Carbs and body work

John spent a great deal of time here working on the car in the past few weeks.  I probably don't remember everything we did, but here are some highlights.

Although we had the car running, something was not quite right.  We started checking issues as systematically as possible.  John wanted to eliminate electrical issues, so we started there.  John moved the battery from the trunk back to the original location behind the seats.  He put in a new ground wire and cleaned up the various contacts.

Power seemed good now, so we moved to fuel issues.  We thought it might be an issue with the carburetors.  Knowing John's work fine, we removed the carbs from his car and put them on my car.  With John's carburetors on my car, it ran just fine.  This is a good thing since we now know where to trouble shoot.  

We disconnected the fuel line and ran the pump to empty the tank back into a can.  The tank was coming off so we could work on the trunk.  I got lots of great car-related Christmas gifts including the light given by my parents in the picture below.

While John was working on carbs and electrical, I continued to disassemble the front suspension.  I finally got it all apart, cleaned, and painted.  It is almost ready to go back on the car.  Below are some before pictures.

Above is the cross-member repainted with one shock absorber installed.  Almost ready to go back on the car.    Below are some of the other suspension parts also with fresh paint.

 

We also addressed the large hole in the trunk.  A while ago we cut out a rusty section from the white car and a piece from the primer car to repair the hole.

 

John spent some time shaping the repair panel so it would fit nicely in the white trunk.

 I had to remove the gas tank to actually install the repair.  I had plenty of light to work thanks to a great Christmas gift from the Hungeling family.

 With the tank removed, John cleaned up the trunk and patched some of the holes.

 We used fasteners to hold the repair panel in place and do some more shaping.

We then used rivets and sealer to hold it in place.  Maybe not how the professionals would do it, but it is solid and water-tight.

 

After some cleaning and white paint it was good as new.  Well, at least a job done.

I also bought some black paint and gave the front wheel wells a quick hit with the wire wheel followed by some black spray paint.

Major Milestone

John and I put in many solid hours this weekend (Dec 13 and 14).  He came over about 8:30 Saturday morning to get in a full day of work.  The goal was to get the car to run this weekend.  Much of the first work involved wiring.  Wiring is color-coded.  I am color blind.  That is a bad mix.  So, the wiring work falls squarely on John. He set to work with a wiring diagram and tester. 

I started working on the fuel system.  It was time to install the new fuel tank.  I had actually done this before on John's car, so I was comfortable giving it a shot.  It is a temporary installation because the trunk still needs to be repaired and the tank mounts directly to the bottom of the trunk.  The picture below shows the empty space where the trunk will be.  The round hole is where the filler neck comes up and then out of the rear of the car. 

 

Here is the new tank ready to put in place.  It isn't that heavy, but the floor jack holds it in place while I attach it. 

It is nice to have a shiny part in place.  Below are a couple of pictures of the installed tank.  The pictures aren't great because it is under the car, but it was a nice accomplishment.  

I then went to the other end of the fuel system in the front of the car.  There are solid (metal) fuel lines back to front and rubber lines (to allow a little movement of the engine) which connect to the carburetors.  I replaced the rubber lines and a fuel filter.  (For those wondering, the white cylinder in the top right of the picture is a fire extinguisher.  We are dealing with electricity and fuel today.) 

John got the car wired up, so it was time to connect the battery and see what happened.  What happened was there was sparking.  Note the appearance of the fire extinguisher once more. 

I will just blog the short version, but it turns out there was a problem with the alternator.  We actually had the wrong alternator for the car, so the wiring did not connect correctly.  Thankfully we had another alternator on hand (both shown in the picture on the left), and it had the right connections.  It is shown installed on the right.

That seemed to resolve the sparking issue.  It was now time to try turning it over.  We removed the spark plugs because we didn't really want it to run, but we wanted the oil to start circulating.  The starter worked and it was very exciting to see the engine turning over.  We installed the spark plugs, connected some more wiring, and decided it was time to try running it.  We didn't put in any fuel, but did spray some starter fluid in the carbs to see what would happen.  John stood by with starter fluid and the fire extinguisher. 

It fired up and ran for a second or so.  We were very excited and called it a day.

Sunday started a little later, but we had the goal of running the car before the day was over.  The major hurdle was the exhaust system.  What we had was rusty and incomplete.  John started cutting and grinding rust.  Our helper for the day did not care for the loud noises.

We more or less (OK, less) figured out what we were missing.  We spent quite a while in the aisles at VIP (auto parts store) piecing together an exhaust system.  We bought some flexible pipe, a minimalist exhaust, and some products to bind it all together.  What we ended up with isn't exactly what MG engineers had in mind, but I think it will work.  It should be properly loud too. Sorry Jane.

We pieced it all together and loosely attached it to the bottom of the car.  I spent a ridiculous amount of time trying to get six nuts, washers, and lock washers attached to the bottom of the exhaust manifold.  Eventually it was connected and time to try to start her up.  In all the excitement I forgot to pick up the camera.  With the help of some starter fluid, we got the car running.  It was stinky and loud, but running.

So, it is Sunday night, December 14 and the car has run.  There is a very long way to go, but it feels more like a car than it did Friday.  I really appreciate John spending his whole weekend here working on the car.  John filled the new whiteboard (thanks Elizabeth!) with a list of to-do items.  Maybe she will be on the road summer 2015.

Big day

I haven't been spending a ton of time on the car in the past month.  Winterizing the boat turned into a big surprise of water in the oil and took an extra weekend day to deal with.  The boat is put away for now and lots of work to do in the spring, but this isn't a blog about the boat.

I have had a few minutes to work on the car.  I have spent most of my time trying to disassemble both front suspensions to pick the parts that look best.  I have not had much luck getting bolts to come out, so I bought a cutting tool and hacked away.  The sparks make Jane nervous, but she trusts me.  Below is the partially disassembled suspension and some of the parts (shocks and kingpins) which came out. 

 I did shop black Friday at Home Depot.  I have been thinking about buying a tool chest and found a good deal.  The garage is definitely more organized. 

The big work was today (Dec 7).  John came over around 9:30 and we set to work getting the engine installed.  The day started with John staring at the space where the engine should go. 

 We strapped the engine to the hoist, and tried to figure out how to get it into the large, empty space at the front of the car.

The low ceiling in the garage meant we could only raise the engine so far, but we still had to get it over the front of the car.  We also wanted to be very careful not to drop the engine onto our toes.  That would hurt.  (Spoiler alert - we didn't drop it.)   We had to open the garage door to get the hoist in the right position.  It was about 20 degrees outside.  That said, installing an engine isn't something to rush.  It is quite a slow dance of moving the hoist forward, lowering the engine a little, checking that nothing is hung up or scraping where it shouldn't, and repeating. 

We were very deliberate, and made good progress.  It wasn't easy, but I wouldn't say it was hard either.  We managed to get it in place by lunch time. 

 We spent the next few hours installing the carburetors, radiator, oil cooler, oil lines, and I am sure a few other things I forgot.  Below is the car as it sits now.  I am really pleased with what we got done. 

Next will be a few more connections, add some oil, get some gas, and see if she runs. 

Picking the best bits

John was out of town last weekend, so I played it conservative.  I did a little wire brush grinding on the rust.  I also made use of my new bench grinder to clean some parts.  It takes the surface rust and paint off nicely.  A little spray paint and parts look new.   Below is an air filter housing before anything was done, after being cleaned with the wire wheel, and after one coat of paint.   The final product looks better in person than it does in the third picture. 

I also cleaned the rails for the seats.  Not sure the pictures below (one already cleaned, one not cleaned) show the full before and after effect, but they cleaned up nicely. 

I also went over to Grafton on Tuesday evening to work on the trunk of the primer car.  We had cut a rusty section out of the trunk of the white car, so I needed that same bit from the primer car.  We also need to get everything we need from the primer car so we can get rid of it ASAP.  (Sorry Eliz.)  Below is the hole in the trunk of the white car, then the hole covered by the piece from the primer car.  I gashed it a bit, but it will be an improvement over the rusty section that was there. 

This weekend we spent several hours working here on the white car.  The original goal was to try to put in the motor, but we didn't quite get that done.  John did get the new mounts attached, but that required removing the carburetors. That needed to happen anyway and John is a pro at that job by now.

While he did that, I installed some new hoses.  It is kind of funny to see shinny new hoses in this car.  I also cleaned MANY bolts, washers, and nuts.  After cleaning bolts and nuts I chased the threads to clean them up.  All of the hardware going back on will be clean and easy to work with. 

John also replaced the worn out bushings on the transmission mount.  Apparently MG engineers decided there should be many options for the way it goes together, but John prevailed.  Another key piece is now ready to go.  

We then spent some time disassembling the front suspension.  Every rubber bit is worn out or gone.

Once we got it all apart, we found the shocks weren't working.  Might be a bad shock or might just be out of oil.  The kingpins also move which will cause a clunk when driving.  Given the rust underside of this car, it is hard to know how far to go with repairs.

We initially decided to see what parts of the suspension are good on the primer car and put the best bits on the white car.  Since what we have seen on the white car's suspension so far is not so good, we decided to just use the primer car's suspension as a whole.  Today, we took the suspension off the primer car.  Since it was already unbolted, removal consisted of lowering the floor jack that was holding it up.  We put it in my car and took it to a car wash.  Today it was about 34 degrees and snowing, so it was no shock that we had the wash to ourselves.  A combination of degreaser, simple green cleaner, brushes, high pressure soap, and finally high pressure rinse, and I have a relatively clean (it is an over forty year old car) front suspension. 

We brought the suspension to my house, and loosely attached it to the white car.  It will need to come off again, so loosely attached is good enough for now.  Hopefully shocks and kingpins will be good on this one.  I will start disassembling as time allows this week.  We took the other suspension back to the primer car and called it a day. 

Next weekend will probably be about getting the boat winterized and put away, but I will find some time for MG work.  I am enjoying the process and learning a lot.  The amount of work seems monumental, but it is a project, so I am going to take it one step at a time and enjoy the activity.