Not a whole lot got done last night…I has tired.

I got the battery boxes cleaned up. I cut off the bad metal on the starboard side box, wire brushed them both down and put on two coats of truck bed liner. I then put two coats of white paint on them because that’s what I had laying around. I bought some more silver paint tonight and sprayed two coats on the box frames.

I touched up the underside of the car, painted things like the transmission cross member black. I also finished cleaning up the rear suspension and painting it. I was going to wait to paint the rest of the rear axle until I got the cover gasket changed but it’s not leaking so I skipped that step.

Got two coats of ultra high temp paint (1200 degrees) sprayed on the exhaust system. It is 16 years old but still looks to be in pretty good shape. If I can get another two or three years out of it I'll be very very happy and getting the high temp paint on it should help protect it a bit.

The insides of the new sills and lower front fender quarters are lined and painted. I’ll probably put a few more coats of paint on them just to be sure they are well protected before I weld them onto the car.

The parts for the rear axle oil seals came today. Unfortunately, nobody was there to sign for them so I guess I’ll have to wait until tomorrow for another delivery attempt. I’ll be stripping down the port side brakes tonight in preparation for the oil seal install and brake rebuild. I’ll be pulling the backing plate off with all the brake hardware still attached so I can rebuild the brakes on both sides on the bench instead of on the car.

Didn't get around to pulling off the oil cooler or carbs for servicing. Hopefully in the next few days but I've got a very busy weekend so it'll be a bit here a bit there....

Clarification on left/right/driver/passenger side definitions

Since we are dealing with a British car here and driver’s side of the car means the opposite here in the States as opposed to the UK, I have decided to use ship terminology from now on to avoid confusion.

From now on the left side of the car (if you are sitting in the driver’s seat acing forward) is the PORT side. The right side is the STARBOARD side. The front of the car is FORWARD or BOW and the rear of the car is AFT or STERN.
Specific parts of the car offer a different challenge. Since a hood in the UK is the convertible or hard top and in the states it is the lid on the front of the car over the engine, we have to be very specific.
Here are the definitions, or UK to American translations

UK USA
Wing -------------------- fender
Hood -------------------- top
Bonnet -------------------- hood
Boot -------------------- trunk
Windscreen -------------------- windshield

Others terms
Petrol -------------------- gasoline
Spanner -------------------- wrench
Impulse extractor -------------------- slide hammer/dent puller
Torch -------------------- flashlight
Wanker --------------------jerkoff

Hope this was helpful :)

Wifey graduates from college!!!

Well I didn't get much done this weekend because my Wifey graduated Cum Laude (sounds dirty) from Winston Salem State University with a degree in Molecular Biology!

Most impressive and I am so very proud of her.

Blond, smart and hot. And as you can tell by her graduation cap, she is also a Battlestar Galactica fan like I am...I be a lucky man!

Please note that the colors on her cap, Black and Gold, are Steelers colors! And yes, we are both Pittsburgh Steelers fans!

Knocking it out!

Much done in the last two days.

Cleaned the entire underside of cars plus wheel wells
Put two layers of spray-on truck bed liner.
Painted two coats of silver paint on entire underside and wheel wells.
Completely finished the cockpit sound deadening and thermal installation install.
Applied two coats of truck bed liner to the inside of the new body panels- i.e. both sills, the lower front fender halves and the doglegs. When those are dry I’ll put at least three layers of rust preventative paint on them. When they are actually welded to the car I’ll pump paint mixed with Penetrol into all the body cavities and then finish it off with an application of Waxoyl.

I’m still waiting on the latest parts order to arrive so that I can replace the oil seals on the rear axle. Once that is done I can finish rebuilding the rear brakes, clean and paint the rear axle and refill it with 90-wt gear oil. Then I’ll be replacing the parking brake cable plus the rear flexible brake line and clutch slave line with the braided stainless ones. Then, of course, all of the hydraulics get bled and I can test out my Ezi-bleed bleeder tool.

Tonight I’m pulling the oil cooler back off to get it flushed and pressure tested and to get what is apparently a small leak repaired. I’ll also be pulling the carbs back off and sending them off to Butch at Imports Europa in Burlington so they can get rebuilt.

Work is actually going fairly quickly now and I hope to start the major body work and welding in the next 8-10 days

Oh, I also got a like-new set of autumn leaf seat covers from a member of the mgexperience.net forum. They were installed but not liked so they got pulled back off. They are just about new and I got them for next to nothing compared to the $400.00+ price that Moss Motors charges for a

new set.

5-09-2009

Did I tell you all that I got a new grill? Well I did from a member on the MG forum.. A brand new one with the black honeycomb inside…very purrdy.

I also just got a new in-the-box autumn leaf interior panel kit from another member on the forum. Got great prices on both so I is a happy little bee.

Finished installing the sound deadening material and thermal insulation in the cockpit. I think it will work out nicely and, again, all of it only cost a total of around $100.00.

I also got the emergency brake handle cleaned up and the metal part painted. The chrome was a bit pitted and ratty looking so I just sprayed it silver. I’ve also just about finished respraying the cockpit silver. Still some touch up and some painting behind the dash but I’m pretty much done.
I’m going to pull the shifter lever out and shorten it around 1½” -2” to give it a more modern throw. I’ll have to grind it down and use a die to make the new threads and then cut the top off of it.

Ordered the outer oil seals for the rear axle. Only the passenger side seal was bad but since the entire brake assembly and backing plate are coming off the driver side too, replacing the oil seal on that side becomes a “might as well do it while I'm in there” job.

I finished cleaning and repainting the driver side front suspension. I’ll still have to pull it all apart again to replace the shocks but I hate working on a dirty, greasy car.

Final cleaning, sealing and painting of the underside is going slowly, but it is going. The rear axle and suspension are all cleaned and repainted except for the area right around the differential cover. Since I have to change the lube in the differential I’m waiting to paint that area until it is refilled and the new cover gasket is in place.

Low cost sound and thermal insulation

Here is how I did the low-cost thermal and sound insulation for the cockpit and a comparison between it and a sound deadening material such as Dynamat Extreme.

Instead of Dynamat-type sound deadener plus an additional layer of thermal insulation, I did the following in the following order after stripping the floorboards, tranny tunnel, firewall and vertical metal of the rear deck of the cockpit. (This was not done to the following areas. The rear vertical walls behind the door, the rear deck, rear bulkhead and inner door threshold sills.) I also applied a layer of fiberglass mat and resin to the floorboards to repair some small holes.

A.---I sprayed on two layers of truck bed liner and let them dry.
B.---I painted all areas coated with the truck bed liner (i.e. the entire cockpit)
C.---Sprayed two coats of urethane sealer
D.---Sprayed on two layers of quality rubberized undercoating and let dry
E.---Applied the foil-backed butyl rubber (similar to Dynamat) on the floorboards where the factory sound deadening material was. Also on the entire transmission tunnel, vertical lower bulkhead behind the seats and forward vertical and horizontal panels of the firewall.
F.---Sprayed on 3M adhesive and then placed the mylarized sunshades as insulation.

The truck bed liner is really tough and, when painted/sealed with a rust-preventative paint, should offer good corrosion resistance. It also adds a thin layer of dense, sound-absorbing material to the metal.

A good quality, spray-on rubberized rust proofing adds not only protection from rust but also adds vibration absorbing characteristics. Two or three layers should make a difference in the area of vibration dampening but one or two more layers wouldn’t hurt. Any more probably wouldn’t help (though I could be wrong)

Instead of installing Dyanmat (or the like) sound deadener which would have cost several hundred dollars I bought some roll-on roofing material at the Home Depot. It is a butyl rubber material with a thick foil backing but costs a lot less. I cut it and placed it in the same pattern as the original factory sound deadening material on the floorboards. I also put it on the firewall, entire transmission tunnel and the vertical bulkhead behind the seats. This material comes in rolls 6” x 25’ and two of them will finish out the areas I described above if you are careful with it and apply it in the same pattern as I did, five rolls would finish out just about every square inch of the cockpit if you did the floors completely and not just in the factory pattern..

I chose the sunshades for the thermal insulation because I saw them first. Mylar bubble insulation which is the exact same thing (except it comes in a big roll and at a lower cost per square foot) is available at big hardware stores.

The only thing I would do differently is to glue down the Mylar bubble insulation with contact adhesive instead of the spray-on type. I just feel it would hold up better and be a stronger bond.
I’ll probably wind up adding the butyl sound deadening material to the inner sills but since I still have welding work coming up in that area I’ll do that after I have the new outers sills installed and the rest of the body work finished. It will add about $17.00 to the costs.

Total cost, as seen below, was $107.00. Quite a bit less than what conventional Dynamat-type material plus any thermal insulation would have cost.

Spray on truck bed liner, 2 spray cans------- $7
Rubberized undercoating, 2 spray cans--------$16
Urethane sealer, 1 spray can---------$6“Auto-Shade” dashboard sun shades, ---------$27
3M adhesive, 1 spray can-----------$8
Metal HVAC tape, 1 roll-----------$7
2 rolls roofing butyl with foil backing------36
Total cost---------------$107.00

For comparison:
Dynamat cost: $9.50 per square foot
Hardware store butyl with foil cost: $3.00 per square foot
Total cost for Dynamat plus thermal insulation and all other costs installed: $396.00

My total cost for the way I did it: $124.55 (includes extra roll of butyl material for inner sills, outboard footwells and inner doors)

Quite a difference. And yes, the Dynamat is thicker than the butyl sound deadener I installed. But even if I doubled the amount used and also did the sills, the total would be $178.10...still way less than half of the Dynamat (or comparable) material.

The foil on the two materials is the same thickness and both provide sound deadening and thermal blocking. And I have no doubt that the hardware store butyl material will stand up to the heat coming off the exhaust. If you’ve ever done any roofing work (and I have done a lot) you know that roof surfaces can reach temperatures of over 150 degrees on a sunny day.

The materials I used have comparable performance to the Dynamat-type materials and cost much less than half. In addition, I found that installing the 6” wide rolls of the butyl material was much easier than trying to cut up or maneuver the larger sheets of Dynamat.

I tried the Mylar bubble insulation on the floorboards of my Corvette and a single layer practically eliminated the previously substantial heat coming up from the floorboards.

Final assessment: This one is a no-brainer. While many things people do to save a few bucks often wind up costing more money, this one seems to actually be worth the difference. I expect that the sound and heat levels in the car will be dramatically reduced, especially if a hardtop is in place.

The Mylar thermal insulation works well at stopping heat transfer and the foil-backed butyl it basically the same, in practical applications, as Dynamat-type sound deadening materials.
For what it’s worth, I like it (but I’m a cheapskate)

NOTE:
At the last minute, after I was done with the passenger floorboards, I decided to glue down the rest of the thermal bubble wrap insulation with brush-on contact adhesive instead of the spray on. I had it left over from some other project so it didn’t add to the cost and it gives a much stronger bond than the spray-on stuff. It also costs less than the spray adhesive and a $6.00 can is way more than you need to do the entire interior.

INSTALLATION NOTES:
If you use spray-on rubberized undercoating make sure it is fully dried and painted. If not painted, dragging a brush of contact adhesive across it can loosen it or even liquefy it.

Before applying adhesive to the Mylar bubble wrap insulation or the foil of the butyl sound deadener, be sure to wipe it down. There are often manufacturing residues and oils on them (especial the butyl foil) that will weaken the bond of the contact adhesive.

Some shots of the cockpit

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.

I

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.