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.