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 :)