I didn't mean to leave this for another year before updating... Life has a habit of getting in the way, between my Chrysler Crossfire becoming more of a project than I originally intended, and still needing to finish my Kawasaki restoration, work taking up a lot of my time and energy, plus trying to save money for a first house purchase, the MG has taken a back seat again.
That's not to say that I hadn't been looking for bits and doing bits of research in the meantime, but I never really had enough to put together for a proper update on here.
However with the Crossfire and Kawasaki getting closer to being finished, I'm making a new effort on the MG. Also with the potential of a house move on the horizon, it will be much easier to move the MG around if it resembles something closer to a car and isn't in a thousand bits scattered all around my house and garage
So, last summer, I made some progress in cleaning up the Volk Racing Mesh split rim wheels, I focused on the barrels as I knew I would be re-using these and they're easy to refurb. Was just a case of sanding back the years of dirt, brake dust and paint until I had something I could prime, before black and gloss lacquer.
Finished all 4. I did start trying to strip the paint from the faces using abrasives and paint stripper, but mesh wheels are such a pain to get into all the corners, I've paused and will find somewhere to soda blast or chemical dip them (this was my plan last year which I have yet to action haha)
Back to the present day, I have actually assembled two of the wheels loosely in order to trial fit them on the car and double check my measurements for buying new lips to widen the wheels. The problem I'm having on the front at the moment is that the wheel won't go onto the wheel studs. I don't think this is an issue with the extra pcd holes I had drilled, but when I fitted longer metric wheel studs on the front I went over length and I think one or two of the studs may not be perfectly straight in the hub. I'm hoping that shortening down the studs to a more useful length will get the wheel on.
The Rostyles go on fine, as do the spare set of Almera steels I have, as the holes in the steel wheels are larger.
Also relevant to wheels, Nankang seem to have come out with some wider 15" versions of their NS2R tyre which gives me more options. Currently the wheels are 15 x 6 and 15 x 7, I'm looking to bump this up to 15 x 8.5 or 9 and 15 x 10
One piece of the puzzle I've been trying to track down for while are some carbs for the O series, a couple months back I managed to pick up this nice set of Dellorto DHLA 40s
The engine is one of the things that spurred me into a bit of action again actually, one of those facebook notifications came up, reminding me it had been a year since I posted about picking up the O Series and all I'd done in that time was swap out the junk alternator it came with, for my good old one from the B series I used to run
One thing I didn't like so much about the O series that needed sorting before it was fitted is that the block is painted Red. I know it's trying to be like the standard B series colour but it's not for me. So I got on with rubbbing it back as best I could, and going over with some black enamel
I've picked up some bits to be able to prepare the engine for test fitting. Primarily a lower gasket set as I need to fit an oil pickup and my good sump. I have been deliberating for a while about getting a lightweight flywheel for the engine while it's all apart, but the cost has put me off, so I've picked up a good secondhand flywheel (I sold the original one years ago) which I'll get skimmed and possibly have a bit of weight taken off it anyway. I'd like to get a clutch too so I can have the engine and gearbox together again as a unit.
Went to an antiques shop while visiting family last week and picked up this old spotlight for a fiver. The key thing is that it's a rear mount light, which I've been on the lookout for, for ages as a potential reverse light as I plan to smooth over the original holes.
Yet another MG purchase this week was a set of lowered rear springs. These particularly stood out to me as they have reversed spring eyes so should give a decent amount of lowering, and hopefully not raise the ride height over my old original springs
Thought it would just be a case of chucking in the polybushes I bought new years ago and have had on the shelf, only to find they've gone bad! They just started disintegrating as I was installing them and I was able to pull out half of the bush by hand
These are also the same age and brand as the polybushes already fitted to the front suspension and holding the front crossmember up... So I think I may have to go back and revisit those.
The biggest job I've achieved this weekend is doing a bit of paint in the engine bay. This may seem a bit premature but my reasoning is that I wanted to refit the upper steering column so I wanted to paint that bit of the firewall first. Which turned into painting most of the bay
I had started on the bay a long time ago, the car has always had loads of caked on dirt or grease or waxoyl on the inner wings which took a lot of scrubbing with low grit paper to remove
Some areas were also missing top coat after I'd rubbed it all back as there were the odd bits of surface rust too
Used the last of my Hydrate 80 on any remaining trouble spots
And tried to just prime those areas, in hindsight I probably should have primed it all as the Green Mallard paint doesn't cover that well so it's taken quite a few coats to get it to not look too blotchy
But ultimately it's an engine bay, and it's not a concours car so I'm happy
Once the engine paint is dry I'll carry on with that. I've also got the upper firewall bits to prep in the engine bay as well as the steering column to fit. I've also lifted the car higher off the ground so I can continue with removing underseal and revealing any holes
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