Tuesday, January 27, 2009

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.

Sunday, January 25, 2009

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.






Wednesday, January 14, 2009

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!!!

Monday, January 5, 2009

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