We've gone full circle

Bruce drove the MG today for the first time in a long time. It was really cool to see he and Carol drive the car they had their first date in. Here's their smilin' mugs.

It was a very special moment for me watching those two motor down the street. I teared up a little.

Here is a shot if Kris and her dad taking a ride.

I'll get the bonnet on soon and then I guess the point of this blog will be over. The MG is revived and Bruce is driving it. It was a long winter of wrenching but on Easter Sunday all that hard work payed off. Life is good.

Oh Yeah!

I'm not a country and western music fan but now is the time for a little Willie Nelson "On The Road Again."
She still needs some tweeking to get her road ready but what a ball we had driving around the neighborhood waving at folks.

That's me pulling out our driveway.

Can you believe that Kris has NEVER driven the MG?!! There's a first time for everything.

The driver's door won't stay closed. Still there are lots of little things to mess with.

A new pair of Sneaks

I just got the tires and rims back today. My friend sandblasted the wheels front and back and put a nice paint job on 'em. They look sweet. I haven't put them on yet as I still need to revisit the brakes. Gettin' closer!

It's ALIVE!!!!!!!!!!

I got the MG engine running last night.

That sentence is so short and simple it doesn't really convey what it means to me. I've worked on a handful of cars in various states of restoration and none have given me the kind of joy that this car has. I'm not being sappy or sentimental, it's just a fact. I was jumping around the garage last night giving little fist pumps and saying little prayers of thanks. It's not unusual for a wrench turning session to end in frustration on these old cars, bolts break, rusty bits won't come loose, you find something else doesn't work AFTER placing a big parts order. The list goes on. And working on the MG has been no exception. I have encountered all of those things repeatedly yet I have remained undaunted. The journey is not over by any means, I know that, but wow! what a nice little victory.

I was giddy last night. I had never heard a MG engine run. As the garage filled with exhaust I was filled with pride and joy. Exhaust never smelled so sweet. It's looking really good that we will be cruising this spring as I initially planned. I really thought that my spring deadline was a bit ambitious but I needed a goal but I never took into consideration the time spend idle waiting for parts to ship.

None of that matters. Today I grin. I can't wait for Dad to drive this car again.

It's all about the fluids

Alright, I have been corresponding with Robert Kirk http://www.kirks-auto.com He's a great guy who enlightened me on why I wasn't getting spark at the distributor or plugs. Sure enough he was right and last night I was able to get the whole deal a-sparkin'. I shot a little starter fluid into the carbs and she stumbled over a few times. I was stoked. Of course I also found out from Robert that the new plug wires I installed had too much built in resistance and that I needed to replace 'em. Poop. I knew it was too good to be true. It works for now but I will replace them when I place my parts order with Robert. He's my new parts guy and all-round go to source for obscure and not so obscure MG info. He'll beat Moss prices and give advice for free to noobs like me. What-a-deal!

Tonight I drained the gear oil out of the transmission and rear differential.  Before I drained anything I made sure I could get to the fill plugs first. That was a tough lesson to learn on a Volkswagen a few years ago. I had to do a lot of cleaning around the fill plug on the rear end but now Maggie has new gear oil front and rear. Smooth.

I must say, with each step closer my excitement builds. Next step is a new fuel pump (the one I tried to rebuild doesn't work) and tires/rims.

If all goes well, Bruce will be taking me for a little ride by spring. Spring has been my deadline since I started this whole ordeal. I still have a lot of tuning to do but it looks like I just might make it.

A breath of fresh air

After work yesterday I decided to dive back in to the MG and keep plodding away at the things needed to get it ready for start-up. But instead of those things I decided to take the battery out of the VW Westfalia and put it into the MG.  I made a few battery cables, hooked up the battery, and turned the key and there were lights! Wahoo! I hit the horn button and the horns feebly came to life until reaching full strength. At that point I was so psyched that I had to call Bruce and we laughed like a couple of kids. It was his suggestion to see if the starter worked. It was then that I realized that I had no idea how to engage the starter! All this work on the car and I had no idea what any of the buttons on the dash were for! Funny. I pulled the knob that Bruce told me and the starter roared to life. What a thrill to see this little MG get a faint pulse back. I'm still hoping that spring will be a time to drive it. One thing, the fuel pump I tried to rebuild isn't working so I will have to address that, but today I am happy to turn wrenches.At the time I wasn't sure why I wanted to do this with the battery now. It wasn't really necessary, but now it's clear. Sometimes it's hard to go out to the freezing garage and bust my knuckles and keep at it when there is so many other things wanting  my attention. I needed this small victory.

Oh, the distractions

I had some big plans for this weekend and the MG but sometimes life has other plans. We had a great weekend with my mother visiting and time spent with the family. I did get to the auto parts store and picked up some sweet bumblebee looking spark plug wires and cut them to fit the MG. It may not be much but it is some progress.

closer and closer

I made a lot of progress this past weekend, between sledding on the snow with the kids. It started snowing last Friday and dropped 7inches overnight. We had a ball out playing. But in between my snow frolicking I did manage to turn a wrench or two on the MG. I got the coolant system back together, which was harder than I anticipated. I also managed to snap one of the bolts that holds the fan blades onto the brand new water pump pulley. That part is cursed. I decided to skip trying to get the broken part out and get to that later. I'm going to keep moving forward. I also set the gap for the valves and got the valve cover cleaned up and the surface of the head cleaned and the gasket and valve cover installed. New sparkplugs are gapped and installed. New points are installed and gapped. I had to replace the wire that goes from the points on the distributor to the negative on the coil. I also cleaned and polished the coil and cleaned and painted the coil bracket. After looking at the sparkplug wires I decided to replace them so a new parts order ensued. The flexible hose that goes from the block to the hardline of the oil gauge needs replacing, and I ordered a new filter and o-rings for the oil filter.

I really feel like I'm getting closer to attempting to start this beast. I can't wait.

Sorry, no pictures right now. I have been working on Kristin's new website www.cruxcraft.com 
We're really proud of it and hope it does well.

That's it for now, cheers.

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.