29 Sep 19 Not entirely successful

I wasn’t counting on doing any work to the MG today, but finding myself with an hour free towards the end of the day I rolled it out and thought I would install the reversing lights. This should be a simple job, but turned out to be annoyingly difficult and ultimately resulting in a ‘fail’. I had bought shiny new reversing units from Moss recently as the old ones were yellow and cracked with age. I had previously trial fitted one of the old ones just to see how easily it went together.

This old reversing unit just wouldn’t look right on the fresh MGB

I started with removing the old unit, and thinking I would need to remove the bulb for later use, eased a screwdriver against the bulb holder (yes I know, a screwdriver…) and it promptly exploded on my hand. Hey, ho, its just a bulb, I can get another. Moving to the new unit, I removed the lens only to discover that it comes fitted with a bulb already. I shrugged to myself and started lining up the new unit to fit on the o/s. It attaches by two little bolts which go through the lens and body and into a captive thread. After a couple of attempts, I realised that neither bolt was biting on the thread, so I applied a bit more pressure, to squash the gasket that I thought might be pushing it back. Still no biting. Around this time I noticed red marks appearing on the bodywork and on the tools and of course, I had cut myself on the glass and was bleeding. Quick visit to the first aid cupboard for a plaster. I had another couple of goes at getting the bolt into the captive thread and concluding that it wasnt going to work, decided to drill the threads out and just rely on the bolts to hold it in place (I know, I know). This was the usual messy affair with the drill bit variously seizing in the hole and just generally being a rough and ready approach to solving a problem. Utimately I achieved installing the first reversing light on the o/s but not a very satisfactory process. Managed to fit the connector from the loom so in theory good to go.

The troublesome o/s reversing light – should have been so easy

Moving to the other side, the same problems encountered. This time I decided to think about the problem first. Didn’t the bolts on the new units look a little bigger than the bolts on the original unit? Hang on a minute. So I tried threading the old bolts onto the old unit and hey presto!, they fitted easily. Grrrr. So obvious when you look. I gave the bolts a final tweak and the new plastic lens cracked. At this point I decided to pack it in for the day.

From here you can’t see the cracked lens
– a Concours Judge would see it!

15 Sep 19 Goodwood Revival

A grand day at the Goodwood Revival. Having dropped our youngest daughter at University on the Satursday, I headed to my friend Paul’s house in the Suzuki Cappuccino in readiness for race day at Goodwood. Paul was the previous keeper of the Suzuki so it was a bit of a Pilgrimage really.

The Cappuccino at its old home

An early start saw us get into the Goodwood circuit for around 8:30. The journey was the usual Goodwood delight with lots of interesting vehicles on the surrounding roads. A friendly honk to a pair of MG convertibles was rewarded with enthusiastic waves.

Here’s Paul and I in our Goodwood gear enjoying the view at Madgewick corner

I can’t really do the event justice with the photo’s below, but I did snap a few beauties in the paddock as the day drew to a close. They are all priceless in their own way, and its fantastic to see them in their element being raced in the glorious Goodwood setting.

  • AC Cobra
  • TVR Griffith
  • Sunbeam Tiger
  • Adrian Newey’s Ford GT40
  • Aston Martin DB4 Zagato

A special event for this year was a feature race for pre-war Bentleys. The sight as thirty or so of these beasts came down the hill towards our Grandstand at Lavant Corner was unforgetable, as well as a bit slow, hilariously.

  • Who knows…
  • …how much…
  • …this little lot…
  • …are worth
  • wait a minute…RED!

So a stunning day all round. As the sun set in the sky, I removed the roof from the Cappuccino, and Paul and I headed back to his house, arriving to freshly cooked Pizzas prepared by Claire, his dear wife. Replacing the roof, I headed off for a brisk cross-country dash to get home at around 11:15pm. A good day.

8 Sep 19 Busy day

Cup of coffee and 1/2″ spanner, what else do you need?

Haven’t slept well for a couple of nights. My eldest is job-hunting in London after graduating this summer, and my youngest is off to University next week. At work, I’ve got some challenges and alongside that, we’ve been thinking about whether to move house. Meanwhile, I wasn’t progressing the MG. Hence, busy mind, and disturbed sleep. A day in the garage / on the drive was what I needed and that’s what I did. Awake early, I had the MG pushed out onto the driveway by 7:30am. A busy day followed in which I did the following:-

  1. Painted the gearbox cross-member – this is an overdue job needed before I put the engine and gearbox back in. I sprayed it with crackle finish because I thought it would be durable and because the can was within reach! Hung to dry on the washing line with the other washing.
  2. Fitted the fuel tank incuding the sender unit. This was a bit awkward, doing it on my own, so I used a box and the jack to help me hold it up to the bolts. I cleaned the filler neck and it looked quite presentable afterwards
  3. Fitted the gearbox to the engine. Again, a bit awkward on your own, but I propped the engine on some magazines and used the jack and a bit of man-handling to mate the gearbox. It was a bit fiddly, but overall not too difficult. Bolts need checking and torquing up before installing back in the car
  4. Installed the rear hatch gas struts – this involved me drilling into my freshly painted car for the first time. Helen helped me to measure where to drill the holes. The drilling and fit went okay, although I did have the hatch ball joints on the wrong way around first time and we nearly had a disaster, but I managed to recover it without any damage. The hatch doesn’t sit right when closed now, but I am not going to make any changes until the glass is installed. At the moment it doesn’t have the correct load on it, so worth waiting and then doing it once properly.
  5. Fitted the bonnet pull – not working yet as it needs some adjustment, but its in – needs tightening I think
  6. Replaced the accelerator cable – Can only fit one end as I am missing the engine at present. One less thing to do and all part of having a smart engine bay
  7. Took the rear lights off and installed the foam seal which I had forgotten about, but found in a box this morning. Helen helped with this as she was bringing me out a cup of coffee, so got roped into the job.
  8. Began fitting the rear wiring loom – first electricals on the rebuild. Thought I would start with something simple and so it was – relatively. I have the old loom, which is labelled, so used that to guide me. I actually connected up the new loom to the rear lights – we are making progress!
  9. Fitted the near side indicator unit. Just wanted to see how it will fit – the answer is, not bad, not great. There is a hole just visible unfortunately from when someone cobbledit to fit prior to my ownership. A detail to sort one day. In the meantime, one less thing to do.

This was a sociable day on the MG. People love to stop and see how it’s all progressing and they nearly always have an encouraging word. There was the usual ‘Hello’s’ from dog walkers who stream past our house on the way to the local fields. Helen and I chatted for a while to a couple who are near neighbours and the husband was admiring the MG and interested to hear about what I was doing. Nearly everyone mentions the TV show Car SOS or Mike Brewers’ Wheeler Dealers. I dont have the heart to tell them I find those shows difficult to watch because its all editted down into 30 minutes, they have a huge fully equipped workshop and the talented mechanics make it look so easy. Had a useful chat to Russell (another dog walker), who has stopped to speak before. He has restored many cars, including MGBs so is always a useful person with whom to discuss things. Today he gave me the number of a person who may be able to transport the MG for a reasonable price when I come to get the windscreen and rear screen fittted.

I’ve occasionally worried about whether when I get to finally restart the MG, I somehow forget to say, fill the gearbox with oil or some such idiosy. I spoke to my mate Rob, who races classic cars and is always taking gearboxes and so on out of his cars. He said that when he removes fluids, he puts a big sign in masking tape over the steering wheel to this effect. Hence…

What a day it will be when I remove this bit of tape…

As I worked on the car, I listened to Louis Theroux on Desert Island Disks, a bit of radio 4 and then to the Monza Grand Prix which was won by Charles LeClerc in his Ferrari. What a day for the young man and for Italy.

1 Sep 19 Clean machine

Wait a minute, thats not the MG. Correct. It’s back to School week for Helen, teachers all around the country are wondering where the last six weeks holiday have gone and it only feels like five minutes since they broke up. Helen wanted her car cleaned for the new term, and as the local sweat shop was closed, it fell to me to do the job. I started by clearing the interior of all the accumulated rubbish and then gave it a thorough hoovering, includng the mats which of course I removed. I then dusted all the crevises with a soft brush and wiped over all the surfaces with a matt interior cleaner. I don’t use loads of it, just enought to actually clean as well as dust. Moving to the exterior, I gave it a thorough soaking with a hose, then a gentle soapy brush wash with car shampoo, followed by rinsing again with the hose. For the wheels I didn’t use any special product, just one of those large glove microfibre thingies made of what looks like green Wotsits. The brake dust came off okay with a good soaking and a gentle rub of the glove. I did an initial dry of the car with a large mircofibre cloth, then went around again to completely dry the paint, excepting those annoying drips that appear when you are not looking. Moving to the exterior glass, I treated it all with a Bluecol product that is supposed to negate the need for wipers, a bit like Rain-X. I had forgotten I had this until someone at a BBQ recently mentioned it so I thought I would dig it out and reapply it. The Jazz has a huge windscreen and a panoramic roof, so there is lots of glass to treat, but also to benefit from the beading up that is supposed to occur. Will also reduce wear on the wipers too. I then gave the paint a quick spruce up using a hydroscopic detailer (Brand = Chrome) which I was bought recently by a friend who works at a truck stop. Apparently the Truckers all rave about it and it seems to go on and buff off easily enough. Sadly, although the car is only five years old its amazing how many little chips and scrapes its aquired. None which really need doing, unless we were being really picky, but just one of those things. By now I was getting hot in the early Autumn sunshine and Helen appeared to critique the job. She spotted a few smears here and there which I rubbed off and gave me a pack of Simoniz interior glass wipes claimed to be smear free. These worked okay, but I am not a fan of throwaway wipe types things usually. Anyway, on finishing the Jazz, I was pleased with the result. Didn’t progress the MG one jott, but the pearlescent organy-brown Honda looked suitably glossy outside, so I consider that enough of an effort to warrant recording here. Hope you’ve all had a good summer. Happy Car washing and restoring.

24 Aug 19 Sunny Saturday

It’s a sunny Saturday! After a morning stroll with Helen, I spent a useful hour on the MG fitting the copper pipe from the Clutch master cylinder. The pipe runs down from the master cylinder to a bracket on the fletch plate where it becomes braided stainless steel. All went in okay with a bit of creative beding here and there. The pipe routing needs a bit of finessing, but they are broadly in the right place. Straighforward installation, although I needed Helen to hold the pipe in place while I tightened it from the interior.

  • Before: Clutch Master Cylinder
  • After: Copper pipe is fitted

Couple of things from last week which I didn’t record. I fitted the final brake pipe to the four-way union on the inner wing. This is the pipe that comes up from under the car to the rear. It fitted alright although as mentioned earlier the routing needs a tweak and they all need fixing in place.

The four way brake junction – hopefully it wont leak brake fluid everywhere!

I also puzzled over the fuel pump – I have a new fuel piping kit and have fitted the main front to rear pipe. However, the pipe routing around the pump and the tank isn’t that clear and I haven’t got a good understanding of how it works. I am going to have to bite the bullet, fit the tank and then work it out from there.

The fuel pump which to me is baffling

I have been putting off fitting the tank as its a two-person job, but when done, this will have completed much of the mechanics at the rear, and is critical to the ‘engine in and started’ milestone. Something to prioritise.

Last week, Austin (the welder who kindly lent me the engine crane) was in touch to say that a friend of his, Adam, wanted to borrow the engine crane. No problem I thought and he duly came around and we got it out from the corner of the garage and loaded it into his car. We got talking about the MG and he admitted that he had fitted an engine and gearbox into an MGC a while ago, so I seized the opportunity and asked if he would be prepared to help me with the reinstall when he returns the crane. He was willing, although as he is getting married soon, he was being careful not to over-commit. I commented that once he wanted to pay for his wedding and honeymoon, I would happily pay him to re-fit the engine. Not convinced he is up for this, but he has to bring the crane back, so I will take my chance then to firm up arrangements.

Finally, just for fun, my neighbour, who is a bit of a joker, was clearing out his garage. ‘Here Ad’, he said, ‘I’ve got something for you’ and hands me an oversize spanner.

‘King-Dick’ is the legend on the spanner. Thanks Graham!

16 Aug 19 Dash top

Back from very hot holiday in Crete to a rainy August day in the UK. I had intended to spend a while today on the MG, progressing a few jobs, but after an hour, the rain was cleary set in for the day, so I packed up and retreated inside (in mitigation, I only got back at 2:00am last night and with the time difference, our bodies really thought it was 4:00am). I did manage to get one job done today however. I had recently resprayed the demister vents which sit on the dash top, so I decided to fit them today. The vents themselves hold down the vinyl dash top, so fitting this starts the whole dash re-fitting sequence. The vents fitted back easily enough on the original (to my knowledge) vinyl and I then bolted on the crash rail, which is what MG offered as it’s interior safety feature in 1973. Compare that to contemporary cars with their air bags, air curtains and interior padding, its quite a contrast.

The resprayed vents in place on the dash-top
The crash rail in place, looks okay doesn’t it? The yellow colour is a reflection of my Hi-Viz jacket if you are wondering

27 Jul 19 Thinking ahead

A few things to report. Firstly, not much progress. I was a little distracted with preparing for and then undertaking a sponsored walk for the charity Open Doors, which serves persecuted Christians worldwide. Christians get beaten up and worse for their faith and that can’t be right. So a friend of mine, Chris and I walked 140 miles over 7 days, attracting donations of £3,600 and raising awareness of Open Doors.

Back to the MG, I had recently managed to obtain a part on the bonnet gas strut that I had mullered on installation, so that’s now working and here is a photo showing the bonnet proudly erect on its struts. All very nice, but during fitting, the hinges took a bit of stick with one gas strut agressively pushing up one side and so now the bonnet needs a press at the top edge when lowered so that is something to be sorted one day…(not a priority!)

The gas struts raise the bonnet to a much higher angle than the saggy original single strut

I didn’t have long on Saturday to work on the MG so I had to be selective about what I tackled. As usual, a quick garage tidy is always a good start and I managed to reorganise things to give a bit more room. Then I focussed on what parts I would need to have organised to tackle the engine and gearbox installation. Chief among these is the cross-member and its associated mountings. As I did not take the engine and gearbox out, this involved a bit of guess work in sorting through the bag of nuts and bolts I was given after it was taken out. It actually didn’t take too long to figure it all out, althought it is quite a complex arrangement and I think will be very fiddly to install. See photo below of the mocked up cross-member. Its still in primer as I haven’t finished refurbishing it yet.

The dreaded cross member – how easy will it be to fit this to the gearbox?

Latest theory from having taken some advice, it to install the gearbox first, then the engine, having trial mated them together first. This is because the combined unit is very long and its challenging to get all the angles to work to fit it in. So I am now focussed on getting this installation done (with a little help from my friends of course) as soon as I can. This won’t be that soon as my 25th Wedding Anniversary is coming up and a holiday to Crete, but after that I am going to focus on this and push on with the job. Wish me well, this next bit could be a challenge!

6 Jul 19 An encouraging word

I was outside, early evening washing Helen’s car. Matt and Ellie were helping and I remembered how much easier it is to clean a car with helpers.

Anyway, the garage door was open and a passer by commented on the MG, saying ‘hadn’t I done well, it was progressing’ he added ‘I like to see it out’.

Here’s to those people blessed with the gift of encouragement – we all need it!

Couple of photos below, NOT of my MGB to be clear, but a nice looking earlier model which Ellie had spied in West Hampstead, where she lives with Matt. Nice of her to take some reference photos for me and more encouragement. Thanks Ellie!

25 Jun 19 Carbs are good

Received notification from Coln Engineering in Gloucester that they have finished the refurbishment of the carburetters. The price has gone up slightly because the throttle spindles were knackered and they had to replace some missing linkage parts. So overall I think a good choice to get them done, as they should now see out the life of the car without further work. The carbs will be shipped over the next couple of days, checked in by the Goods Inwards Department (me), stacked in the parts bins by the Warehouse Supervisor (me) and their fitment scheduled by the Chief Planner (me). The Chief Planner (me) needs to have words with the Chief Mechanic (also me) about progress on the MG which has slipped recently due to ‘prior engagements’, including a planned 140 mile walk for the charity Open Doors in July. I am assured that the Chief Mechanic will focus on the backlog of jobs on the MG once he has completed his walk, had his 25th Wedding Anniversary Party in August and his holiday to Crete shortly afterwards.

From the sublime to the ridiculous, yesterday lunchtime, looking for 20 mins relief from work, I trial fitted the old number plate onto the back of the car. I am interested to see how it will look without the bumpers and I have yet to consider how to light the back plate (in accordance with the law) without the bumper where the number plate lights are usually mounted. I expect someone like Car Builder Solutions will have a universal lamp I can use. Anyway, here in all its glory is the numberplate in situ. I quite like the idea of using some old parts on the car, but not sure I am going to keep this as its a bit ratty. Anyway, one less item on the shelf and back on the car which I count as progress!

And finally, today en-route to Cambridge for work, I dropped the old seats at Mirror Trim in Toddington. I had placed the order for the seats at the MG & Triumph Spares Day earlier in the year and arranged for them to done through the summer. They should be ready around September and will either go into storage, or straight into the car depending on progress. Mirror Trim are also making up a set of carpets, so that will be a substantial part of the interior sorted, although the headlining remains a maze of choices from which I have not yet found the exit. Mirror Trim are one of those lovely cottage industries working literally out of an old oak framed barn from where they churn out high quality product. What a great way to make a living I’m sure. Here is a last look at the seats before their transformation.

8 Jun 19 Learning points

Had time to tackle a couple of jobs today, and I had requested some help from a friend John who is very mechanically adept. Having pushed the MG put into the sunshine, John arrived and I described the task. This was the somewhat intimidating job of drilling into the bonnet and rain channels to fix the brackets for the gas struts. I wasn’t confident about this so invited John to do the drilling. John taught me that drilling into metal requires a slow drill – how did I not know this at age 48? Because my school did Latin, not metalwork that’s why. A slow drills keeps the temperature low and allows room for the swarf to move out of the way. John insisted on lots of protection to the bodywork and we covered and masked the relevant areas and he drilled expertly. We couldn’t finish the job completely as we had touched up the holes with paint and it needed to dry. But a great job done and more learning for me. Thanks John.

I was flying solo in the afternoon so focussed on completing the brake lines installation which required me to fit the remaining rear pipe and front to rear pipe. I decided to also fit the new fuel line from front to back while I had the car jacked up as this runs alongside the brake pipe. Broadly it went well although I ran out of time with a couple of brackets to go I tied the pipes up loosely with cable ties. I figured it was better to leave it until I had time to do it well than rush to an artificial deadline. Spending time under the MG is always a bit challenging. Today it was removing the fuel pump which was in the way of the pipe installation and needed to come out so I can fit the new hoses in due course. During the removal of the pump I was showered with dust and crud left over from when it was blasted, sort of a MG facial treatment which was probably quite exfoliating if you like that sort of thing. In the images below I have the jack still in place. The car was of course on axle stands, but I left the jack in place with a little pressure as additional safety. So there.

2 Jun 19 Front lamp install

Had a couple of hours to spend on the MG, but the weather wasn’t playing ball with steady rain. I limited myself to an inside job, although I did push the MG halfway out of the garage so I could move around a little bit easier. Decided to install a front headlight as I had all the parts having recently purchased nice new rubber seals from Moss. The rubber seal is quite a robust piece which sits on the headlight plate (remember that the headlight plates are new, having been installed as part of the respray to address the serious front wing corrosion in this area). When I got the car, the lamp bowls were held in place with big screws, but I didn’t think that British Leyland intended it to be this way so I had previously bought some stubby bolts which I figured could be manouvred to fit. I had already found out on another occasion that longer bolts could not be fitted, so shorter ones had to be obtained.

A gorgeous front end, but the bevel doesnt want to go on

First task was to make holes in the rubber seal for the bolts since as bought they just have markings where the bolts go. Tricky job, but the dremmel made a reasonable job and then a craft knife, carefully wielded to avoid a nasty cut eased them open. With the seal held in place with two lugs, I held the lamp bowl up to the seal and worked the bolts through the holes and then with the other hand reached around under the wheel arch to fit the tiny nut on the end of the little bolt. If anything, the bolts were a bit on the short side, but once tightened up, there was plenty of thread on which to bite as the rubber does compress a bit. A fiddly job. Final task to install the lamp is the clip the chrome bevel onto the bowl and push it home. This didn’t go well unfortunately as the bevel declined all requests to hold tight. I wonder if I have installed something wrong? I am going to have a look at the other lamp and see if I can better understand how the bevel clips on. A quick search on YouTube had some smug restorer clipping it in place with a short tap. Mmm, not how it turned out for me. Anyway, something to overcome along the way, and progress of a sort (maybe too tightly fitted?). Another challenge identified was in the fixing of the combined indicator / side lamp. The fixing for the new unit from Moss has different mounting points to the existing unit so while one side fits nicely, the other fixing misses the aperature and to all intends and purposes needs to be fixed to fresh air. Currently reviewing options on that one, but I am sure I can figure something out and learn some more. All comments welcome!

25 May 19 Put it on the ramp

‘Two hours to do a 15min job’ is how my Dad summarised this Saturday afternoon’s effort. My Dad was a mechanic in his younger days and so when he visited with my Step-Mum Pauline on Saturday it was an opportunity to ask for his help with the MG. His first quip among many was ‘put it on a ramp, Ad’ recongnising that a lot of what I do is made harder by not having a fully equipped garage in which to operate. I remember when as a little boy I would ‘help’ my Dad at the garage where he worked, a British Leyland Dealership with full workshop facilities. When I got into car ownership, Dad would do jobs on my cars and when neccessary we could utilise the ramps to get the car to the right height to work on, not to mention access to air tools and welding equipment. We would also use the PDI bay to polish cars, often bringing tired old paint to life with a bit of elbow grease and cutting paste. Happy days.

A look around my ‘Parts Department’

Back to Saturday and we jacked up the rear of the MG, took both wheels off and had a look at the brake pipes. We replaced the flexible hose (on the o/s) and the short copper brake pipe from the three way union to the o/s drum. The copper pipe needed to be bent to shape and we were able to use the old one as a template.

  • look at the old chap, in his element
  • view of the new shiny braided hose

Shout out to Dad for his YouTube channel here 257 subscribers and 39,000 views and counting, take a look. What an absolute legend. Thanks for your help Dad – love you.