1973 MGB GT- A little rust 30/08

[adam73bgt]

Jul 26, 2015 21:57:01 GMT georgeb said:

Don't know about the colour but if you can get it looking anything like the engine Seth produced here, retrorides.proboards.com/thread/36042/1970-morris-oxford-runner-driver?page=25 , it'll look fine and peachy in the bay.

I'll try my best but he has set the bar pretty high!

[The Jackeria]

Looking good so far, good luck. I should have bookmarked this before but I have done it now.

[adam73bgt]

Aug 4, 2015 2:47:49 GMT The Jackeria said:

Looking good so far, good luck. I should have bookmarked this before but I have done it now.

Cheers Still got a long way to go on it but I'll get there, my other automotive distractions aren't entirely helping mind haha

[sparkyt]

Looking good mate be over this week ...

[niwid]

Nice to see this getting a proper refresh I can see you've moved in with Trev then! Haha, as if. The previous occupier was a friend of mine who recently gave up on his Rover 200 BRM project. I have spent a fair few oily sweaty and sweary hours in that shed. Our Acty's first load lugging action was clearing out the tools and car parts he left there. Looks a lot tidier than when Jason was there though!

Looking forward to seeing your progress

[adam73bgt]

Aha small world eh niwid No doubt there shall be much more sweating and swearing going on once I finally get down there again to the car!

Hopefully I'll be able to make some more progress after this week or so :/

[espritv8]

looking forward to seeing the supercharger fitted!

[adam73bgt]

I'm looking forward to seeing it fitted too, but at the rate I'm going it could be some time haha


Well after being out of action for most of August, I managed to get a little bit more work done on the MG over the weekend. Got the engine oil drained and the remainder of the coolant will be out soon

I also carried on clearing the area around the engine in preparation for taking it out.

First off was the hose from the engine to the heater box which had pretty much turned solid! It cracked and came off the car in 3 pieces in the end so that was well overdue replacement. The valve on the side of the head came off fairly easily and doesn't look too gunked up so will probably clean up nice and be used again.

The distributor also looked in good nick, I've always suspected it was changed not long before I bought the car. Plus I've added all new ignition bits to it over the years, but I'm planning to go to megajolt ignition so its no longer required

And finally the starter motor came out, I find it hard to believe that last time I took it out I was struggling from underneath the car at the side of the road haha as it seemed to be enough of an effort in the unit.. Taking the starter off also released a bit more of the wiring loom which I now have to chase under the car to remove but shouldn't take long

Space!



From the engine bay side of things, it looks like I need to remove the oil cooler and gauge lines and probably the remote oil filter as well. Then the clutch hydraulic gubbins, speedo cable, gearbox mountings, prop flange and engine mounts then it should be good to lift out as one unit I think?.. Hopefully more updates soon

[sparkyt]

I'll be in sat and Sunday mate if your about .

I'll get the engine crane ready for you if you need it . Big strong lad like you could pick that little engine up me thinks

[adam73bgt]

Oct 1, 2015 21:42:41 GMT sparkyt said:

I'll be in sat and Sunday mate if your about .

I'll get the engine crane ready for you if you need it . Big strong lad like you could pick that little engine up me thinks

I think I should be there Saturday, helping a mate move on Sunday

Haha we'll see, it may be little but its cast iron and bloody heavy!

[adam73bgt]

Wow has it really been since October since I last updated this??

Anyway with daily driver distractions mostly out of the way and a week off work, its time to make some proper progress on the B

Today saw the engine finally removed







Which revealed an engine bay which is in pretty good nick apart from being completely filthy. The engine has been leaking oil for many years it would seem and has been busy spreading most of it around the engine bay haha



Mmm nice..

With the engine out of the way I carried on with removing the remaining few items left, such as the brake lines and 4 way splitter thing (I'll make new lines later on)



The brake servo got removed as well, I'm planning on getting rid of this altogether to create a bit more room in the bay. From a bit of research it seems the early pedal and master cylinder was the same with or without this optional servo so the car should still be pretty easy to stop



Then the heater box came out with a fair bit of persuasion. Some foam stuff seemed to be holding it in, can't quite tell if this is factory or just perished with age but if its meant to be there it'll get replaced. The heater box itself will be getting a bit of a refurb as its a bit grotty inside, although the matrix itself looks to be leak free which is nice





Then the last bit to remove was the pedal box assembly with the master cylinders, the holes on the pushrods for these are quite elongated and the pins (clevis pins?) are quite grooved so a few bits to replace there. The masters are also a bit old and tatty and so they'll get replaced too. I'll try and clean up the box though and reuse that



So I'm left with an entirely empty engine bay! (ignore the steering column..)



Next job will be to clean all the gunk off this and prep any rusty bits to stop them getting worse, the bay will probably get painted at a later date but I'll just get it looking tidy for now.

Other jobs on the list for tomorrow are the beginning of the front suspension strip which will see the front crossmember come off and I may also take the head off the engine to have a poke about inside.

Current plans for the engine may be changing so a lot of thinking needs to be done there

Good to be back working on the B in any case!

[Rich]

Brakes will be fine with no servo, ours should have had a servo but it had been removed and no one ever commented on brake feel. Certainly it was still perfectly fine enough for Mrs Rich to drive around in for 4ish years..

[adam73bgt]

Jan 4, 2016 22:28:27 GMT Rich said:

Brakes will be fine with no servo, ours should have had a servo but it had been removed and no one ever commented on brake feel. Certainly it was still perfectly fine enough for Mrs Rich to drive around in for 4ish years..

Aye the consensus on the internet seems to be that the brake pedal feel is pretty similar with or without the servo so I doubt I'll miss it too much

I see you've sold yours now and the Hyundai is going too? Having a bit of a shake up?

[bjornagn]

You have not lived, or given up the will to live...until you try to put the heater back in an MGB!

[sonus]

Alfa Romeo Busso V6? Get on from the rare early Alfa 90 and it'll have carbs for ease of fitting

[adam73bgt]

bjornagn Haha don't say that! Though with the amount of effort it took to remove, I can't imagine putting it back will be much fun as you say

sonus Oooh I have a soft spot for that engine, I've only driven a GTV once with the V6 but I was hooked. It was one of the few things I liked about the car haha

At the moment I'm just debating whether to supercharge or turbocharge the B series but if I do come back to engine swaps in the future, a Busso V6 will be near the top of the list for sure

[Nathan]

Yay glad to see you on this chap.

I've been requested by a mate on the MG forums to Supercharge his B-Series, so I'll be going through the same hoops you are very soon (Then again my own MX Powered version is still not finished).
To get his ball rolling I've had all the ignition bits delivered, ditching the Dizzy for a NODIZ setup from Motorsport Electronics.

Adding yours to my "Watch closely list" ;-)

[adam73bgt]

Jan 5, 2016 10:02:35 GMT Nathan said:

Yay glad to see you on this chap.

I've been requested by a mate on the MG forums to Supercharge his B-Series, so I'll be going through the same hoops you are very soon (Then again my own MX Powered version is still not finished).
To get his ball rolling I've had all the ignition bits delivered, ditching the Dizzy for a NODIZ setup from Motorsport Electronics.

Adding yours to my "Watch closely list" ;-)

Ooh interesting, I've been wanting to see how a supercharged B series works with coil pack ignition and also how the NODIZ compares to a megajolt setup as well. So I'd be very interested to hear how that goes as well!

Despite the fact I've now built up my pair of HIF44's with the turbo carb seals, I've been thinking about EFI. Maybe going to a Megasquirt setup with 2 or 4 injectors, but its all up in the air at the moment

[Rich]

Jan 4, 2016 22:50:55 GMT adam73bgt said:

Jan 4, 2016 22:28:27 GMT Rich said:

Brakes will be fine with no servo, ours should have had a servo but it had been removed and no one ever commented on brake feel. Certainly it was still perfectly fine enough for Mrs Rich to drive around in for 4ish years..

Aye the consensus on the internet seems to be that the brake pedal feel is pretty similar with or without the servo so I doubt I'll miss it too much

I see you've sold yours now and the Hyundai is going too? Having a bit of a shake up?

Yup. New project arriving Thursday. Keep your eyes out for a thread. Just need to be back at 2 cars ideally.

[adam73bgt]

Jan 5, 2016 13:37:02 GMT Rich said:

Jan 4, 2016 22:50:55 GMT adam73bgt said:

Aye the consensus on the internet seems to be that the brake pedal feel is pretty similar with or without the servo so I doubt I'll miss it too much

I see you've sold yours now and the Hyundai is going too? Having a bit of a shake up?

Yup. New project arriving Thursday. Keep your eyes out for a thread. Just need to be back at 2 cars ideally.

Ooh I shall keep an eye out Yeah I know the feeling, if the Saab finally goes this weekend I'll be back down to two cars although I am also getting the itch to buy a rough tat hauler for reasons I can't entirely justify..





Todays work on the B saw me mostly trying to remove this thick layer of crud from all over the engine bay, some of it is so thick it almost feels like someone has deliberately painted stuff on which dirt has attached itself to!









That got pretty boring pretty quickly so I turned my attention to the engine. Decided to take the head off to have a look inside and see whats what



The head came off pretty easily in the end, just needed the use of a bit of exhaust pipe to give the leverage for a couple of the head nuts

The engine had been running pretty rich before I took it off the road so the carbon'd up combustion chambers were to be expected



I can't quite tell but from that image it almost looks like its had valve seats put in? Which wouldn't surprise me as its been running well on unleaded for quite a few years as far as I can tell

The bores felt pretty smooth all round which is nice



And this was slightly unexpected



+.060 pistons, which I think would make this bored out to 1868cc rather than the standard 1798cc which would be a nice surprise indeed

If it is bored out, it would be interesting to see if anything else has been upgraded, so I'll try and get the camshaft out tomorrow I think