1973 MGB GT- A little rust 30/08

[varelse]

There is some stuff over here called oil eater. It cleaned the year old oil off the work carpark with just a pour over and a hose. o.O
I have a little sample bottle I'm going to use on the Cressida, haha.

That's an impressive amount of mud, though. Maybe a little plate folded up in front will stop most of the dirt from ending up there in the first place?

[vanpeebles]

That clutch pin looks like a tiny crank shaft

[ChasR]

Jul 26, 2016 1:51:43 GMT jpsmit said:

Jul 25, 2016 8:55:58 GMT ChasR said:

Would using Brake fluid or grease (Rubber grease?) have helped the seals to get in or is that a No No?

I have a tube of caliper lube that works beautifully

If you don't mind me asking what colour was it? Castrol sell red rubber grease which they say can do calipers. I know the stuff I got from Classic Oils is superb for fitting bushes ; I don't know why I didn't use it previously!

Jul 26, 2016 19:28:00 GMT adam73bgt said:

Damn if only I'd looked for some proper caliper lube, could have made the job a whole lot easier..

Ah well, finished calipers!



Also pictured are the braided lines which I must have bought about 2 years ago

Nice work there! They are looking superb.

Do you have any P clips or ways to retain the brake hoses? Without them, they will be an MOT failure ; I had this issue a few years ago here

Jul 27, 2016 8:28:25 GMT Nathan said:

Whilst the box is out I would change the OD filter, it is basically a metal gauze on the bottom of the OD unit (Comes off with the inspection plate on the bottom of the OD unit). These usually get dirty over time and tend to make the car feel like it has a slippy clutch when the OD is not engaged, bar that changing the box oil and maybe inspecting the contents would be enough. The GT boxes are bullet proof and unless it was overly noisy when in the car I would not worry about it.

This: It's not too tricky to do either.

Jul 27, 2016 18:59:32 GMT Rich said:

I would fit a bearing-type release, not the carbon pad, there is a reason manufacturers stopped using carbon pads. Good work so far though, keep plugging away, a bit at a time and before you know it you'll be really ahead of yourself and it'll feel great. Something like that

I think GoJo has had a few problems with the carbon bearings. He is trying to search out a bearing replacement. I know Moss and MGOC used to sell them.

[adam73bgt]

varelse Mm not a bad idea, may have to think about the orientation of the cross member and see if I could design some sort of mud deflector

vanpeebles haha yes! I'd love to know how long its been in there as its some impressive wear, the hole in the slave cylinder arm was very oval as well!

ChasR Ooh good point about the hose retention, I hadn't actually thought that far ahead yet. I was planning to retain them in the same way as the OEM hoses as they connect to the crossmember where they meet the hard line?




No real update today, but I painted the exhaust manifold so theres something

[ChasR]

The stock hoses are shorter which is why they don't need a P clip .

[adam73bgt]

Jul 28, 2016 13:49:16 GMT ChasR said:

The stock hoses are shorter which is why they don't need a P clip .

Ah I did wonder as I was typing, I'll have to remember to come up with something when it comes to mounting everything back up

[ChasR]

Just to double check, do your hoses have the normal fittings or the banjo fitting on one end as shown in the pic I put up? If they are normal fittings you *may* be OK .

[adam73bgt]

Ah pic didn't show up when I looked earlier for some reason, yeah mine have the banjo on one end so looks like I'll have to do what you did on yours, looks a pretty easy fix?

[Nathan]

^ That surprises me, being a CB they usually don't come with Banjo type....Mines the old screw in so no issues with the pipe length.

[adam73bgt]

Jul 29, 2016 8:19:21 GMT Nathan said:

^ That surprises me, being a CB they usually don't come with Banjo type....Mines the old screw in so no issues with the pipe length.

Yeah the old hoses were direct screw in lines, just the new braided ones have banjos, I dunno if there are two types of braided hose sold for the B?

[Nathan]

Yeah they are, well they were as mine runs the screw in type all round :-)

[djay]

Could you box the cross member in?

[ChasR]

Jul 29, 2016 8:19:21 GMT Nathan said:

^ That surprises me, being a CB they usually don't come with Banjo type....Mines the old screw in so no issues with the pipe length.

The *insert Brand here bar Bilstein/Frontline* telescopic conversion comes with them in order to clear the dampers .

[adam73bgt]

Little update, started on cleaning up the gearbox with some Gunk, scraping and wiping





Slow progress but it'll get there, probably a bit of wire brushing to be done as well. Then I can get into fitting the seals/gaskets

I also took a closer look at my front dampers. The plan was just to give them a clean up, change the oil and fit the stiffer valves which I bought a while back. However after having looked at them, they appear to not be a matched pair...









So now I'm a bit unsure how to proceed, getting any further into rebuilding them seems to be out of the reach of the DIY'er, I could just clean them up and put them back on and assume they work fine as a pair, or I buy a couple of refurbed dampers and fit the uprated valves to those.

As much as I want to re-use stuff where possible, I also don't want to have to be removing leaky dampers after I get the car back on the road :/

In happier news I got a tool chest to organise out my ever growing tool collection



And found a couple of retro tools at the bottom of my toolbox

[skkylinedave]

Looks like it was replace years ago , maybe it leaked or had a whack ? Who knows , know different to having a different brand damper, if it felt ok just reuse them .

[samta22]

^^^ suspect the same as above. On mine I must confess I decided to bite the bullet and did a recon-exchange for the uprated dampers from the MGB hive. For the short time I had the car on the road with them I thought they were a good compromise.

[adam73bgt]

Aye seems like a previous owner was a bit cheap and only changed one

They did 'kinda' work when I had the car on the road but the ride was nothing really to shout about.. Since I've got the opportunity I think I'll swap them out for good recon units and fit the stiffer valves to those

Will probably clean up and sell on the old ones though, so they won't totally go to waste!

[samta22]

If you go for recon units it's usually the norm 'trade in' your existing units as they then use those to rebuild for future stock. Also helps to lower the price significantly - certainly what I did with the hive for both front and rear damper sets.

The above approach also means you don't have to worry about getting your hands dirty stripping and rebuilding them either, just the fitting bit

[ChasR]

Aug 9, 2016 11:46:43 GMT adam73bgt said:

Aye seems like a previous owner was a bit cheap and only changed one

They did 'kinda' work when I had the car on the road but the ride was nothing really to shout about.. Since I've got the opportunity I think I'll swap them out for good recon units and fit the stiffer valves to those

Will probably clean up and sell on the old ones though, so they won't totally go to waste!

They do work a little strangley do lever arms. IIRC they are basically a paddle inside the unit, so they will 'give' initially before actually damping from what I recall.

[adam73bgt]

It's been a bit quiet in here, but this should help things...







Its been invaluable having the unit space to work on the MG in but before Christmas I moved from my flat to a house with a good sized garage specifically so I could make more progress on the B

Today saw the movement of the shell and the last few bits of MG stuff to my house My job now is initially to sort out all the bits I have for it and figure out a plan of action

Many musings have been going on regarding the engine, but I'll be needing to get it stripped and rebuilt in any case.

I'll be trying to spend more time on the MG compared to the Mazda and BMW this year, so hopefully I'll have some new updates coming soon!