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.

getting there...

Now that the holidays are nearly over I have had some time to blog about some of the work I have completed. I have the carbs nearly done. Somewhere in the process I lost the connecting rod that goes between the two carbs. Bruce is buying that for me along with some other bits and do-dads. Yeah! Thanks Dad. I have the gas tank re-installed. Here is a pic of the tank in the living room next to the Christmas tree. Yeah, I have a great wife.

I started some other work as well, draining the oil and finding upon refill that the valve cover gasket leaks like crazy; repairs the cooling system are going to involve a new branch pipe as well as hoses.

In leu of the leaking valve cover gasket, I have decided to change out as many gaskets as I can without tearing down the entire engine. So the tappet cover, water pump and everything around it, valve cover, and head cover plate,  are all getting new gaskets. As you might expect parts are on order. That seems to be a recurring theme.

I also checked compression and found all the cylinders have great compression!

The next step is getting the carbs on and the fuel pump mounted, getting the linkage to the carbs working well, and then tearing into the cooling system. I'm feeling really good about the kind of progress I'm making and unless I have a wicked setback we should be turning this baby over by spring as planned. Fingers crossed.

Wahooooo!

I've been waiting what seems like forever for my latest parts order to come in. So in the meantime I have been looking for stuff to do on the car without getting too far ahead of myself. I decided to see if the vacuum pots for the carbs would polish up. I took some metal polish and some 000 steel wool and went to town. They came out nice and still look original.


I also pulled the spark plugs, shot a little PB Blaster in each cylinder, removed the big steel tow bumper and gently cranked the engine with the manual crank. It turned freely! I am super excited that the engine is not seized, that means that there may not be a need to rebuild the engine. I am still planning to check the compression in each cylinder later.

Some other good news; I found a treasure trove of info on the internet this past week.
This link is to a very thorough restoration with tons of pictures
 http://www.dbraun99.com/mgtd15470/MG%20TD%2015470%20Restoration.html

And this link is to a bunch of videos on youtube dealing with MG stuff
http://www.youtube.com/profile?user=Universitymotorsltd#p/u/57/7GRAcqDySog

Very cool. Also, my parts will be arriving on Monday so I should be able to get the fuel system back together.

Making a little progress

Today I finally got to work on the MG. Over Thanksgiving break I decided to play outdoors climbing and mountain biking and give the MG a rest. This week I have been missing it; so today I wanted to get some stuff done.

I took a wire wheel to the rusty bits on the back of the gas tank and where the tank meets the body then treated it with some Eastwood rust converter and rust encapsulator. I didn't take pictures because it's an ugly fix and really temporary just to stop any active rust. Remember, this is just a revival of the MG not a restoration. Restoration will come much later.

I also took the carbs off, cleaned up the outside, then took one carb apart completely and it is now soaking in carb cleaner. The book I bought on SU carbs and pumps was a great help. I'm leaving one carb intact just in case I have a really hard time putting the other back together. I must confess that carburetors were one part of an engine that I just didn't "get." I know the principle of how they work but the tuning and rebuilding were beyond me. The SU seems like a carb I can really get into and learn. It's actually pretty simple. We'll see how well I do at putting everything back together and actually getting them to work. Could be famous last words. I also figured out how to put a fuel filter before the fuel pump. It will look quite out of place under the bonnet but after all this work on the carbs I really want to keep any crap from the tank I missed out of there.

I'm still waiting on my last big parts order to arrive but when it does I'll be able to really hammer this car back together. I still feel like I'm very much on track to having this beast running by spring. I can't wait to hear the engine run.

Just Bought A Bunch-O-Parts

Hopefully I have just purchased my last big parts order for the MG. These are the obvious things, carb rebuild kit, fuel pump rebuild kit, fan belt, water pump hoses, fuel sending unit, and lots of little do-dads. Holy Crap it adds up fast! With this last order I will be busy for months.

On a side note: Thanks Ross for offering to help rebuild some carbs. I'll bring a bribe of some sort.

Cheers
K

The Fuel System

The fuel tank is as clean as I can get it. I let it soak with a solution of muratic acid and water for about 24 hours then rinsed several times with water. A lot of crud came out and it looks really clean on the insides that I can see so I think it is in good shape. I blew out the line going from the pump to the tank and it was full of old bad gas. I  sprayed a lot of carb cleaner in there and it is sitting at the moment waiting to be blown out. I think I will put some kind of temporary inline disposable filter before the fuel pump to catch any initial crud that may be lingering.

I have also started on the fuel pump. It is disassembled and cleaned. Now I have a good idea what I will need to get for my next parts buy. I can't decide what color to paint the pump case, either black or red. I'll surf around and see what it was stock. Here is the pump before I took it apart for cleaning. I'm worried that I may get kinda bogged down with the carbs. I must confess that carburetors baffle me so I may enlist some help from others on that one. The SU carbs really intrigue me so I really want to learn how they work and how to tune them. 

The Tank is out.

I am totally on a roll. The gas tank virtually popped out tonight.

I am really quite amazed at what little resistance it put up. So far, very un-MG of it. I am pleased to report that the inside of the tank is not as bad as I feared. I removed about a quart of very old gas that really stank up the place. But upon removal of the sending unit I only saw some very mild surface rust and the expected glumps of varnish. Overall not bad. The tank is in great shape but I fear that the sending unit is pooched. The float doesn't move and the base is covered in some kind of  grey glop. I'll hit it with a little carb cleaner and if it frees up I can then get Bruce to help me test the circuitry to see if it can be salvaged.

The next step is cleaning the inside of the tank. I was thinking of using a tank sealer but after reading some other guys experience with it and seeing that the tank is baffled at least three times, I'm just going to clean it up and let it roll. I also have to somehow clean the fuel hardlines before tackling the SU carbs and fuel pump. I hope to get the tank cleaned this weekend. We'll see.

The Brakes are DONE!

Well, it took twice as long as I thought it would and about twice as much money, but the brakes on the MG are finally done! I think the thing that took so long was all the cleaning that needed to take place. The entire front axle was covered in a thick layer of grease and grime that was very stubborn. One interesting thing about that layer of goop, it protected the rubber on the suspension and kept it nice and soft. That's one less thing to replace right now. When I eventually dive into a full on restoration I'll replace all the bushings and rubber bits then.

So, here's what I did to the brakes:
rebuilt the master cylinder - cleaning it inside and out, then rust-proofing the outside
new wheel cylinders on the front, new shoes on the front
cleaned the brake backing plates front and back really well
rebuilt the rear wheel cylinders
replaced the emergency brake cables
I had to replace one of the front brake hard lines as it twisted and kinked in removal.
cleaned the brake drums really well
re-greased the bearings

So, what have I learned?
1. The MG will teach me patience. Frustration leads to stripped bolts and since all the bolts are whitworth I have to be very careful in removal of things. There's no running up to the hardware store for replacements.
2. PB Blaster is my friend. I soak everything the night before I am going to work on it and so far I have been able to remove everything with minimal fuss.
3. Whitworth tools are really expensive! So I went up to Harbor Freight and bought a cheap set of box wrenches and took my disc grinder to 'em. It's working pretty well for the open end stuff.


Next step, the fuel delivery system!

A labor of love...

So, how did I get here?

Well, this story begins with my father-in-law and a 1953 MG TD he bought around his first year of college in 1959. This car was and is his pride and joy. He drove the MG for years, got married and started having babies. Life happens and the car got parked in the garage. It was moved to a couple different states as the family moved around and driven occasionally until he took a job overseas. It was then that the car sat in the garage for years on end. I believe it sat untouched for about 16 years. About 6 years ago my wife and I got married. We have a wonderful blended family with 5 kids (but that's a story for another time.) Shortly after we were married, my in-laws moved to our area to be close to us and the kids. It's been great. The kids get to see their grandparents all the time and for me I have really gotten to know my in-laws very well and to love them a great deal. And when they moved, the MG moved too. So, this past year Bruce, my father-in-law, decided that the MG had sat long enough and he was going to get it running again. He knew that the brakes were shot so that's where he started and he purchased some parts. It was too hard. You see, working on a car in your garage with no lift can be grueling and painful. It hurt his back so that one afternoon turning wrenches left him with days of back pain. He got very frustrated and was ready to get rid of the car. I always thought his car was cool, but I was a Volkswagen guy and never had any interest in MGs. I had just "restored" a 1974 bug for my wife and I had a 1979 Westy camper bus that was wanting my attention but I could not let this car leave the family. My wife and her brother have many great memories of their family and this car. Dave, my wife's brother, lives overseas and has no where to put the car much less get it there. So, after a brief discussion we offered to "buy" the car. I use the quotation marks on buy because our offer was stupidly low but it was all we could do. Bruce sold/gave us the car. I could tell it was a painful time for him to finally part with his baby and the pictures of him as the car was leaving his garage tell the story of what he was feeling.

I believe that all the other cars I have ever worked on have in some way led me to this car. My sole purpose of buying this car and getting it running again is so that Bruce can drive it again. That's it. I love him like he is my father and just the thought of him driving his beloved MG again makes me well up.

I'm doing this blog for a few reasons:
1. I want to journal this experience for my kids.
2. It is a great way for me to share the experience with Dave so he can follow my progress.
3. It is a way for me to honor a man who means the world to me and how through his example has taught me so much.