Royce Burnett's Journal

I really fell behind updating this journal. Last entry was about finding seats, which I ended up recovering in leather last winter. After that, I was pretty well ready to go with the car and it is now resting in my shop, all sorted out and good to go. I've only put about 100 miles on the car since finishing it but that will change in short order.

I've acquired a couple more projects, one a 66, as well as a very early 1962 MGB, which I am really excited about. A friend in town had both of these cars on his mother's lot, and needed to get rid of them. I wasn't really looking to start another project, let alone 2 of them, but the price was right and the beer tasted good, so here we go again! Lots of small differences between the last project and the 62 which I am focusing on now. It seems very complete, but I am pretty sure it does not have the original engine which is a bit of a bummer but comes with a lot of spare bits from early cars.

I happened across a local Kijiji ad last week for some seats from a 67 MGBGT that a fellow had, of course I followed this up immediately since I do not have proper MGB seats. It ended up that Mark from Speedworld was the seller, and for those of you that don't know, Mark had published an extensive blog on putting a Jag V-12 in his GT for a race car. I think one can find it by looking thru the Engine swaps forum. Fascinating read, and a great guy to boot as it turns out.

The seats are in pretty tough shape but I'm in no real hurry, so I've treated them with Lexol just to see what happens. If they loosen up, great; if they don't, then at least I've got some suitable frames to rebuild.

Douglas had requested some pictures of the homebuilt rotisserie, so here we go.

The first picture shows the attachment for the front of the car, you can see the 2 plates that bolt to a RB bumper attachment. The arm rotates on a 2.5 OD pipe welded thru a 1/2" plate, I could have welded more of the pieces together but ya never know what vehicle its going to be bolted to in the future so thought I would leave some room for flexibility. We had to turn the 2.5 OD pipe down a bit to fit thru the outer pipe, it was too tight to rotate before that.

2nd and 3rd picture shows a different angle of the front mount.

Pic 4 shows the rear mount, it looks a bit complex but its basically the front mount with an extra piece of rectangular tubing that I had laying around to fill in between the swing arm and the car. Had 2 wooden blocks bolted thru the tubing and the RB bumper holes. There is two 1/2 inch bits bolted on the same tube so Icould lift the rear end of the car to attach the rotisserie mount to the car. Worked slick with my old chain hoist.

Pic 5 shows the worm drive off a boat winch I picked up, it worked very well for turning the car and holding it at any angle. It was a bit finicky to get mounted and if I was making another one I would be a lot more careful with my measurements when putting this part together.

Both mounts are just made out of some steel tubing, all 3/16 wall thickness. Other plans I'd looked at insisted that one uses trailer hitch material so it fits nice and tightly inside each other, but I didn't worry about that, I figured it could be shimmed with some long strips on 2 of the four sides of the uprights, and it worked great, no slop while lifting with the jacks.

Its not a perfect system but it worked great for me and should be flexible enough to mount to other vehcles if I ever get this one out of my shop.

been a long time since I've bothered to make a post in the journal, so I've a fair amount of catching up to do.

New fuel tank in.
New plumbing and wiring under the car, went with a #2 positive cable to starter, some difficulties encountered getting all this stuff to run in the channel. Easily the worst job I've had on this car and not that enthralled with the finished job, however its there and it will work.
New handbrake cable installed.
New main wiring harness installed.
Master and clutch master cylinders cleaned up and installed. Hope they don't leak.
Heater box refurbed and put back in.
Carbon filter refurbed and replaced.
A matched set of used leaf springs obtained, refurbed, and rear end assembled with new fibre washers and replaced. New rear brakes and wheel cylinders, drums were good.
Used dashboard from Jim K obtained, all gauges cleaned up and transferred to dash. Fixed a number of crap wires in dash harness, still have a couple of light bulbs to find replacements for. Also need a nut for the dimmer rheostat.
Fixed up all the heater/vent control mechanisms, operating smoothly now.
Refurbed light switch.
Front suspension rebuilt with new kingpin bushings and new kingpins. All new rubber bits.
Steering gear installed, made new shims to correct mounting angle for CB crossmember conversion. New LH engine mount installed, but expect to have to remove steering gear again when engine goes in.
Waiting for new calipers for front brakes, managed to twist off both bleed screws on original ones so enough messing about there.
Sanded and polished cowl area, paint looks real good.
Installed new wheelboxes for wipers, and new fittings on cowl.
Installed new cowl seal on windshield frame, only took about 20 minutes! Installed frame to car, only another 30 minutes! dunno if I could get that lucky again.

Car is really starting to look like something again and my pile of Moss parts is dwindling.

Finally got the car painted as you can see, I'm now in the process of getting the CB crossmember in place and the steering rack sorted out.

Painting is really a pain.. I enjoyed doing it tremendously as it is such a satisfying thing to see it go on so smooth ( for the most part).. but then one must deal with the mistakes which are so very easily made and much much harder to correct. I've had enough of that for a bit, time to get on with assembly of components ( and, no doubt, more cleaning and painting of various bits!)

Spent a couple of precious fine fall days getting everything finished up with the chrome bumper conversion. I'd ordered some SPI Epoxy primer some time ago, and last night I finished laying a couple of coats on the car.