a blast from the past

I kinda got my butt kicked by the MG this past weekend. At every turn there was a setback or failure. If you've ever worked on a classic car, you know the kind of day I had. It was a drag. Flash forward to today. My new water pump pulley arrived in the mail and my wife shows me this picture that she found while looking for something else.

It looks to be the summer of 1971. This is why I'm working so hard on this car.
cheers.

Oh, pulley!

Want to know what happens on a cold day when you drop a freshly primed water pump pulley onto the cold cement in my garage? This.

It shatters into a bunch of little pieces. Bummer.
This next pic is me testing the thermostat in a pot of water on the stove. MmmmmMmmmmm thermostat stew.

The nice thing is that it worked perfectly. Oh well.

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

The Good:
The carbs are installed and look great. The fuel system is done!

Of course, the fuel pump has yet to be tested. Potential problems there, but for now I remain blissfully optimistic.
I got the bonnet off to work on the cooling system.



The Bad:
There is a plate on the back of the head that needs to come off and be replaced but it looks like I will have to pull the freakin' engine to get to 'em!
When removing the screws from the cooling elbow the heads snapped off.
Fortunately because "the ugly" below it doesn't really matter.

The Ugly:
The thermostat is dead. I guess when an engine and radiator slowly evaporate it's cooling contents, a lot of rust forms.  I mean a lot.

So, it looks like I will have to buy a new thermostat and housing since the originals are NLA.
I can tell from looking inside the block that there is a lot of rust that needs to be flushed out but I'm not sure the best way to go about that task. Do I put everything back together and flush it upon start up? I think I will take a hose and try to flush out all the chunks and crap before I do anything else then put it all back together and use a radiator flush solution from the local auto parts store.