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.