Season Round-up

Work ground to a halt rather back in September, when it became too dark and cold of an evening to go outside for fun.

However, I'm pleased with the summer's progress, even if most of the work was done on items that weren't originally on the list to be attended to!!

There are a good few loose ends to be tidied up as a result of the work so far and to some extent, these can be attended to during the winter. These include:

1. Fix / Replace steering column bracket after stud sheared off it
2. Refill oil system
3. Finish rebuilding Heater box
4. Decide what to do about small rust hole in the scuttle area
5. Tune carbs to basic settings so that engine will start
6. Work out how to re-fit the distributor so that the timing's close to being right
7. Refit the pedal box
8. Refit the hydraulic systems for clutch and brakes

The will mean that when the good weather and longer evenings start again I'll be in a position to tackle the wiring and rebuild the brake systems at the wheels.

Engine Back In And Some More Progress.

It's been a great weekend! I got home on Friday afternoon and set about getting the car ready to accept the engine. The first job was to fit the new clutch fork rubber gaiter, a job which is a lot more tricky than it appeared. In the end, the only way to do it was to take the fork out of the bell housing, remove the release bearing then swear the boot into place before fitting it all back together. The engine mounting parts also got a couple of coats of Hammerite satin.

With that done, I wheeled the engine out to the car and eventually got it to slide back onto the gearbox shaft. It took about an hour of jiggling but eventually it went back as it should and I could do some of the nuts and bolts up to hold it in place.

Next I fitted the engine mountings which had dried in the sun, using new nuts, bolts and washers all round.

On Saturday, I nipped over to the MGOC to buy a few miscellaneous parts, including a bonnet seal, more fixings, air and oil filters etc.

Today, I got on with fitting the carbs, manifolds, oil cooler, radiator, etc. You can see what's what in the pictures. I also partially assembled the pedal box with the rebuilt mastercylinders.

Finally, I stripped, prepped and painted the various brake / clutch lines that I'd taken off the car, along with the starter motor. The latter required a really good clean and repaint - it's a bit of an over-kill really because it will have a black plastic cover over it once I've re-fittted it to the car but at least I'll know it's as tidy as the rest of the bits I've refitted!

Here are the pictures:

Engine, Gearbox and Engine Bay Ready!

This is quite an exciting post to make tonight - Finally, the engine has its clutch and back plate in place, the gearbox bell housing is clean, with a new pivot arm bush and bolt, and the engine bay paint has had a week or so to harden.

I had put the engine back plate back on last week, with a new crank seal and new locking tabs all round. When it was dismantled I recovered the spigot bush but didn't realise its significance. Obviously this meant that when it came to reassembly I'd not bought a replacement and the old one was worn sufficiently to spin in the crankshaft.

After a quick chat with Steve, followed by a search on the MG Experience Forum I bought a replacement from the MGBHive and stuck it in a plastic bag, covered in engine oil, and put it in the freezer. It's odd, but I can't find any reference to fitting it in the Haynes Manual. It exists in a diagram, but no mention seems to be made to refitting it before putting the clutch assembly back together.

This evening I recovered it from the freezer and gently tapped it into place with a bit of wood, as recommended by the forum. It was actually just about small enough when frozen to rock into place but the wooden block got it in place in seconds. The whole area was then wiped clean with a alcohol-soaked cloth. The clutch plate also recieved the same treatment.

The clutch was soon in place after that and the clutch alignment tool that I bought about a year ago did its job. I Hope!

So that's the engine ready for refitting.

Last week, I also finished washing out the bell-housing and replaced the clutch arm pivot bolt and bush, as well as the graphite release bearing. Just as well actually because the old one was worn right down to the casing.

Alongside the spigot bush, I also bought two oil cooler straps, a rubber boot for where the clutch arm passes through the bellhousing, and the correct bolts for the water pump.

Here are some pictures - next step is to put the engine back into the car.

More Parts and Preparation

I nipped over to the MGOC in Swavesey today to pick up a few misc parts that I needed - mainly just fittings for the engine bay but also the two long bolts for the water pump and the clips to hold the heater box together.

The majority of today was spent working on another car (the Maestro) but I did get time to do the following:

• Spray the front cross-member and brake pipes with Hammerite Satin
• Degrease the bell-housing
• Replace the clutch slave cylinder hose
• Fit the water pump to the engine
• Degrease engine mounts and other misc items
• Remove the clutch arm and drift out the bush

Think that's it for now, but with the remaining bits now painted, attention can turn to rebuilding the clutch parts in the bell-housing (the new bush is in the freezer so that it'll hopefully drop right in) and also putting the flywheel / gearbox adaptor plate back on the engine along with the clutch.

Hopefully not long now until the engine goes back in!

I've also updated the balance sheet (see one of the first posts in 2010) - so far the project has cost £1868.

Engine Bay Painting Complete... And a few other bits.

I rubbed the engine bay down with 1200-grit wet and dry and got the final coats of paint on it today. The only bit of Teal Blue that's left to paint is a small patch on the bonnet landing panel where I'd filled a small dent but the finish wasn't perfect so I took it all off and did it again!

I also had time to put the final coats of paint on the engine (using a slightly less garish colour, actually I think it's gone too far the other way now but it goes with the blue so that's fine) and paint a few bits with black hammerite.

Finally, I turned my attention to the second-hand water pump which was perfectly servicable but not pretty enough to grace this car's engine bay now ;-)

Here are the pics:

First Two Coats of Teal Blue

Had quite a productive session on the MG yesterday. I flatted-back the primer and then got two coats of Teal Blue on the engine bay:







I also had some time to have a look at the heater box and prepare it for repainting. It was in pretty awful condition but after a bit of paint-stripping and attention to grind back the rust I think it's salvagable. The bottom part which contains the flap is slightly broken (the bracket that holds the cable to the flap is broken off) so this will need some attention before re-fitting.




So - I'll give the blue paint a few days to dry before flatting it back with 1200 wet and dry and applying the final coats. Meantime, the heater-box can be primed and painted.

More Priming and Preparing

I got some more work done on the engine bay this weekend.

I'd left it with only one coat of primer on it so I spent some time rubbing this down and sanding back a couple of small areas of filler that I'd used to perfect a couple of minor dents (the biggest of which was on the bonnet landing panel where it had obviously had something dropped on it).

Eventually I was pleased with the finish so washed down all surfaces and gave them a couple of hours to dry in the sun while I put up the Gazebo, which would hopefully afford the wet paint some protection from things falling on it.

It's now had three coats of primer on it, with a rub-down between each coat with gradually-increasing grades of Wet & Dry. Here's how it looks now, just one more rub-down with 800 Wet and Dry and one more coat of primer before it's ready for the top coat of Teal Blue.