1973 MGB GT- A little rust 30/08

[adam73bgt]

Well the B has been reliable for too long

It appears that the battery has gone flat, I'm currently not entirely sure why though. The voltmeter usually reads somewhere around 13+ volts although I have seen this dropping in wet weather, even with turning off the radio and the heated screen etc. So the battery is off to be charged up and I'm gonna have a look at the major electrics to make sure nothing is draining the battery, I might consider getting an uprated alternator but that's probably not the best way of fixing the issue.

The leaf springs and shocks are on ebay as I kinda need the money more, plus the rear of the car is low enough at the moment the front springs will be going on at some point soon though

[adam73bgt]

Also had a look at the front suspension while I was busy greasing the kingpins. A fair bit of it looks in decent condition so hopefully shouldnt be too much of pain to get the new lowered springs in.



Though unfortunately it looks as though one of the bushes at the bottom of the kingpin has had it :/ so thats something to add to the list



The bump stop isn't looking too clever either..



Though on the other side of the car, the bump stop has degraded in the opposite way They'll be a pain to replace as theres an aluminium spacer block to hold them to the large steel crossmember which has fused itself to said crossmember so I don't imagine the bolts will be coming out anytime soon..

[adam73bgt]

Well I finally got round to trial fitting one of the wheels today, looks as though the rear is going to be where any clearance issues would be seen so thats where the wheel went

First off, jacking the car up (which always proves to be a bit of fun..) then inspecting what was there, this is the side with the rusty drum



(could have greased the handbrake cable while i was there, ah well) My mate was less than complementary about the state of my rebound strap



So onto the wheel. All clearance issues were being checked, PCD was obviously fine, centre bore was plenty big enough



The offset of the wheels is a bit weak, something like et35. But the clearance from the rear of the wheel to the inner arch looks good



Though due to the 'quirkiness' of the MGB rear axle, there may be less clearance on the other side of the car

The wheels are looking pretty fit though



Little bit different to the old tried and tested route of minilites



So yeah that was that, we estimated that there was room for anywhere between a 5mm and 10mm slip on spacer, just to solve inner arch issues and improve the 'stance', though I have been tempted to look at bolt on spacers for an S13 which would involve me having to get some open ended taper nuts so that I could bolt them to the existing hub..

Oh nearly forgot to mention that we had some fun messing about with hanging some tyres on the wheel to give a better impression





Obviously they're all the wrong size but i like the look of the sidewall size.. hmm food for thought

[niwid]

Loving the direction those wheels are taking it, nice to see something other than minilites, like you say.

[adam73bgt]

Jun 17, 2013 10:33:40 GMT niwid said:

Loving the direction those wheels are taking it, nice to see something other than minilites, like you say.

Thanks! yeah as much as I quite like minilites as a wheel, on the MGB they're just too common for my liking

I'm also glad how well the test fitting went as from searching on the internet you'd have got the impression that fitting any other kind of alloy wheel to an MGB could only end in disaster

[sonus]

Looking good

Gold wheels on a MGB never looked wrong imo

[bgt]

Looking good. I put my 15x6.5 ET19 wheels with 185/55s on a month ago, they haven't rubbed at all even though I can only fit two fingers between the inner fender lip and the tyre (and the rear axle is not polybushed nor does it have a panhard rod). I was told beforehand that they would probably not fit but no worries so far.

[adam73bgt]

Ah awesome, I can currently get two fingers between the wheel arch and the minilites on the back, though sometimes one side does feel a little closer to the arch than the other (great design..), unfortunately the gold wheels are gonna sit quite far in due to them being about et35 but ill sort that with some spacers

[adam73bgt]

There is another wheel which is new for the car and has been getting some attention lately, this would be my new steering wheel which i think ive mentioned before in this thread

Anywho, a quick recap. Got this rather tired looking mountney steering wheel off a certain auction site



Was dirty, the wood was rough and a bit splintery, some of the leatherette had worn off, plus it had the wrong boss as it came from a post '76 B

The wood has been the main target so far so I set to with some sandpaper







I went from 80 grit up to about 800 grit i think, ended up with a pretty smooth surface

After that, I wiped it down to get the dust off and gave it a few coats of clear gloss varnish, has come up pretty nicely I think









Still need to sort something for the leatherette thats missing could be a fiddly job

Also I'm currently thinking that the metal centre will be finished off with a brass wire wheel on my dremel, to give a bit of a brushed effect

[ChasR]

Those wheels look super on there. Get the tyres fitted! .

P.S I have a parcel shelf I keep hitting on my way into the garage . If you are going to the Blue Lias tomorrow LMK and I'll chuck it in the boot .

[adam73bgt]

Jun 18, 2013 15:46:38 GMT ChasR said:

Those wheels look super on there. Get the tyres fitted! .

P.S I have a parcel shelf I keep hitting on my way into the garage . If you are going to the Blue Lias tomorrow LMK and I'll chuck it in the boot .

Thanks! tyres shall go on when moneys and time allow (still need to paint two of them gold.. ) plus I need to make a decision on tyre size, initial plan was to simply swap the tyres from the minilites, but a mate of mine may have a couple of slightly lower profile tyres that might do the trick

Ah yes, I'd nearly forgotten about that shelf unfortunately I think I've already got plans for tonight though

[adam73bgt]

Rigghhtt,update time again

Recent jobs have been mostly little maintenance things, so after greasing the front suspension nipples the next thing on the list was to adjust the valve clearances as the car has been pretty tappety for a while now

They were last adjusted last summer so probably overdue a bit of attention

So we start here



Once the rocker cover is whipped off, the rockers are exposed



And cue first odd thing of the day, one of the rockers appears to be of a different design to the rest.. I'm still not entirely sure why this is, could be a factory thing, or the result of a lazy top end rebuild at some point, some investigation to be done there.

Next I numbered up the HT leads and took out the plugs, they were revealed to all be a pretty good brown colour, which amazed me as I've never been entirely confident about the mixture setting on the engine



I took them out as I'd read that the engine could be turned over using the fan with the plugs out.. Mine can't As I also don't have a socket big enough to fit onto the crank I had to resort to rocking the car in gear to get the rockers to the appropriate place to adjust them.

After a bit of faffing about, they were all done. A few of the rockers displayed some play on the rocker shaft so that makes me think that the rocker shaft could be a bit past its best

But my thoughts were interrupted by the discovery of a random screw sat on the deck just behind the rearmost rocker shaft cap



I have later discovered that this is a locating peg for keeping the rocker shaft from rotating, so its a bit worrying that it wasn't anywhere near its hole and probably hadn't been there for some time as of today it still isn't actually fitted as I was rushing a bit to get the rocker cover back on before heading to work, so that needs to go back in at some point

So after all the adjustments, had the tappety noise got any better?

No. I know the B series is supposed to be fairly loud on the valvetrain front but its still a bit too tappety. I have a feeling the worn rocker shaft is mainly at fault here, so not sure what to do about that at the moment as I can't really afford to be buying lots of engine bits right now

On a brighter note, the new alloys for the car are coming along nicely This has been taking a while as I've elected to paint the centre of the wheels gold and then to polish up the outer lip of the rims.

This has meant a long process of getting the original silver paint and impressively thick primer off the rims of the wheels using some 60grit sand paper. Once I got the paint off, the long process of sanding with progressively smoother paper began. After the 60, I went to 120, then 180 wet and dry, 240, 400, 800 and then 1200

Heres a couple of shots of the rim after 1200 grit i believe





And then I used some rubbing compound and Autosol to get the final finish







And some comparison shots with a wheel that I've done in gold but not started the lip of (they're all at different stages )







Pretty chuffed with how its come out so thats put me in a bit of a happier mood than the engine did haha, I have still got another 3 wheels to go though...

[adam73bgt]

The wheels are still coming along albeit slowly, but a big moment came yesterday as I completely finished one of them! So here it is in its gold and polished ally glory









So with those coming along well, I've been turning my attention to tyres. I could just run the 175/80 Firestones that are currently on the minilites but since they'll be easier to sell with the tyres on I've decided to leave them on and look for some new tyres for the B.

I'm currently settled on some 175/65 Uniroyal Rain Experts, they seem to get really good reviews so hopefully they'll improve the handling a bit, the reduction of sidewall height should help with this too

The Uniroyals are also less than £130 delivered so hopefully even once I factor in fitting costs I should still be able to make my money back through the sale of the minilites

[adam73bgt]

Right, I needed to take a break from sanding/ polishing again as its destroying my fingers

So I've been tackling various bits of electrical work that I've been meaning to do, yesterday was the turn of the lighting. There wasn't anything wrong with the lighting as such (apart from the one broken numberplate light and non working reverse lights.. both of which I didn't fix) but there were a few bits and bobs which I'd meant to do but hadn't due to lack of time and laziness

Firstly the metal frames that the headlight bowl bolts to were horribly rusty, I had bought replacements some time ago but hadn't got round to fitting them



They did require a few mods to fit though, firstly I had to make a little cut out at the bottom so I could fit the pilot lights into the headlights



And the tabs where the screw holes for the outer rim attaches had to be cut down a bit as the chrome embellishment ring couldn't quite clip on properly. Now the B already has sidelights down next to the indicators, so I wired the pilot lights in the headlights in parallel with them.



The lower sidelights are brighter due to being SMD type LED's but I'm just glad that the hole in the headlight has been filled, makes it look a bit better

After that, I carried on with cutting off the bumper overriders, I don't really like them and have been trying to get rid of them for some time but the nuts and bolts were fused together, however I finally defeated them with a mixture of a drill, a hacksaw and some molegrips (I don't have a grinder.. )



I then fitted my spotlight which I picked up a while back and wired it in with the full beams for the time being



Then I waited for night and went to give them a bit of a test The yellow of the spotlight isn't that visible when driving along but you can see it having an effect when parked up





So thats another couple of things off my list, might try and see if I can get the front valance or new rear exhaust box fitted this week, but with going home from uni soon I can't afford to get into too many big jobs as I need to be able to drive home

[adam73bgt]

Well it turns out that the B still has the power and torque available to be able to tow another car

This was found out last friday after I'd been to Milton Keynes to pick up some audio stuff (more on that in a sec) but came back to a text from a mate that his Ibiza had run out of clutch and he needed to get the car back from work to his house. Cue the B's big moment..

To cut a longish story short, we made it. Despite the B getting a little warm and struggling with some of the steeper gradients along the way we got both cars back in one piece.



The only slight casualty being my bent bumper from where the Ibiza grounded slightly as we were going up the driveway to the courtyard (bloody curse word too low bloody scene fag VAG fag car etc. haha ) the bumper iron that i hooked the tow rope round hasn't moved, it was just the force of the rope being pulled taut that bent the bumper



I'm not overly sad about this, the photo was taken after me kicking it back into shape a bit.. The bumpers are pitted and horrible anyway, by bending one it merely means I have no issues with drilling some holes in it to take some numberplate lights so that I can get rid of the overriders. The MGB did come with numberplate lights in the bumper for about one year I think but those bumpers are very rare to get hold of so I shall make my own

Anyway, the audio stuff. I thought the B needed some bass.











Don't worry, I haven't gone mad, this is the actual sub/ amp install that the B shall be getting



What you're looking at there is the sub (glorified component really) from a Land Rover Discovery I believe, and the smaller of the two amps that I bought. The sub was given to me by the same mate with the Ibiza as he used to have it in his old mk3 Fiesta and I shall hopefully get back the money I paid for the sub box and amp by selling the box as I don't need it

The install still needs finishing as I'm going to be sticking in the surplus carpet to stop rattling, the sub and amp also need fastening down to stop them moving all over the place but overall I'm pretty happy as I've got a bit more bass to my music without it being silly, plus the whole lot is hidden completely from view when the boot floor/ spare wheel well lid is put down

My time is now up on my rented house at uni so I shall be heading back home for the summer where some engine work needs to be attended to, got a leaky oil cooler that needs replacing, oil changes need doing, new alternator is needed, new earth strap to fit, possibly new rocker shaft too. Plus I need to crawl under the car and get the reverse light switch changed.

Plenty to keep me busy!

[adam73bgt]

Oh and I also forgot that the carbs shall be coming off for a good clean and small service, the accelerator needs some urgent attention and I need to finish polishing and painting the new wheels!!

[adam73bgt]

A bit of an update, being back from uni means I now have the use of a driveway for getting on with some of the jobs i've been meaning to do for a while (it also means i can borrow the brothers car so I'm not stranded without transport )

The first job that needed urgent attention was the dying alternator that made my trip back from uni a little nervy.. Essentially I'd been watching the voltmeter and much of the time it wasn't much above 12 so I figured it was time for a new one. I managed to get an 'uprated' one at the same time as i'm running a fair few electrical things in the car now.

Here's the gap where the old alternator was



I did a little cleaning with my engine degreaser while I was waiting for some parts to arrive..



A lovely shade of blue..



And all fitted up and ready to generate some power



Plus you know you're a student when instead of buying bolts that fit, you make do with cutting down longer bolts and use the old alternator as a vice for holding them in..



So with that sorted, I turned my attention to the front end of the car, a while back I'd bought a Leyland Special Tuning style fibreglass spoiler but had never got round to fitting it, so here goes

Before shot:



Bumper off, this took a while thanks to two coach bolts whose nuts had rusted solid, the bolts were just spinning so I had to cut the heads off with a hacksaw..



The old valance looked like it had seen some action in the past as there was a pretty big dent shape in it



The next issue was that the original valance must have been put in place and then the bumper irons went through it, instead of taking the bumper irons off, I elected to cut slots in the valance to allow it be pulled off







I then offered up the spoiler but it didnt fit, so I took off these towing eye brackets (at least i think thats what they are.. )



Then it was time for a trial fit







So there it is, it's now come off again so that I can paint it the right colour (it's currently a metallic british racing green) though I'm in two minds about finding the right Green Mallard paint to paint it or to paint it black or a wrong green for the time being

any opinions?

[Rich]

Looking good! Personally, I'd get a close match as possible and paint it. You've got the bumper breaking up any colour difference so go for it

[adam73bgt]

Thanks Yeah I think really thats the best way to go, just me trying to be cheap ah well, Green Mallard paint is ordered!

[adam73bgt]

Well its all rush here to get through the pre-gathering jobs (and there are a few)

First off I tried trial fitting one of my new alloys to the front of the car, it didn't go well.. first of all it rubbed on the steering ball joint, then when I spaced it out using my slip on spacers it was still way too inset So I'm in the process of looking for and buying some bolt on spacers, but the minilites are doing me fine for the moment.



Soon...

Anyway, in better news, I've fitted the lowering springs in order to bring the front down so the car sits a bit more level

It was a pretty easy job to do so I'm kind of left wondering why I didn't do it sooner haha. But anyway, I'd been told on an MGB forum that the best way was to take off the brake calliper and take one of the kingpin bolts out etc. etc. which seemed like a really long winded way of doing things, instead, I put the front up on axle stands, and put my jack underneath one end of this bottom spring pan





This is held to the lower wishbone by 4 bolts, I loosened the two outermost bolts and removed the two innermost bolts, by doing this I was then able to lower the jack slowly and the spring pan and spring should all come down nicely together It did kind of work in practice except that I had to lever the spring pan down as it was a bit stuck up with mud and rust and stuff.



Success!

And heres the new and old springs side by side



By being a bit shorter, the new spring was slightly easier to get back in

The next job is carb rebuilding, which is currently ongoing so I shall do a post about that in a bit