Carbs

I took the carbs off and dismantled them. Found out most of my seals were bad so I replaced the ones I had replacements for. Here's a before and after picture. Hopefully after I clean up the rest of the engine bay and put these back on the idle will be much more stable and much lower.

Back in the Garage

Ok, all my other cars are working fine now so I can finally get the MG back to work. She got her first snow, which I'll post once I find my memory stick. Hopefully I'll be able to pull everything off, clean'm up and get it in tip-top shape for the spring.

Back on the Road

Due to the fact my other car needs brakes badly, I've brought the B out of winter hibernation. I changed the plugs and properly gapped them. Looking at the old ones it looks like I'm running massively rich , so I may try to get a colortune to properly do the fuel/air mix. Other than that she's running fine. I still need to get the idle down but I think that's associated with the fuel/air mix problem.

Air/Fuel Mix

I found a post on TheMGExperience explaining how to tune your air/fuel mix with a vacuum gage. Since I've been cheap and haven't bought a colortune or exhaust gas analyzer, I decided to give it a try. I hooked my brake bleeder that has a vacuum gage on it up to the intake manifold and got a wavering 18-19In. This is apparently near perfect so I tried a few adjustments to get the carbs balanced (no unisync either). The end result is that I think I have the carbs tuned in. The engine is still running 1100 rpms so I've got to narrow that down, other than that I think I just need to clean her up. I also realized halfway through the testing that I'd forgotten to check the heater valve. Apparently when it's fully open I think it is...(completely clockwise) that it doesn't leak. I plan on replacing that but until then, it's working.

DPO Visit

So, my mom is visiting for a few days and I decided to put the distributor back on to let her go for a ride before I tore it down. It took 2 days to get the distributor back in since I forgot how it looked before I removed it. In the process I managed to put the wires back on 180 and 90 degrees off. Apparently when you do that it makes the more horrible sounds and at one point backfired and make everyone in the house think I'd shot myself. I finally got it back together and started...only to discover the heater valve is leaking. So, it looks like the B is out of commission for the winter while I dismantle, clean, and fix up everything. I was hoping to take my mom out to show it works but with the coolant leaking it's not worth trying. Oh well, more pics to come once I get back to work on her.

Distributor Removed

Step 1 was to remove the distributor, clean it up, set the points, etc. After removing it I've decided to clean everything up and see what I can do during the winter.

and Back in....

So after only a few days driving her I had to stick her back into the garage. The idle was up to 2500 and was backfiring if I didn't use the choke. I got my other car fixed up and I'm deciding to store the MG for the winter. I'm going to be removing most of the engine bay and cleaning them up, painting and just doing restoration work.

She's Off!

My other car crapped out so I had to put the MG back together. Got the top put back on and the steering wheel installed. Took her our for a spin and she's already running better than before. All I need to do now is cover the rear ledge with carpet and all the interior will need is a stereo.

New Carpet installed

Got the new carpet installed finally. Doing the finishing touches to get it properly fit. It looks a little cheesy but considering it cost me $20 I'm happy. I also put in the new seats and a battery disconnect switch while I had everything torn apart.

Battery Cut-Out Switch

I bought a cutout switch on eBay and should get in sometime this week. I figure since I have the "carpet" out and everything I'll put that in before laying in the new carpet. One more step to prevent the inevitable explosion I'm sure to produce. More pics to follow once it gets in.

Floorpans

I've repaired the floors by placing fiberglass and bondo over the holes. Once the bondo dries I'll paint the floorpans with an underbody coating to protect it from further rusting. In 5-10 years or so I'll actually cut them out and put in new floorpans but until then this should work fine. Got new seats on eBay that should get here next week and I can finally put in the new carpet and seats and maybe drive it again. Yay!

New Seats

Just finished paying for some new used seats off eBay. I hope to replace my old ratty ones after I repair a few rust problems in my floorpans. The only somewhat downfall is that they're tan whereas my previous seats were black. My new carpet however is a gray though so it should work out when I'm done.

So, after nearly a month of daily driving she finally cut out on me. First cold morning of the season and my clutch has apparently failed. I was shoving the gearshift into each gear all the way to work and I've parked her in the garage until further notice to get the parts.

After massive troubleshooting I originally thought the slave cylinder was bad. So I ordered a rebuild kit, and commenced to rebuilding. After many days, I concluded the slave cylinder was good. After a bit more work and finally LOOKING at the seals on the master cylinder I've decided it's bad. See the pattern? Ordered the rebuild and replaced almost everything in the master cylinder for $7. Oh yeah, like that better than $160. Turns out it bleeds a hell of a lot better when the master cylinder is good. So, clutch it back online.

While I was waiting for clutch parts I took the valve cover off and adjusted the valves. I also screwed with the carburetors since I'd never properly adjusted them which resulted in an idle speed of 1300. With the valves adjusted and the carbs now setup it sounds like it's running alot better. Unfortunately, my carbs are so out of tune I can't get it to idle more than 5 seconds. Alot of tuning ahead of me.

I'll post pictures of my shiney slave cylinder as soon as I get my camera charged up...

Now, this was started as an afterthought. I wanted to do this as I went along but I've already accomplished alot.

After getting the car and moving up to CT I began restoring her based on the advice the the folks over at MGExperience. They helped out by providing a wonderful checklist on how to restore a car to driving condition. Needless to say I skipped a few steps. Here's what I've done.

1. Bled the Brakes
2. Repaired Brake Leak
3. Repaired Passenger Brake Caliper (it was jammed, blunt force calibration, all good)
4. Cleaned Carburetors and replaced gaskets, needles, jets, and topped off dashpots with oil
5. Removed, cleaned, and refurbed heater
6. Removed radio and replaced cigar lighter
7. Replaced ignition coil, wires and plugs
8. Repaired Fuel pump (dismantled and reassembled)
9. Started up engine, timed and moderately cleaned it up.
10. Tuned Carbs
11. Corrected tach, fuel gage, and temp gage
    

At this point she became drivable and I began to use it as a daily driver. I cleaned up the dash, top, and gauges. Pretty much decided I was just doing cosmetics at this point. Left to do was:

1. Radio
2. Carpet
3. Paint
4. Gaskets

Not necessarily in that order, but that's what I had to do....little did I know.

Hello

Well, I suppose I'll start out by introducing the lovely MG. It's a 1972 kept in the family MGB Roadster. It's got original paint, original engine, tranny and interior.










It's been kept in the driveway of my parents house for the past 5 years and has deteriorated somewhat during that time. It was originally parked because the brakes went out, then the fuel pump and now...no idea. With any luck it'll be a quick clean-up, shine and drive job.