holiday and work interests have pulled me away from working on the B as much as I would have wanted to. Plus, I’m trying to get some more remodeling work done on the (formerly) finished basement in my house that flooded this spring. Wifey wants me to get the gym I’m building finished for her Christmas present so I get to mix in drywall dusting with the paint fumes from MG restoration. What fun!


















I have gotten some stuff done, however, just not as much as I would have wanted to. The radiator is all finished and pretty. After it was all cleaned inside and out I buffed the brass with steel wool, soldered the metal support brace back on where it broke loose from the top and then clear coated the brass to keep it all nice and shiny. I also put a thin coat of gloss black on the tops of the radiator fins since those are what you see when you look down on the radiator when the car’s hood is open. I also painted the steel supports on the radiator with several coats of gloss black paint and glued two cork buffer strips on the parts where it attaches to the radiator support in the engine bay. I’m not big on metal to metal contact with painted parts since it tends to rub off the paint over time and allow a path for rust to start.



















I’ve decided to take the heater core to a radiator shop to get the crack soldered. I did it myself but the core is just too hard to get out of the car if it fails. So I’ll have the shop solder it up and pressure test it so I can be sure about it. The same goes for the gas tank. Now I just have to find a local radiator shop.

NOTE:
When you use material s such as Perma-Tex or other gasket sealing products, use it very sparingly. In fact, when you are installing your heater valve, you shouldn’t use any at all. When I flushed the radiator and (especially) the heater core out, gobs of old Perma-Tex came out. This was old gasket sealing material that squished out when a part was tightened down and broke loose, making it into the stream of coolant. There is no telling how much of the radiator and heater core was clogged by this loose material. This is especially important with the heater core since it is so small and inefficient already. Any blockage at all in the core make an already weak unit even weaker as far as heat output is concerned.

Printed up some of the homemade stickers that I made with my Canvas-11 illustration program. They look really good but I’m not sure how they’ll hold up in the engine compartment. I put about 6 coats of clear coat on them and I’ll be cutting them out. After I apply them I’ll also put some more clear coat over the area where they are placed to, hopefully, seal them up. It is an experiment but if it works then I don’t have to spend a butt-load of cash on some little stickers.
Since the weather has turned decidedly colder I’ve been doing as much work as possible down in the basement on cleaning parts. Nuts, bolts and various other parts, it at least lets me do work on the B when it is to cold to be out in the garage. I have one more parts order to make and I’ll start making an earnest effort to get the car running.