6-16 tthrough 9-1 2009

Big parts haul, carbs back and actual work 6-19 through 6-22, 2009

Went out to see Butch in Burlington. He finished my SU carbs and they were in pretty good shape. The needle and jet assemblies still looked like new though they have about 165,000 miles on them. New solid butterfly valves on the throttle shafts, new seals, springs and a few other minor bits and the carbs should be good.

Went out to his MGB graveyard to pull parts. About 30 MG’s and a billion crickets, wasps and weeds…what fun on a hot southern day.

I got a new vapor recovery canister for the engine bay (it will be show since the car has been desmogged) a center consol and radio consol, various little clips for the upholstery and to hold down the hydraulic lines n the engine bay, mirror bases, fresh air grill, window crank, back up lights and a bunch of other little parts.

I also found a set of Mini-lite alloy wheels that I think I’m going to get for the car, a deal at $200 for the set.

Other tidbits. I got the steering wheel and hub painted and the new gas tank finished. I cleaned and degreased the tank on the outside and sanded it. On the top I sprayed two layers of truck bed liner followed by two coats of paint and two coats of flexible rubber undercoating so I shouldn’t have to worry about the tank top rusting anytime soon.

On the bottom of the tank I sprayed on two layers of self-etching primer and four layers of Rustoleum black gloss paint. The tank has a better finish than most cars.

I started on the major body work today. I began by getting out my new air cutter and taking off the lower half of the rear valance. The freaking thing has like 300 spot welds in it and I’m NOT going to try to drill all of those out. I’m just cutting off as much of the old panel as I can and welding the new one over it. It already test fits well so good for me.

I cut off the starboard side dogleg and cut out all of the bad metal in the sill areas. The outer sill which extends up under the dogleg was all but gone and now I just have to drill out the spot welds that are left and I can start the final welding prep. The front of the inner sill has a hole in it so I’ll cut out the bad metal and will weld a patch over that before the outer sill goes on.

Cutting off that metal afforded me a peak inside the inner sill behind the castle rail and it looked pretty good. At some point a previous owner had slopped some kind of rust preventative up in there and the metal is still pretty strong. I reached in with assorted wire brushes and a dryer vent cleaning brush and got any dirt in the area cleaned out,.

I then put the nozzle and extension tube from a brake cleaner can on a can of spray-on bed liner and shot it up into the area via the small drain holes along the bottom or the “frame” rail. The coverage was pretty good for doing it blind and I sprayed up in there until it was dripping heavily from the drain holes. I’ll do another couple of coats of that after it dries.

Then it’s onto the other side to repeat the process.

Oh joy!

6-23-2009

Got all of the remaining pieces of the starboard sill assembly cut out. Very much a pain in the ass.
The toughest part was the section towards the rear that is sandwiched in the center of 3 panels where the door goes vertical and up beneath the dogleg.
I drilled out the spot welds on the outer piece that curves upward on the rear area of the door sill and then just jammed a chisel up inside to cut the aft sill section under the dogleg out of the area. That part of the rear sill section is still sandwiched up under the side panel but I’m just going to weld the new sill section over it.
I still have some more grinding to do in the area and I have to split the remaining pieces of metal off the wheel arch where it meets the rear of the dogleg.

I test fit the new sill section and it fit pretty well. The new dog leg fit is more “problematical.” and it is going to need a lot of fudging and wrangling to get it to fit even close to how it is supposed to.

I used my new air panel punch to knock out all the holes all along the edges of the sill piece that I’ll use to plug weld it to the car. Took about five minutes to punch out all of the holes. It would have taken at least ten times that long to drill them all out. I’d say the $29.95 tool from Harbor Freight was well worth the money since it save me a great deal of time, sweat and swearing.

I cut the bad metal out of the front of the center membrane and bought some 16-gauge metal to replace it. I’ll cut that out and weld in place.

When everything is all welded up I’m going to wiggle a modified garden sprayer up inside all of the sill and “frame” rails areas and spray several good coats of paint mixed with Penetrol (which I also bought today) as the final rust protection.

I got the fiberglass air dam cleaned up and sanded and laid down two coats of filler primer. I then filled in the scratches and factory flaws in the air damn and imperfections in the holes I cut out for the daytime running lights. I’ll fine sand and clean up spot filler, put a final coat of primer on it and set it aside until I’m ready to spray the epoxy primer/ sealer on the whole car. On Sunday I test fit the LED DRL’s and got the brackets adjusted so the lights will just bolt right in place when the car is finally painted.

I finally found my box of around 500 LED’s that I used to use for scale model work and with any luck I’ll have enough white ones left so I wont have to order a bunch of new ones. I’ll be using LED lighting for everything but the headlights and turn signals which will drastically reduce the stress on the old wiring and pretty much insure that I won’t have to replace a burned out light bulb until I’ve retired.
I already have some of the cold cathode lighting tubes (CCL’s) that I’ll be using for interior and trunk lighting. The neon lighting you see for cars isn’t actually neon but is cold cathode lighting. The tubes are sealed in clear plastic tubes to protect them, put out a lot of light and use very little power so they are perfect for use in an MGB. I’ll be putting CCL’s in each footwell, up under the lip in the cargo area behind the seats. They’ll be controlled via a radio consol-mounted switch that will also control the LED task/map lights. There will also be at least two CCL tubes in the trunk in addition to the center trunk light, all of which will be controlled by the stock trunk pin switch.



4 August, 2009
Haven’t gotten much done in the last two weeks…dog days of summer and all. Prepping for vacations, kids, near total failure of the brakes on the Corvette (over $200 for a new brake master cylinder) and, of course, the ongoing search for a used school bus. Yup, you read it right…a used school bus. Wifey wanted a camper or some type of RV for us and I basically said no since you need a large, dedicated vehicle to pull it and that ain’t cheap. I then told her for the cost of a nice trailer we could fit out an old used school bus as an RV (I could) so now she is searching for them high and lo.

But frankly, with the Vette repairs, the $$$ I need for the MG and a week in New Orleans starting on Friday, I don’t see a school bus in our driveway any time soon.

So back to the B. I ordered and received the Pro-thane suspension bushings and the replacement front shocks. I pulled the rear spring off the starboard side and found out that the front mounting bushing was pretty much frozen to the spring, I assume it is a pressed in bushing. About 20 minutes of steady pounding with a drift and a large socket finally popped the old bushing out and the new one slid right into place. Starboard side is done and I’ll do the other side tonight after work. With the new urethane front and rear bushings on the rear springs and axle mounting pads, the rear suspension should be pretty tight for the next 100k miles. When I replace the front shocks the front suspension will also be fit with the urethane bushings.

Still waiting on some of the electrical stuff like the 80-amp relay and LED lighting to ship (all on back order)…good thing that I’m working so slowly.

Don’t know how much I’ll get done before leaving for the Big Easy Friday morning but I’ll try to be semi-productive by at least doing the other side of the rear suspension and some more electrical work. I do know, however, that once I get back from vacation the marathon sessions of work begin. I want this car on the road and running well before the weather gets cold again. Since most of the mechanical and electrical work is at least 90% finished, the balance of the work will be the cutting and welding on the body and then the finish body work.

27 August, 2009
I am a total slackass. I haven’t done anything on the B since getting back from vacation. In all fairness to me, however, I have been puttering around with my Corvette which seems to be disintegrating before my very eyes. I have at least $2000 worth of repairs to do on the Vette because it is my only car and it has to be on the road. Of course, that also means less money to spend on the MG.
Well I got back out in the garage and finished off the port side rear suspension and replaced all of the stock rubber bushings with Prothane urethane bushings and I’ve started of the front suspension and shock replacement.
The shocks won’t be all that tough as long as none of the bolts are frozen in place. Replacing the bushings on the lower control arms will be a bit pissy since I have no spring compressor and have to use a floor jack and the weight of the car to compress the springs and get the arms off. A bit of a wrestling match but more irritating than difficult.
After that the carbs are gong back on and I’m gonna get her running again.




28 August, 2009

It is official. I am moving the completion date of the MG to Saturday, Something-Something 30th, 2010. There is no rhyme or reason for me picking that date. I just figure it will give me enough time to finish everything mechanical as well as about 1 to 1 ½ months of warm weather to do the final finish on the body and paint work.

1 September, 2009
The 80-amp relay for the interior fuse panel finally came in along with the LED’s and cold cathode tube lights for the interior. The relay has been on back order for about 2 months and it finally arrived though the package was supposed to include resistors for other LED’s but it didn’t.

The weather has cooled significantly here with nighttime lows in the 50’s…that won’t last but it is very nice to have cool fall weather back.