1973 MGB GT- A little rust 30/08

[adam73bgt]

Well just a little update here, the B has mostly been running fine apart from a couple issues with a dodgy battery earth killing the car..

However its most recent trick seems to be to cut out when coasting up to lights a bit of churning on the starter usually gets it going again.

Id figured this was down to me being a stingy student and underfilling the tank causing fuel starvation, so one night recently I brimmed the tank.

Next day, while I'm away in Leicester playing badminton, I get a call from my housemate informing me that there is petrol coming out of the MG.. curse word.

I get home at night and have a look down the filler neck and the fuel level is about at the end of the tube leading to the tank, all seems well..

Next morning/afternoon, I go to go into uni and theres liquid dripping from the back of the car.. sure enough its petrol open the filler cap and a considerable amount comes out..

Cue running the engine for 15mins to burn off a decent amount of fuel (cant drive it anywhere as I'm mid- seat changing ) plus id get some odd looks..

So yeah, don't overfill your B is the lesson for today, it wasnt even that warm and it expanded a fair bit!



The flour was put down by my housemate to soak it up..

bit of paint is coming off as well which is a bit annoying, but it'll teach me to brim my tank too far

On a brighter note, the drivers side MX5 seat is finally about to go in, which will mean I can sort my speaker wiring and hopefully get my gauges all wired up properly too!

[adam73bgt]

Well after several weeks since I fitted my passenger seat, I have finally got round to changing the drivers seat too

Hit a couple of snags with measuring my card template for marking out on the ally adapter plates, but managed to sort it out and it all fits

Heres the main bonus of having a spare room in a student house, car bits everywhere and RR on the laptop ;D



My rather 'homebrew' way of making the plates sit flat while the threadlok gluing the bolts in dried...



And all fitted up



Now, since I was fitting the seats, I thought I'd sort out my radio wiring as I needed to wire up the headrest speakers anyway. This is what I already had in the car.. Its a slightly butchered harness from a Suzuki something, used purely because it happened to be on clearance at halfords



Its not pretty but it did the job, anyway, skip forward a bit and my mate spotted another harness in the clearance bin for a couple of quid, this one just went from ISO to bullet connectors though, Result!

So I happily went about crimping on connectors here and there with my cheap crimping kit..

Until I had this, which looked pretty neat and tidy



Great. Until I went to plug the ISO connectors together...



All this time and I'd not noticed they were both female connectors

Since I had about 20 minutes left before I had to drive to work, I set about chopping wires and using butt connectors to re use the old plug from the Suzuki harness, so I am again left with a bit of a bodged system but all the wires are secure so thats good, plus its now all tucked away and I have a 5 speaker sound system ( the drivers door speaker seems to have given up, probably a bad connection at the speaker)

I will have to take it all apart to wire up the gauges properly though...

To do list


Wire in gauges
Fit twin exhaust backbox
Spray and fit front spoiler
Finally get round to picking up Rostyle wheels and sell minilites
Refurb and sell LE wheels
Sell seats, batteries and other tat I don't need
Sort tappets and carbs
Give the car a damn good clean!

Plenty to keep me busy then..

[AceOfHearts]

Good Stuff

I need to start a thread on mine now since ive picked it up

[adam73bgt]

Update time

Managed to get a job done that id been putting off for ages, which is renewing the rear quarter window seals. No more drafty side windows and should hopefully help stop them from misting up

Old seal


Just a little bit perished...


Before the new seals went in, managed to get a cloth in there and wipe a bit of the gunk out of the join between rear window and frame, this'll all have to come apart when I eventually get round to changing those interior vinyl bits to black :/


And the new seal in place, needed a bit of cutting to get it to fit nicely but its definitely snug its actually hard to close the windows now haha


Not a huge amount else to report really, the weird fuel leak seems to have stopped thankfully, I keep topping it up with oil on a semi-regular basis, bought some rostyle wheels to be tidied up a bit (pics soon) and also obtained a spotlight which is also being cleaned up (pics also to come soon)

so heres how the to do list is looking now..

Wire in gauges
Fit twin exhaust backbox
Spray and fit front spoiler
Finally get round to picking up Rostyle wheels and sell minilites
Sell LE wheels (partially done)
Sell seats, batteries and other tat I don't need
Sort tappets and carbs
Give the car a damn good clean!

[AceOfHearts]

How much are you looking for the minilites?

I would have done you a swap with my Rostyles lol

[adam73bgt]

lol if only i'd known, erm id ideally like to get around £200 for them, but i would be open to offers, give me a pm if you think you could be interested

[AceOfHearts]

PM sent

[adam73bgt]

Got some pics of the Rostyles, and they need a bit of tlc

How they all generally look



and close up



Heres one of them after a bit of attacking with a wire wheel





So yeah a bit rusty.. but I'm hoping theres some good metal in there somewhere haha

plus heres a picture of an advantage of having a spare room at uni ;D

[AceOfHearts]

They look like you salvaged them from the bottom of the sea

[vikingspirit]

What you need is a wheelie bin and a stackload of ASDA or Tesco smartprice / value vinegar for 13p a litre. Stick a wheel in the wheelie bin, fill it up with cheap vinegar and leave it a couple of days, come back to a perfectly rust free wheel. I've de-rusted loads of stuff like that - nuts, bolts, exhaust manifolds, heatshields, suspension bits, works a treat every time.

[adam73bgt]

Mar 23, 2013 0:15:53 GMT AceOfHearts said:

They look like you salvaged them from the bottom of the sea

haha considering a 5th one I have is full of water, you're not far wrong!

Mar 23, 2013 1:31:41 GMT vikingspirit said:

What you need is a wheelie bin and a stackload of ASDA or Tesco smartprice / value vinegar for 13p a litre.

ooh thats a good idea, ive got some 'rust remover' stuff which you mix with water and immerse stuff in, which has worked pretty well so far, might have to get some vinegar if I get bored of wire wheeling

The thing is, the wheels don't look half as bad from the front haha, I'm just doing all this sanding to lose a bit of unsprung weight

[stealthstylz]

Those wheels area dead, you can see where the rust has started eating the metal.

[adam73bgt]

Hopefully they'll only be used as a temp wheel while i sort out some replacements for my minilites if i sell them, not planning to do many/any miles on these atm

[AceOfHearts]

Well if you fancy a px with 5 x rostyles with usable tyres + a bit of cash your way you know where to find me

[ChasR]

One thing to bear in mind is that your car may run smoother on the Minilites. Heck, even on the Stag wheels the GKN alloys are known for not being drilled straight and hence causing almost incurable vibrations on the road.

[adam73bgt]

Aye, i probably don't know how lucky ive got it with the minilites and they are good wheels. I may have some other alloy plans in the pipeline however...

friend of mine just did this photochop



id be going for 14's though as this shop looks like 15's. Could work with black centres and possibly a polished lip? just trying to think of something a little different from the MGB norm

[adam73bgt]

although this was another idea, albeit a bit higher than in the picture

[ChasR]

Most go to 15s due to the better tyre choice available (you can do this with 14s, but it involves going down a profile to something like a 175/65R14 (still not quite as plentiful as 195/60R15, but better than 165R15). I know my Sebring on 15s (albeit wide ones) gave the MGB way more composure in most areas (motorway journeys and corners were far nicer by the time I did all the work .

How about Revolution 5 spokes .

[adam73bgt]

mmm i've been considering 15's too to get the sidewall down a bit, without throwing the speedo too out, being on standard arches the actual choice of wheel/tyre combos that will fit seem quite limited. I think thats mostly down to the rear arches and the amount of tuck there, especially on my car at least which has quite saggy suspension at the back i think

I do like the Revo wheel design, it just seems to be a bit difficult to find some that arent mini or ford fitment!

[ChasR]

Look out for Saab/J wheels with a 4x114.3mm PCD. Plenty of choice. I went that way, and it 'sort of' worked.

You can fit 185/65R15s with no trimming necessary or 195/60R15s but by losing the flange within in the arch (or at least on the Nearside).

As a leftfield choice you could always fit Lotus Excel/Eclat wheels. OK they are 14" but you could use your old tyres and get a slight amount of stretch in the mix: