Seriously stormy weather today in Wiltshire, courtesy of Dennis, so the only option for progressing the MG was to work within the confines of the garage. This limited what I was able to do, but actually we made some good steps forward, so not too bad at all. First of all, a couple of photos attempting to record just how grim the weather was. Its difficult to capture it, but it was just relentless wind and rain.
Looking out the front at the cemetery opposite, you can see the stormy skies 
The back garden looks forlorn today 
Looking out across the Cappuccino
Decided to fit the radiator and hoses today. I bought the radiator and new hoses over a year ago, and they’ve just been sitting there waiting installation while I have built everything else up. The installation, which should have been a simple bolt on, took a bit longer because the radiator bolts did not align with the radiator shroud to which its mounted. I had previously fitted the shroud so envisaged just bolting it on. I attempted to overcome the misalignment by pushing and pulling, but that didn’t work. So I decided to unmount the shroud, fit the radiator to this, and then fit that to the car (via captive nuts on a lip on the inner wings). This method worked well and as I removed the shroud I could see that the holes for this were slotted so maybe that’s how the misalignment occured. I had plenty of practice putting the bolts on and off, that’s for sure. Next task was to fit the hoses and although these were a bit fiddly, a bit of patience and some Fairy Liquid got them mounted and I then fixed them with jubilee clips. I have now reached the stage of needing to have jubilee clips all facing the same way and I had one hose fitted before I realised the clips was the wrong way around, so that had to come off again! As I was in the area, I fitted the thermostat housing gasket which I had missed off when I fitted it earlier. Nice new shiny nuts and washers improved the look too.
While fitting the bottom hose I briefly managed to get my arm stuck between the alternator and the radiator. I had my sleeve rolled up and was reaching right down to fit the hose and as I went to pull my arm out, nothing happened. My arm just stayed put. This has only happened once or twice on this project, but it it is weird when it happens because you sort of think ‘well it went in, so it has to come out’. From experience, the thing to do is to think your way out as opposed to tugging to get free which just hurts and doesn’t always work. Anyway with a bit of a wriggle, I was free with no need to undo the radiator I had just fitted to free myself.
After this drama, I fitted the radiator stays. I had bought replacements for these, and also repainted the originals. The originals fitted better when I offered them up, so I fitted those, the others will go into my surplus sale box. On the near side, I had to replace one of the wing bolts, as the radiator stay relies on this for its fixing, and the bolt fitted was too short. I fitted a longer bolt and that all worked, but now I have one steel looking bolt, and the rest painted white. Something to touch up at some point.
Thermostat gasket 
Looking down at the radiator 
The completed installation
I decided to re-use the original radiator cap, but it was a bit scruffy, so I cleaned it up using first my Dremel tool, then sandpaper and then metal polish. Quite pleased with the result pictured below.
Rad cap part of the way through the clean 
Finished rad cap screwed into the radiator
The last job I tackled was to fit the proper spark plugs which I had bought over two years ago when I started the engine to see if it would go. I have already gapped them before, so it was just about fitting them. I removed the old faithful plugs that came with the car which only served the purpose of plugging the hole when the engine was out the car. I checked the plug leads were fitted in the correct firing order and they were.
Away from the garage I braved two forays outside to Halfords. First time to buy a battery as recommended by someone on the Facebook MG restoration page. It looked a bit big, but I thought I would trust the advice. Second visit to Halfords was to take the battery back and this time taking along my existing battery as a size comparison. Halfords were very nice and I did a quick exchange to obtain the correct size. I like our local Halfords, they have always been helpful and although they don’t stock everything, they’ve been good to me and don’t have any thing bad to say about them. The new battery is to give us the best possible chance of a successful engine start soon.
MGB-GT Restoration 