The Webmaster Zone

New Membership Payment System

Mon, 19 Apr 2021 15:42:03 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Hi everyone, Very glad to announce, after many weeks of work, that the all new membership payment system is up and running! [b]Click on the "My Account" menu at the top of the page, then select any of the Supporting Membership options.[/b] [b]Key features:[/b] 1. Credit cards are accepted directly through the Stripe payment processor. [b]No more PayPal.[/b] (Existing Paypal membership subscriptions will continue to work until cancelled.) 2. New 3, 6, and 12 month subscription options instead of only annually. 3. One click billing/card updates and easy subscription cancellation right from the Membership page. 4. All membership payment and management functions now work on smartphones and tablets too. If you have any questions or comments, please click "Contact Support" at the bottom of any page. Regards, Skye Nott Webmaster, Autoshrine.com

<My Account - Buy a Supporting Membership screenshot>

Posted 2021-04-19 15:42:03 by Skye Nott

Large Image & Video Embed Test

Thu, 18 Apr 2019 13:21:07 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Original 3264x2448 - bug fixed, all images were being resized to 500px, now correctly resized to 700px for Free and Silver members, 800px for Gold and Platinum members. Video test: [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slLgS6xJtgI[/video]

<IMG 3126 fixed>

Posted 2019-04-18 13:21:07 by Skye Nott

New Secure Web Server Is Online

Thu, 22 Feb 2018 15:06:12 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Update - Tuesday Feb 27 The web servers was down from 10:00pm to 1:30am for maintenance which took much longer than expected. Normal operation has resumed, sorry for the delay. [hr] [b]KNOWN ISSUES[/b] The following bugs are being worked on right now, no need to report them again: [b]Delivery to yahoo.com and verizon email addresses is slow[/b] - looks ok now [s]member and events map broken[/s] fixed [s]attaching images to forum posts error[/s] fixed [s]uploading images to registry/profile error[/s] fixed [s]Cannot post in the forums[/s] fixed [s]Forum smilies not showing[/s] fixed [hr] Hello, On Wednesday Feb 22 at 2:20 PM Pacific Time, the main front-end web server for this website and all the websites in the [url=http://www.autoshrine.com/]AutoShrine Network[/url] went down. Technicians were dispatched, but the server would no longer power on, probably due to a motherboard or power supply failure. This was just one of five servers that serve this website to millions of visitors. There have been intermittent problems with this particular machine for a while - I was planning on replacing it next month. No data was lost, as I had already moved the database to a new machine several months ago. I've been working long days since it went down to restore service as quickly as possible. Since I had to build a new front-end web server from scratch anyway, I've taken this opportunity to upgrade the underlying technology to improve security and add features. The new server is also more fault tolerant. One major improvement is the new web server supports encryption. No more warnings about insecure passwords when you sign in, and it allows me to add new payment technology to the website. Your web browser should now indicate "Secure" or show a lock icon to indicate this website is encrypted. All old, insecure links should be automatically redirected to the new secure pages. Since many components of the web server have changed, there may be new bugs, broken features, or performance issues. It's going to take a few weeks to get everything back to normal. [b]If you paid for a Supporting Membership between Wednesday Feb 20 and Thursday Feb 22, please check your Home Page and Payment History to verify they were processed properly.[/b] (both can be found under the "My Account" menu in the black navigation bar across the top of the website) If you find anything on the website is not working the way it was before, please open a support ticket by clicking "Website problem? [b]Send us a message[/b]" at the bottom of any page. Thanks for your patience, Skye Nott Webmaster

Posted 2018-02-22 15:06:12 by Skye Nott

Back Online After Database Failure

Tue, 05 Dec 2017 10:59:14 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Hello everyone, Due to a complete failure of the database server, we went down yesterday at about 4PM Pacific Time. With a bit of ingenuity and a bit of luck, I was able to recover all data and provisioned a new server overnight. Everything should be working normally now, with no posts or other data lost. Ironically, it happened while I was working on a better system to back up the database. Thank you for your patience. Skye Nott Webmaster

Posted 2017-12-05 10:59:14 by Skye Nott

Private Message Limits Increased

Sun, 02 Apr 2017 15:29:12 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Hello everyone, Now that the database upgrade is nearing completion, and I finally have the ability to do "hot backups" without taking the website offline for maintenance, I'd like to give everyone a little bonus. Effective immediately, all Private Message (PM) storage limits are now doubled Free Members: 500 -> 1,000 Silver Members: 750 -> 1,500 Gold Members: 1,000 -> 2,000 Platinum Members: 1,500 -> 3,000 Hope this makes everyone's life a little easier, especially for you vendors out there that use PMs a lot! Thanks for your support, Skye Nott Webmaster

Posted 2017-04-02 15:29:12 by Skye Nott

Next Database Upgrade Feb 17 2017

Thu, 09 Feb 2017 15:53:24 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

The new database servers are performing well under load, so I'll be continuing the database conversion process to the new layout for all websites, which will pave the way for better replication and backup systems. Please expect to see the "Scheduled maintenance" message on Friday night, February 17, 2017 starting at 9:00 PM Pacific time. I expect the work to take 4-6 hours as I want to take a full backup of the system for safety before making any changes. Once the websites are back up, there should be no visible difference in the operation or performance of the website. Schedule: Jan 4 - HealeyExp, CycleKart, all non-forum tables (all sites) Feb 10 - TriumphExp forums (posts, attachments, search db) Feb 17 (planned) - MGExp forums, all other website forums Thanks, Skye Nott Webmaster [url=http://www.autoshrine.com/]AutoShrine.com[/url]

Posted 2017-02-09 15:53:24 by Skye Nott

Emergency Database Upgrade & What's Next

Wed, 04 Jan 2017 20:41:25 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Hello everyone, You've probably noticed that this website has had some unplanned downtime lately. I'm not sure about the exact cause, it's probably an intermittent hardware failure as the techs keep finding the main server powered off at the console. I've been rebooting and repairing the database as needed to keep things running, while making plans to transition to brand new servers with updated database, webserver, and firewall software. The good news is I've already run the migration plan on some of my smaller websites, and it's working brilliantly. The bad news is that the frequency of crashes on the old server seem to be increasing, so I'm going to have to accelerate the transition schedule for all the websites and do a lot of the changes, well, right now. That's what all the downtime today (Jan 4) has been about. By the time you're reading this, the website will be running off new transactional database servers - which means no more biweekly downtime to do backups, better security, stability, replication support, and better support for new features in the future. This is only the first, but probably the biggest, step in the plan to update the hardware & software platform this website runs on. [b]Unfortunately due to the emergency database move, I haven't been able to fully test compatibility and scaling. There may be some bugs or slowness to iron out over the next few days. If you encounter a bug or error message, please copy the error message and email me with a description of what you were doing. There's a link to email me (the webmaster) at the bottom of every page.[/b] A little bit of background about me, and this website, as I tend to operate behind the scenes: This website is part of the [url=http://www.autoshrine.com/]AutoShrine Network[/url], a group of 20+ auto enthusiast websites that I've created over the last 10 years that now serves 2.5 million pageviews to 250,000 unique visitors every month and is completely free to access. I wrote most of the code from scratch (I used to be a software engineer) and I'm the sole owner and operator of the whole operation. You may not know that many car forums on the Internet are owned by two large corporations, both of which have approached me with offers, but I turned them down as I don't believe they would deliver the same kind of quality online club experience for you. In addition to webmaster duties, coding new features, html/css/javascript design for desktops, tablets, and smartphones, and sysadmin duties like provisioning servers, creating backup plans, security, monitoring, and system upgrades, I also provide personal support to 80,000+ registered members, review edit and publish calendar events, review edit and publish tech articles in the library, manage all the social media pages for each site (80+ feeds), and moderate the forums. That's the short list. It's often more than a full time job, and I've been on call 24/7 for years, but I'm very happy to provide something that useful to so many people and keeps so many cool old cars (and karts and trucks and scooters) on the road. I thank all of you for your contributions whether it's posting answers to question or financial support, and I promise to continue to provide access to all features and information on this website, to anyone in the world, without charge. I can provide the platform, but it's YOU that makes this a community. If you haven't already, please consider becoming a [url=http://%HTTP_HOST%/membership]Supporting Member[/url]. 100% of proceeds go towards operating and improving this website. The new database servers alone cost an additional $300/month. I've got great plans for new and improved features in 2017, and I'd love to be able to contract out some work - like finishing writing the Help Topics, and catching up on editing tech library articles - so I can focus on the big stuff. But for the next few months, it's going to be all about finishing the new servers & software platform! Thanks in advance for your patience through this upgrade process. Skye Nott Webmaster

Posted 2017-01-04 20:41:25 by Skye Nott

Testing New Photo Manager

Wed, 11 Nov 2015 14:19:23 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Not much to say... just testing the brand new image uploader system on The MG Experience and making sure it works well for journal posts! Note: latest journal posts are now listed in the "Journals" navigation menu bar

<halloween mechanics>

Posted 2015-11-11 14:19:23 by Skye Nott

Testing 123

Thu, 13 Mar 2014 12:47:31 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Another test.... edit test 2

<Ben Hetland 1979 Datsun 210 Rally>

<fuji xe1 092>

Posted 2014-03-13 12:47:31 by Skye Nott

Testing Newlines

Wed, 15 Jan 2014 12:48:09 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Testing new storage of newlines: 1. first item 2. second item 3. third This is a postscript. Goodbye! Edited with another line. Edited with new modified/touched...

Posted 2014-01-15 12:48:09 by Skye Nott

Server Migration Complete!

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 05:45:24 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Looks like everything went well, holy smokes the new hardware is fast!!

Posted 2012-12-08 05:45:24 by Skye Nott

NEW SITE: The Mini Shrine

Thu, 28 Apr 2011 13:34:09 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Relaunch! For Classic Mini (Austin, Rover, Morris) and New MINI (BMW) Owners:

http://www.minishrine.com/

Follow us on Twitter for the latest updates:

http://www.twitter.com/MiniShrine

"Like" us Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Mini-Shrine/151769508169112

Stop by and say hello in the Forums, add to the Registry, or start a restoration & repair Journal.

<The Mini Shrine>

Posted 2011-04-28 13:34:09 by Skye Nott

NEW SITE: The Austin-Healey Experience

Tue, 26 Apr 2011 16:02:39 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

For all 3000, 100, 100-Six and Sprite Owners:

http://www.healeyexperience.com/

Follow us on Twitter for the latest updates:

http://twitter.com/healeyexp

"Like" us Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Austin-Healey-Experience/158219524238296

Stop by and say hello in the Forums, add to the Registry, or start a restoration & repair Journal.

<The Austin-Healey Experience>

Posted 2011-04-26 16:02:39 by Skye Nott

Video Test

Mon, 28 Mar 2011 13:26:57 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Does embedded video work?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GRAcqDySog[/video]

Posted 2011-03-28 13:26:57 by Skye Nott

Mail List Archives

Wed, 29 Sep 2010 22:14:15 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Now online, archives of public auto related mail lists here:

Miata List Archives: http://www.mx5world.com/phorum/index.php?9

Triumph List Archives: http://www.triumphexperience.com/phorum/index.php?12

This is a pilot project, if they're useful I'll put more of the archives I've collected online.

Posted 2010-09-29 22:14:15 by Skye Nott

Finally... A Workshop

Thu, 27 May 2010 11:19:18 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Living downtown, it's not easy to do any work on my car & bike projects, so I finally took the plunge and ordered a 600 sq ft steel building to go on the family "back 40" up near Merritt. It's about a 3 hour drive from home, and it won't have any utilities for a while, but it's a start. Right now there's just an old shack with no running water up there, but at least it has electricity.

At least I can get the boxes of MGB parts on the right side of the border this year, and maybe pick up my old engine & transmission, if I can track them down.

Posted 2010-05-27 11:19:18 by Skye Nott

Large Photo Upload Test

Wed, 26 May 2010 18:27:58 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Some users are reporting problems uploading photos, so this is just a test post to see if I've fixed the issue. Update: seems to work fine. The original image below was 7.7MB and I've updated the upload limit to 10MB (which gets resized down based on your membership level) :D

<Autumn in Vancouver's West End>

<4mb galaxy png>

<1mb spitfire bmp>

Posted 2010-05-26 18:27:58 by Skye Nott

Nice Improvement

Wed, 14 May 2008 19:39:27 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Got the car back from the garage today, my guess was right - the injector o-rings were shot and must have been leaking like hell. The car feels like twice as fast. I need to get it out on the highway to see if it fixed the overrun problem too. Feeling a lot more confident for the trip to Oregon in a couple weeks.

Finally got some nice weather so I picked up some 1/8 vac tee fittings and plumbed the boost gauge into a fresh 10cm x 3.5mm FPR line, reading 15 inHg vac at idle and about 5 psi when I floor it in neutral. Living downtown it might be a while before I can open it up on the road and see what the max boost really is. My neon orange 3.5mm vac line from Hose Techniques kinda rules, I'll have to go and replace everything now.

Got a bunch of PVC fittings at Home Depot for building a pressure tester and an old valve stem from my local shop. I'll take lots of pics and do a write-up after I pressure test my system.

Posted 2008-05-14 19:39:27 by Skye Nott

Spring Cleaning On The Corrado

Tue, 13 May 2008 20:31:29 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Finally getting around to a lot of stuff I've been meaning to do. Taking it into the shop for new injector o-rings tomorrow, hopefully that will fix the overrun problem. Either that or a bad vac line somewhere? Started on the boost gauge install and carbon canister delete. Need to tee into the FPR hose to get a proper reading, just got to find my hose supplies box around here... Finished upgrading wiper springs to some generic cot springs. Will report if they finally fix the "crappy wipers" problem. Taking some pics for an article. I want to install my E-codes and Eurowires harness before the Oregon camping trip too. Supposed to have some good weather this weekend so I guess I'll be out back in the alley working on the car with the binners!

<Eurowire C2 euro headlight relay kit>

Posted 2008-05-13 20:31:29 by Skye Nott

1966 Project Tub Acquired!!

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 01:00:16 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Thanks to the amazing help of fellow members Dick Price (morbach) and Chris Roop, the tub I posted about in my last entry has been retrieved from Portland and is now in storage in Pendleton awaiting pickup. All for the price of gas money to Portland and back!!!

Karma is a funny thing, maybe this makes up for me being jerked around so much by shady bodywork guys over the years. I better knock on wood, this tub needs some finishing welding. I think I'll just buy a little MIG welder and do it myself...

Best wishes to Chris, he just had emergency heart surgery. He's a pillar of our little online community and we wish him a speedy recovery.

Quoting Dick: "Your MG is at my home for the time being, it's almost the whole car missing both front wings, rearend and windscreen, there is only one seat." - sounds great!

Posted 2007-12-19 01:00:16 by Skye Nott

Trying To Get Another MGB Tub

Fri, 14 Dec 2007 17:59:49 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Got a line on a mostly complete 1966 tub in Portland, just trying to arrange for someone to grab it for me until I can pick it up in early January. Could this be the start of the resurrection? The price can't be beat....

<tub>	<tank>	<engine>
<wiring>

Posted 2007-12-14 17:59:49 by Skye Nott

Ouch... Corrado Holiday Parts Bonanza

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 23:51:35 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Well the fuel pump is making those awful whining noises again, I guess its probably going to croak soon. I really don't want to get stranded somewhere this winter (even though I'd like to get my money's worth with BCAA... hmm...) so I went ahead and ordered a replacement.

I've got an early 1990 so I have the in-tank and the external transfer pump, oh joy. I just about had a heart attack when I saw the prices (around $300-325). Google to the rescue, I found the Airtex E8030 is a replacement for the OEM Bosch. Doing a search for the part number turned it up for $207 - not bad, $100+ saved. I verified the fitment for my VIN on Airtex's site so should be no problem. A couple of times I've felt a hesitation on throttle so I hope my original pump holds out until we pick up the new one just before NYE.

Just in case my Visa wasn't full enough from the holidays and the fuel pump, I went ahead and ordered a rebuilt ISV too for $180. I've probably bought about 5 ISVs from various junkyards and they're always fooked, let's see if a proper clean one (on my nice rebuilt and clean engine) will actually give me a low steady idle for a change. I'm tired of the surging idle, or high RPMs, or occasional stall from the damn things.

Tomorrow I think I'll finally have a stab at modifying my 3-bar badgeless FK grille to fit my G60. Damn tabs are set for the SLC so I'll have to cut them out and re-glue them, should be fun.

<Everyone loves the ISV!>

<Airtex E8030 external fuel pump>

Posted 2007-12-10 23:51:35 by Skye Nott

Checking Out MGB For Sale Near Seattle

Sun, 20 May 2007 22:10:07 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

A member from the boards forwarded a Craigslist ad to me for a good running MGB project car in the Seattle area. It's about the right price, and the right year, and the right colour - I must say I'm tempted.

I've got most of the parts to make this car original again.

I'm going to go look at it next week on our way back from camping in Oregon. I think I've got enough money now that the cheques from my contracting work are coming in, now where would I park it??

<MGB 1.jpg>	<MGB 2.jpg>	<MGB 3.jpg>
<MGB 4.jpg>	<MGB 5.jpg>	<MGB 6.jpg>
<MGB 7.jpg>	<MGB 8.jpg>

Posted 2007-05-20 22:10:07 by Skye Nott

Engine & OD Trans Located!

Thu, 08 Feb 2007 13:53:30 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Just got off the phone with CB (formerly of British Sports & Spares) and he does indeed still have my engine and OD transmission. Yay! I'm coordinating with a friend in Seattle to pick them up next week sometime. He's also my engine rebuilder so I can get him started on that, if I can convince him to work on something as asthmatic as a B-series engine (he mostly builds engines for rally and motorsport).

Now to find an early roller tub, probably better and more likely than finding my original bodyshell at this point, and we're really in business.

Even with a different body shell, so many of the parts would be the same that I would still consider it the same car. I guess this is a philosophical point that all major restorations deal with - if you replace all the timbers in a tall ship is it the same ship? Not to mention, all the trim that would be replaced anyway.

Well it would have the same VIN tag at least!

Posted 2007-02-08 13:53:30 by Skye Nott

My MGB - Lost Cause? Trying One Last Time.

Tue, 30 Jan 2007 14:03:29 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

I got the email about Gary's Run and I got inspired to make another "push" in trying to track down the shysters that have bits and pieces of my MGB. So far, not so good. I just tried calling "British Sports & Spares" in Tacoma, WA and the number has been disconnected. I know "CB" had some health issues but I have no idea what's going on and now of course I'm back in Vancouver. He has my engine and my OD trans. The body tub, front crossmember, rear axle and a big box of other parts is with Joe Aros, formerly of VIP Auto Restoration and/or Buffalo Restorations in Puyallup. He no longer works for Buffalo and none of my contact information seems to work anymore. Last I heard he had moved somewhere near the 512 in Parkland (near Tacoma). If anyone has any leads please let me know. I should probably just let it go - the body tub is in terrible shape and I'm sure tons of parts will be missing by now. It's likely a lost cause and I should just start again with a rust-free driver. However it was the first car I ever bought and sentimentality is never rational! Skye

Posted 2007-01-30 14:03:29 by Skye Nott

Testing New Journal Site System

Sat, 22 Jul 2006 11:42:55 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Just testing - please ignore.

<insp_captkirk.png>

<Another test image>

<Bigger image test>

Posted 2006-07-22 11:42:55 by Skye Nott

New AutoShrine Site - NW Corrado Club

Tue, 18 Apr 2006 16:40:02 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Spent the last few days tweaking the code to be truly car-site independant, and put it to the test by launching the first new site with the same code-base as The MGB Experience. The AutoShrine Network now has two sites!!

Check it out:

[url=http://www.nwcorrado.com/]www.nwcorrado.com[/url]

<screenshot-corrado.jpg>

Posted 2006-04-18 16:40:02 by Skye Nott

New Mgb Experience Website Launched

Thu, 28 Jul 2005 02:31:53 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

I've been backpacking around New Zealand for the last 8 months, and when the weather's been bad or we've been stuck somewhere for a few days, I take out the laptop and bang away on various projects. A few hundred hours of work later and voila, the new MGB Experience website! Hope you like it.

A full description of all the new features is available from the "What's New" page on the front of the site.

If you'd like to see some photos from our trip, have a look at [url=http://www.sauceonrice.com/gallery/nz05]Skye's NZ05 Gallery[/url]

Enjoy!!!

<Writing the new website in the van in NZ...>

<Testing new file upload code.>

Posted 2005-07-28 02:31:53 by Skye Nott

Hmmmm

Mon, 09 Feb 2004 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Now its Feb 9 and as far as I know, no progress. I say as far as I know, becuase no calls from the bodywork guy and he has his answering machine turned off. Considering he's had the car since June 1, 2002 (20 months) and its still not even close to painted, I think this is getting a bit ridiculous. I've changed the front page picture back to a picture I took on a nice summer drive shortly after I got the car, to lift my spirits!

Update: Went down to the shop last night and had an amicable chat with the bodyman. He needs to resolve some issues (possibly losing his lease on his shop) this Saturday, so either I get a signed contract listing deliverables and dates by Monday, or I will put the suspension back on the car and tow it away next week. I'm reasonably certain I could finish the work myself in a month or two, if it comes to that.

Update 2: Have a signed contract now, and the B is back in the rotisserie as of yesterday. Will the bodywork be done by May 1st as promised? Guess we'll see!

Update 3: Not done yet. What a suprise.

Posted 2004-02-09 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

More setbacks

Fri, 01 Aug 2003 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

The new estimate from the body guy is the car will be finished and painted by Jan 1. I should have my rally car and street car finished by then, so I should be able to put it together fairly quickly once I get it back. But its been so long I hope I can remember where all these parts go. Good thing I put all the nuts/bolts/little bits in ziplocks and labelled them during disassembly!

Posted 2003-08-01 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Back on track

Thu, 03 Apr 2003 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Floors are welded back in, and so is the new trunk floor. Right now the trumpet sections under the front fenders are being reworked. The pace is starting to pick back up, I'll get some new pictures as soon as I can.

Posted 2003-04-03 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

No news..

Thu, 27 Feb 2003 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Not a lot of progress to report I'm afraid. I'm not one to sit idle though, so while I've been waiting for the MGB bodywork and paint to be finished, I've been working hard on [url=http://www.rallyrace.net/]building a rally car[/url]!

Posted 2003-02-27 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Back from the Sandblaster

Sun, 15 Dec 2002 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

No regrets! That's become the philosphy of this restoration. Since Joe has access to some great donor shells, we're leaving no "while we're at it" left undone. The end result will be a car at least as good if not better than when it rolled out of the factory at Abingdon in 1965.

Unfortunately, all the previous work that was done by Bryce Mack in White Rock BC has turned out to be done so poorly as to be incompetent at best, and a serious safety issue. As such I would like to publicly apologize to anyone that used his services based on my recommendation. Check out especially the pictures of the trumpet sections, doglegs, rear sills and floor pans. The metal that the new pieces were welded to previously were either too deteriorated, not cleaned properly or not welded well, so they're all being redone - that's the sound of many thousands of dollars being flushed down the toilet! Live and learn, I guess. A lot of the welds you can pop apart with a screwdriver, as Joe keeps telling me "it's a good thing you weren't in an accident with it like this". Over the last year I have been contacted by several other people that have had the same experience - after getting the car back it was one of the worst repair jobs they had ever seen - some have been able to get partial refunds, but I have not pursued that option yet.

One of these customers who had poor work done on his MG wrote an article on his experience which is currently being distributed to all MG clubs in North America. He emailed it to me and asked me to post it on my site. It is titled [url=/misc/mg-too-far.html]An MG Too Far[/url] and you can read it by clicking on the link.

The sandblasted shell is really lovely and makes for a good starting point to build up the car RIGHT. You'll also notice that the engine bay is shiny compared to the rest of the car, it's already had a coat of POR-15 laid down. Extensive anti-rust treatment will be applied to the car as it comes back together.

With the new "might as well" fabrication, deciding to go over all the welding, and a few other odds and ends (like filling in the 6x9 speaker holes), the revised start-painting date is Feb 1st. Suprisingly, the additional cost is not that much - NOW is the time to do these things, when the car is 100% apart and bare metal. Joe has built a paint booth at the back of the shop and the results on the "test car", which was done in black, look superb.

<vip-200.jpg>	<vip-209.jpg>	<vip-201.jpg>
<vip-202.jpg>	<vip-203.jpg>	<vip-204.jpg>
<vip-205.jpg>	<vip-206.jpg>	<vip-207.jpg>
<vip-208.jpg>

Posted 2002-12-15 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Gauge Renovation

Sun, 20 Oct 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Not much else to do, so I'm starting work on the dash. The only gauge I hadn't renovated was the dual coolant temperature & oil pressure gauge because you have to disconnect the oil and water lines to draw the back of the gauge off. Now that the dash is out of the car though, it was easy. Three small screws each hold the separate gauge mechanisms to the side of the housing. I can then be very carefully drawn away. Then I masked off the housing and painted the inside high gloss white, like I had done to the rest of my gauges. After this treatment the night visibility of the gauges is way better (ie readable). I discarded the translucent blue filter ring for the same reason, since the blue can be easily reproduced by painting the instrument bulbs. After assembly, I calibrated the temperature readings - click on the pictures for details.

Posted 2002-10-20 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Autumn Cleaning

Tue, 24 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

I'm cleaning the cobwebs out of all the corners of this web site, and converting all the pages to my new snazzy format. The end results is, I'm getting rid of a lot of bad links, reorganizing things more logically, and renaming everything consistently. As an added bonus, with all the automation I'm adding (CSS and PHP for you techies out there), it will be much easier for me to add new articles and control the look & feel in the future. I've already added some new articles, look for "Changing Wheels" below, and I've also added a bunch of performance data to the "MGB Specification" page. Also, the BBS will soon be about 100x faster when loading after I switch to the new server hardware. I've got some big plans for this site over the Fall and Winter, so stay tuned!

Posted 2002-09-24 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Halfway Point!!

Tue, 03 Sep 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Spent Labour Day finishing up the teardown, disconnected the steering column, then removed the whole front and rear suspensions from the tub and hit them with a pressure washer to clean off the grime. Joe had to fabricate some mounting plates for the car since I didn't leave on the front bumper bracket, so we didn't get it on the rotisserie, but it's mounted as of today. I also removed a few more bits and pieces from the car after consulting the "restoration bible", aka "Original MGB", and making a careful list of all the pieces that are supposed to be painted black, not body colour. Joe can go full-bore on the bodywork now, and we expect it to be ready for paint in 60-90 days! At this point I don't have anything more to do on the car until its painted and its time to put the suspension back on. Just got an update, the bottom of the car doesn't look too bad, so that's good. The whole unibody gets sandblasted on the rotisserie this week.

Also got some more news on the engine, turns out the machine shop got mixed up, my block is already 40 thou overbored and so I've decided to go with a new block (not very expensive), instead of flirting with disaster by going 60 thou over. The engine mods I'm having done (see below for the list) are carefully selected to increase mid-range power while preserving reliability and street drivability. From what I've read in the excellent "How to Power Tune the MGB". I'm expecting to get about 75 bhp at the wheels (15% gain from ~65 stock) after finishing tuning on a rolling road.

<Here I'm about to disconnect the steering column. All you have to do is loosen the clamp bolt closest to the firewall and separate it a bit, and you can fairly easily drift it apart. Just remember to scribe a mark for lining it back up. Mind the column>	<Art shot!! B lurking in the shadows...>	<It's amazing how light the tub is when it's completely bare. Supported only by the engine hoist here. Disconnected rear suspension in the background, removed as a whole unit after disconnecting brake lines and handbrake cable. Visible under the car are>
<Bonnet locking platform will be replaced, the car was in a pretty bad front-end accident some time before I bought it, and the welds barely visible at either end of the platform are ugly. Original GN.25 green paint showing through in many places now.>	<Getting ready to attach the front end to the rotisserie>

Posted 2002-09-03 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Update V

Sun, 28 Jul 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Just got off the phone with my engine rebuilder. The engine is apart now and down at the machine shop, how exciting! No cylinder gouges. It has never been overbored, amazing. Big ridge at the top of the cyls, of course. Probably end up with a .020 overbore. I'm planning on going with a reground 262/262 cam and lightening the flywheel by 4 lbs (22 to 18 lbs), with some mild port & polish, for a little more kick. 3 angle valve grind. After its broken in I'll definately be heading for the nearest dyno and post the results.

I've decided to go with powdercoating for most of the black bits on the car, I'll post the list of all the parts I'm having done soon.

Posted 2002-07-28 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Update IV

Sat, 13 Jul 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

This is my third trip down to the shop of Joe Aros' "VIP Auto Restorations" to finish the teardown, and now the car really is a rolling shell. I got a new digital camera, so the pictures are much much better than before. Just click on the thumbnails to see how things went, captions are below the full size pictues. (I'll have the thumbnails up shortly) At this point, all that needs to be done to get it on the rotisserie (aka body rotator) is to take off the four nuts holding the crossmember to the body, disconnect the u-joint in the steering column, and disconnect the four bolts holding the leaf springs to the body. The tub can then be lifted right off.

My engine rebuild is being handled by CB at "British Sports & Spares". The transmission is working fine, so it's just geting a good cleaning and some new seals. The engine gets a total rebuild though, stripped down to the bare block, tanked, bored, everthing blueprinted and balanced. The head is getting the unleaded conversion with Stellite valves and a 3-angle grind. The camshaft will be re-profiled to a slightly hotter "fast road" spec. The flywheel will be lightened by a few pounds, and last but not least the head and manifolds will be ported and polished. These modifications were chosen to provide a good solid street engine that is easy to live with but has a little more poop than the stock specs. Stock 8.8:1 CR is being retained. I already have free-flow K&N air filters, the stock exhaust manifold will be kept (ported and hi-temp powdercoating) as the early manifold is actually pretty good. I will probaby fit the ANSA twin tip exhaust when the car is done, and of course richer needles in the twin SU HS4s. If you're interested in modding your engine, I highly recommend the book "How to Power Tune the MGB" by Peter Burgess. Its very important that you look at the engine with the intake and exhaust as a system, rather than just changing one thing and hoping it will increase performance. I will post dyno numbers when the car is complete, early next year...

Enough talk, on with the pictures!

<Its nice to have some nice weather to work on the car outside. Fenders and doors are off, to the left is a pile of scrap including the fender that isn't worth saving, to the right is one of the doors sans door skin and the front valence that might be fix>	<Close-up of the door shell without the skin and the front valence which may be repairable... we have the new door skins now, so they should be on soon. Joe does a perfect factory-style fold & weld with the new skins.>	<Scrap. I pulled the door handles off (one screw, one nut) but the locks are frozen so they go to the junk heap. I'll probably get a whole new key set anyway, as I currently have a key for the ignition, a key for the trunk and a key for the glovebox!>
<Joe replaced the entire rear quarterpanel from near the hook for the soft top, down to where the dogleg attaches to the sills, and back around to the gas filler hole. The previous repair work was crap, the new metal that was put in was not welded to anyt>	<Time to dive in and start taking stuff apart. Out came the pedals, then the clutch and brake master cylinders as a unit with the bracket. Drilled out some stripped screws and removed the hi/low beam foot switch and the gas pedal stop, and the washer flui>	<Brake fluid really does a number on the bodywork. Looks like the car was never painted behind the heater, not suprising. Next comes the removal of the fuel line, pump and tank. At this point the front of the car is totally bare.>
<All sorts of crud in the heater, I'm sure it hasn't been cleaned in ages, maybe never. I'll backflush the heater core, strip all the old paint off, and reassemble with all new seals and repaint. There's several layers of paint on the box, you can barely>	<The pedals and MCs that I pulled earlier. Everything needs to be cleaned and painted. The MC's are being tossed and replaced. The early MC's are cheap and I don't want to take any chance of dumping brake fluid on the new paint when it's done. Actually>	<Off comes the handbrake lever. One of the screws was stripped, almost all the large phillips and pozidrive screws are stripped on this car. Apparently it was too much effort for the DPO to use the right sized screwdriver. You can see the beautiful fibre>
<Rear end sans gas tank. The tank has a little rust near the back, but looks solid and clean inside so I think I can restore it rather than replacing. Some of the bolts are undone from the top inside the boot, some from the bottom. I put a second jack un>

Posted 2002-07-13 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Update III

Sat, 01 Jun 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Got up early today and finished off the last few things, removed the remaining rear wiring harness, the driveshaft (always a greasy job), speedo cable, starter and O/D wiring. Finished just in time to help load up the car, its on its way to the bodyshop as I write! Front & rear suspension, parking brake assy, steering, door and hood latches, brake clutch and fuel lines, brake and clutch master cyls, gas brake and clutch pedals, exhaust assy, stripped engine and trans remain in the car. Not sure yet if I'll have time to help finish the teardown at the shop in Puyallup.

Posted 2002-06-01 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Update II

Sat, 18 May 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

The good weather held out for one day, significant progress was made. Not far to go now!

<The stripped interior. Sorry about the lens flare, the sun was setting while I took the snaps. The DPO fiberglass transmission alteration to fit the OD transmission will be replaced with metal. Some surface rust on new floor pans already, not suprising>	<I removed the entire wiring harness (minus rear loom) connected to the dash. It was pretty tricky getting to the dash bolts with all the gauges in, but the right combination of long socket extensions did the trick. Actually, the radio did have to come o>	<Misc parts from the teardown. I hope I remember where they all go!>
<The REALLY bare front shot. Drilled out the screws for the RH headlight bucket, the engine is visible and has only the exhaust header still attached.>	<You know you're a bit car crazy when you think to yourself, "So that's what it looks like behind the dash!">

Posted 2002-05-18 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Update I

Sat, 11 May 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Spent a few hours tearing the car down this weekend, here's how things stand now.

<Here we go - passenger side seat out, everything out of the trunk, some interior panels removed.>	<The early type door before disassembly. Remove top & bottom screws on right-hand runner, then two nuts holding on quarterlight from the bottom and two bolts from the side (under plastic plugs), then screws holding bottom of quarterlight runner at the bot>	<The door parts I removed so far: window glass, right runner, left runner and quarterlight, regulator>
<The mostly bare door>	<Doors stripped, windshield out, rollbar out, most interior out. Note the notches cut out of the battery cover for the rollbar mounting plates (me) and the crappy fiberglass transmission mods (DPO).>	<The rear gets the same treatment. Generous use of penetrant to get those bumper bolts off!>
<On to the engine bay. Ran the car for a while to warm it up (feels like a race car sitting in it with no interor or windscreen) - then drained the oil and coolant. Removed distributor and generator, horns, and the radiator and oil cooler as one unit.>	<The easiest way is to remove all of this as one unit (radiator, overflow tank, oil cooler and hoses, shroud). Note the aftermarket expansion tank. I'm not sure if I will keep it, as it blocks some of the fresh air that feeds the carbs. Cooler intake =>

Posted 2002-05-11 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

On Your Mark, Get Set...

Mon, 29 Apr 2002 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

The wheels of restoration have once again been set in motion, tonight I start taking the B apart. I have a spot reserved at the end of May with my new bodywork specialist, and after visiting his shop and discussing things with him we are going to take it down to the bare unibody and put it on a rotisserie for total access. Might as well do this right the first time! I will be removing everything but the engine and trans, and of course the front crossmember and rear axle so it can be rolled into his shop. The engine and trans are being rebuilt (to stock specs) while the body is patched, stripped and painted. I decided a while back that I might as well redo all the wiring and brake lines while its apart. I'll be taking lots of photos so I remember where things go (although in some cases, the previous owner put things back in obviously the wrong places during the half-assed paint jobs that it has had in the past). I'll post some of the pictures as the job comes along! We've finally got some decent weather here in Seattle which makes it that much nicer to be out working on the Bomber. My goal is to have it back on the road by August and enjoy some late summer drives up and around the mountains, especially the Olympic Peninsula which I've never seen. Maybe there will even be a late show I can enter!

Posted 2002-04-29 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Hibernation

Wed, 16 Jan 2002 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Well, I fixed most of the leaks by using some silicone RTV to help the lower windshield seals seal properly. I'm just using the B for short errand trips right now, the valvetrain is very noisy since #2 dropped and I'm basically just trying to use up what gas is left in the tank before my insurance runs out at the end of the month. Then its time to start total disassembly!

Posted 2002-01-16 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Drip Drip Drip

Sat, 01 Dec 2001 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

OK, for all of you that have been emailing me wondering when I'm going to update the web site, here it is. The reason that I haven't been doing much work on the car is because I moved from Vancouver to Seattle recently, which took a pretty hefty chunk out of my free time for the last month or so.

I did adjust the valves a few weeks ago, to my suprise they were almost all too tight. After my dropped valve incident, I'm pretty paranoid about keeping them in good condition now. Unfortunately the mechanic that worked on it torqued the valve cover down too hard and destroyed the gasket, and of course I didn't have a spare on hand so I temprarily made one out of a big piece of cardboard and some blue gasket sealer. Seemed to work fine until a new cork gasket arrived.

My main problem now is water leaks, highlighted by the torrential rain that arrives here in the Northwest in November and my continued lack of having a garage. I took the seats and the carpets out of the car two weeks ago and I've been trying to dry out my beautiful new floorpans and track down the leaks since then. I drilled two small holes in the back of the floor pans to let the standing water drain, and determined that my hardtop is leaking a lot of water especially around the quarter lights, the back of the door and the latches. It is in pretty rough shape so I pulled it off and put the soft-top back on which has reduced the flood to a trickle. I also noticed that the fresh air intake was a little swimming pool and was dumping water through the vent into the cockpit, so I got under the car and poked some wire up through the drain hose (to the right of the trans in the trans tunnel) which then of course released a gush of cold dirty water right up my sleeve. I'm going to make cleaning this drain part of my routine maintenance and do it every time I'm down there greasing the U-joints.

The leaks that remain are one in the driver side behind the dash, which might just be that the wiper bezel nut needs to be tightened, and around the posts of the windshield. I've had a leak problem ever since the windshield rubber was replaced (or new leaks, rather). Hopefully we will get some nice weather soon so I can pull the windshield and try to extract the one snapped bolt for the center stay rod, and also file a bit of material off the frame leg so I can get the bottom bolt in on the passenger side. I might also switch the order of the post grommet and body-to-frame seal (currently the order is frame-seal-grommet-body) and use some silicone sealant in that area. The dash cover got warped when the idiots that installed my windshield put it in, so I need to straighten that out too. I wish there was some light after work in the winter.

I hope I can find all the leaks soon and put the seats back in, I *really* miss driving it. I'm also considering buying one of those EZ-UP type instant garages for working on the car while its raining (which is most of the time in winter).

Posted 2001-12-01 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Found the Clonk

Mon, 01 Oct 2001 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

For a while now I've been trying to find the source of a "clonk" sound that comes from the rear-right hand side of the car when I go over bumps. If you search through the rest of my story you will find that I've done quite a few things to try and solve it, with no luck. Well today I decided to really dig in and try and solve it. I jacked up the rear right wheel, put it on a jack stand and removed the wheel. Then I removed the brake drum and checked out all the brake parts, but there was nothing loose in there. I carefully checked around the axle and leaf springs, pulling and pushing to see if anything loose. I even checked the fuel pump and 12V battery, which are on that side. Nothing seemed loose, but then I noticed the top of the shock link arm was loose. On closer inspection the fastener that passes through the top of the link to the shock arm had somehow come loose, and there was about an inch of slop in that area. This fastener or bolt is built-in to the link arm, so it can't be fixed or replaced as far as I could see. The slop in the link arm seems to have damaged the shock itself, possibly from the forces being put on it at weird angles, because it was leaking shock oil all over the place. I removed the nut from the shock link to the spring bracket - trying to turn this nut was causing the bolt that extends into the bottom of the link arm to simply rotate. I thought I would have to saw the bolt, or split the nut, but then I realized I could clamp the bolt with a pair of vice-grips which kept it stationary while I removed the nut. Removing the shock was easy, after wire brushing the two nuts in the wheel well and lubing them up, they were easy to remove along with the two long bolts that attach the shock to the body.

Today I exchanged the shock and picked up a new shock and link arm - driving the car over felt a bit weird without one shock, but there was no clonking so I'm sure I found the problem! I'm coming down with a cold, so I'll have to finish the job later. Update: installation was a snap, pictures are below.

The second question people always ask me about the Bomber, after "What is it?", is "Parts must be expensive". In actual fact owning and running this car is pretty cheap, once its restored to an acceptable condition. Case in point, this shock replacement job. With a total cost of $100 (canadian), about 2 hours in my own labour, with no special tools other than a jack and some SAE wrenches, I replaced the entire damping system at one corner. Can't beat that! I love working on this car..

Posted 2001-10-01 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Catastrophic Engine Failure

Sun, 09 Sep 2001 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Last night I was driving up Knight street here in Vancouver, accelerating up a mild hill, when I hear a soft "bang" sound in the engine bay and all of a sudden the car loses all power like its only running on a couple of cylinders accompanied by a nasty rattling sound. I pulled off on a side street and coasted to a stop - called a tow truck and now it's at Octagon awaiting a diagnosis on Monday. I have been driving it in a somewhat "spirited" manner lately, and I'm sure the 2000+ miles I've put on it in the last two months didn't help.

While I was waiting for the tow truck I took off the valve cover, and the rockers and valve stems looked OK. I'm pretty sure its something in the bottom end of the engine, I'm just praying the crankshaft and/or the cylinder walls aren't scored. This comes as a bit of a suprise as its always had better than average oil pressure. Stay tuned; I'll update as soon as I get more information.

Update - Got some good news today, Octagon did a compression test and there was no compression in #2 so they pulled the head, expecting to find a broken valve or a broken piston (or usually, both). By some bit of luck the intake valve stem broke up high enough that the valve didn't fall completely into the cylinder; the rattling sound was the piston pushing the dropped valve back up on each revolution, so the piston was not damaged. I had noticed that the tappets were pretty noisy and that one was slightly louder than the others, so now I guess I know why. They're going to lap in a new valve (and check if hardened seats were ever installed to satisfy my curiosity) and take it for a test drive!

I would like to also take this moment to send my sympathy to the injured and their families of the cowardly and abhorrent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon today. This is not a crime against America but a crime against Humanity and I only hope that by the next millenium these kinds of brutal acts will only be read about in the history books.

Update 2 - Today I picked up the car from Octagon, the bill being considerably less than I had initially expected. Removing the head was about a 6 hour job and the parts cost was negligable. While they were in there they noticed some old damage to the top of another piston from some incident in the past, and that the valve guides are nearing the end of their useful lives. Combined with the fact that it appers hardened valve seats were never installed to deal with unleaded gas, this just re-inforces my original plan to have the engine completely rebuilt (with some performance modifications) this winter while the body is being sandblasted and painted. As is, the engine could easily give me another 20,000 miles of service and the valve train is considerably quieter than it was before. I'm just relieved to have it back, tomorrow I'm going to give it a good wash and cleaning to say "welcome home".

Posted 2001-09-09 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

New Exhaust Note, Wheels Fixed

Wed, 01 Aug 2001 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

This month I did a LOT of driving in the MGB. During a recent trip up to the cabin in the mountains, I had just rounded the last corner of the hour-long hillclimb through the mountain pass, when I heard a pop and suddenly the exhaust was very loud. I pulled over and took a look under the car, and the exhaust pipe had completely cracked in two just behind the center muffler. This is the exact location that I had someone do a little weld where the bracket had cracked - I think the heat of that welding weakened the area and after the long, hot drive when the exhaust cooled off it just couldn't take it. I wired up the pipe from my trusty emergency kit and had an uneventful (but rather loud) weekend. After I returned, and consulted the great people that frequent my BBS, I decided to have a straight pipe fabricated to replace the center muffler rather than putting in the original part. I went to a generic Speedy muffler shop and (after waiting a while) a nice fellow measured and made up a custom S-bent pipe, cut out the center muffler and broken pipe, and clamped it in place. As an added bonus the whole procedure including installation cost less than a new center muffler without installation. I'm pretty happy with the result - the exhaust note is quite a bit louder, but not ridiculously so. Its got sort of a "braaap" sound when the car is cold, but once the engine warms up it mellows into a nice rumble. Also, the car seems to have a little more power, which is probably a result of the reduction of backpressure combined with my free-flow K&N air filters.

After getting the muffler fixed, I took the car to Green's Automotive in Richmond. They are one of only two shops in Vancouver that specialize in modification of rims (the other being Panther in Surrey). While I waited, they pulled off the rear rims, removed the tire, cleaned and polished the rims and shaved 4 mm off the back of the mounting flange. After a rebalancing job, they were back on the car with just over 1 mm of clearance between the bottom of the lug nuts and the back of the rear brake drum. The result is that the tires don't rub on the fender anymore!! What a relief.

After all this work, I took the B on a 1200 mile journey all through the Southern interior of BC, visiting family and enjoying the scenery. I couldn't wipe the smile off my face for weeks after blasting around twisty 2-lane country roads with the top down...

Posted 2001-08-01 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

MGB Month II

Fri, 15 Jun 2001 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Lots to report, first I finally got a new speedometer installed. I ordered a large-face 1280 tpm speedo from the UK to match my later top-fill overdrive transmission. Only the UK spec Mark II MGBs retained the large face speedos in that specification, since in North America they had converted to the small gagues with the new safety dashes. Unfortunately the supplier I ordered from doesn't test the used parts before shipping them. The first speedo I received had an inoperative needle, but the odometer worked and it was in very good condition. The supplier immediately sent me a second speedo at no extra cost, but that speedo was also broken, the needle worked but the tripmeter was broken and the face appeared to have water damage. Rather than wait for a third speedo, I combined parts from the two and made one that completely worked and looked good. Buyer beware; make sure your supplier guarantees used parts have been tested!! It's great to have a speedo again, it reads correctly (approx 3400 rpm = 60 mph in 4th gear, overdrive off). On the way down the I5 to Seattle this weekend I did a check on the odometer accuracy, I drove 75 miles as indicated by the mile posts on the highway, but the odo read 78.4 miles which works out to an error of 4.53% fast, probably because of my non-stock tires.

Next up was refitting the windscreen. This is a notoriously difficult job, mostly becaues of the tight areas you have to work in (unless you remove the dash - no thanks). Of course the first time you do a job on the car is always the hardest but once you get over the "learning curve" its not so bad. I needed to refit it because the "Speedy" window place that replaced the seals didn't do a very good job of putting it back on - the seals leak, and only one bolt was holding the windscreen to the body on each side. Not to mention their is a bit of that milky discolouration at the edges of the windshield now from them pushing it so hard to get it lined up - I told them to use a 4" c-clamp to line it up but when I got it back the guy said "it took 5 guys to get it on!". Great.. this is why I would rather do things myself. Getting it off was pretty easy, then I trimmed the frame to body seal so that it lined up properly with the post seal and tightened the frame screws. At some point I should drill out the frame rivets, they are getting a bit rusty. Then I sanded down the area on the body where the frame sits and ran the bolts through the frame (out of the car) to clean up the threads; the left bottom bolt had been crossthreaded to top it all off. Getting the screen back on took about 5 tries; I'll skip the details but basically follow the instructions in Art's windshield fitting article below. I managed to get three of the bolts in, but for some reason the lower passenger side bolt hole would just not line up.. something is physically blocking the frame leg from going down far enough on that side. Rather than risk crossthreading it again, I've left it out; I'm pretty sure the reason is the fender. The fact that the C-clamp method worked just fine on the driver's side leads me to believe that fender has had serious accident damage at some point; its actually two fenders welded (poorly) together, and I bet something is out of line inside that is preventing the windshield leg from seating properly. Since I'm replacing that fender anyway, it can wait.

Since I was working under the dash anyway, I thought I would fix the wiper system. I've been running on one wiper for quite a while since the splined part the wiper arm clips to twisted completely off several months ago. It had been wiping less and less of an arc for quite a while - it looks like the previous owner had actually drilled a hole and screwed the wiper arm to the spline and probably caused it to fall off. The wiper motor was easy to remove, but figuring out how to get the faulty wheelbox off was tricky. First, remove the nuts on the back of the wheelbox which releases the tubes that the cable (rack) moves inside of, which turns the gears which turn the wipers. Then you can draw the rack out, either with the motor, or by detatching the cable end inside the motor and drawing it out by itself. You can see the rack and the faulty wheelbox in the picture below. I spread the grease around and slid the new wheelbox on, and then fed the rack back into the tube under the dash. I rotated the good wheelbox (driver's side) 180 degrees before feeding the rack back in to give it some "fresh" gear teeth to engage. Don't forget the hard rubber spacer between the wheelbox and the inside of the body, and it helps to tighten the nuts that secure the tubes to the backs of the wheelboxes last, as the flexible cable makes it a lot easier to get everything lined up. Gave it a test with the garden hose, works great! Almost looking forward to a bit of rain to see how much better it is. Almost.

Did a few more things that I haven't been able to take pictures of yet. I emptied, propped open and dried out the boot in the sunny weather, it had all kinds of crud in it from years of having a messed up lid and bad filler neck seals letting water in. After it was dry I attacked it with a wire brush and a vacuum cleaner and then gave a little shot of rust paint to slow down a copule of areas until I can get the whole car sandblasted. Later I went to a carpet store and picked up a 4x6 black carpet remnant and, using the old smelly filthy carpet as a template, cut out a nice new carpet and laid it in. What a difference, now I don't mind putting things back there for fear of the smells and stains it might pick up. I also flexed my soldering skills, if you read back you will find in my journal the time when smoke started coming out of the dash when the parking lights were on which I traced back to a short circuit in the boot. To prevent further problems I simply cut the damaged wires which led to the license plate lamps and taped them up. I bought some 14 gauge wire and new Lucas 2- and 4-way connectors and rewired that whole system. I used a lineman's splice with solder and heatshrink tubing for splices, and a butane lighter to heat and solder the bullet connectors to the wires. After assembling I packed everything with vaseline to prevent corrosion and so now that's all fixed too.

<wiper-100.jpg>	<wiper-101.jpg>	<wiper-104.jpg>
<wiper-102.jpg>	<wiper-103.jpg>	<wiper-105.jpg>

Posted 2001-06-15 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

MGB Month I

Mon, 04 Jun 2001 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Did some more work on the car today while the weather lasts. There was a "clonk" coming from the rear right-hand (passenger) side which I assumed was due to the new leaf spring pads "settling in" and consequently the nuts on the U-bolts simply needing to be tightened. However, on inspection the pads appeared to already be cracking, and I had heard good things about the additional positive location of the rear axle by the Prothane (urethane) bushings, so I installed them instead. Getting the old nuts off was easy because I had giving the exposed threads of the U-bolt a good wiping of grease when I had assembled it to prevent rusting.

Test drive results: It might be my imagination but it seems like the car feels like it is sticking to the road better when going over rough spots, and also on high rpm take-offs the wheels don't hop as much. But, I think most of the clunking was my tire irons in the trunk. I'm clearing out the boot to dry it off and wire brush some of the rust out so I'll take it for a test drive tomorrow and find out if it's really gone for good.

I also took a look at two other things, first why the new handbrake wasn't braking very well. Turns out I strung one of the wires around the wrong way, but that wasn't the reason. I reset the brake adjusters and that did the trick - it seems the new brake shoes wear down fairly quickly when you first put them in. Then I took a look at the mounting flange on my rims - apparently there is a local shop that will machine a small amount of material off to increase the offset (place the rim into the wheel well further). It is very thick so I think it will be OK but of course I'll consult a professional before proceeding.

<The mounting flange on the rims is very wide, I think I can get away with having Panther machine a small amount of material off to increase the offset.>

<The right way to install the handbrake cable. I had strung the right hand cable under instead of over the cable sheath.>

Posted 2001-06-04 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Pre-Paint Pictures

Wed, 30 May 2001 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

As promised, pictures with the new orange boot lid. For the first time since I bought the car the boot actually closes and locks normally - I will never get sick of that beautiful "click" sound when it closes. Check out the homebrew hardtop hardware as well - works very well. It's made out of a turnbuckle and some generic metal tie straps, total cost about $5. You can see some of the scratches on the plastic windows of the hardtop, I used Meguire's Clear Plastic Polish #10 and Cleaner #17 which helped quite a bit but some of the gouges are quite deep. It looks like some previous owner liked to use a metal ice scraper on it.

<The many colours of my MGB. I decided to go with the euro style tail lights with the amber top, too. Don't the rims look good?>

<multi-101.jpg>

<Looks pretty smart with the hardtop. Notice I've only got one wiper right now.>

Posted 2001-05-30 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

How Wide is Too Wide?

Thu, 26 Apr 2001 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Did a lot of spring maintenance on the car last weekend, changed the oil and filter, topped up the coolant, replaced the plug wires, replaced the fan belt, fixed a ground problem with one of the turn lights, replaced the brake light switch to fix the brake lights, greased the suspension, propshaft and handbrake cable, replaced the valve cover studs and replaced a bumper overrider which my roommate backed into. The previous week my ignition warning light had been coming on higher in the rpms, but it would turn off when I revved the engine. I was hoping the fan belt was just slipping, but shortly the light came on and stayed on - another dead generator. Replaced that in the Octagon Motors parking lot, it was only just over a year old. When I put the new gen in and started the car a horrible squealing noise erupted from the engine bay. As it turns out the fan on my old genny had little notches cut out of the blades to clear the adjuster bolt at the bottom of the generator yoke, which the new blades didn't have. A quick swap solved that. I also had Octagon install my new roll bar and new 3-point static seat belts, I wanted to make sure it was done right the first time. I feel very secure in the car now, althought I still need to get some foam for the rollbar behind my head so I dont crush my skull if my head was ever whipped back.

In other news, I just got the estimate done for Phase II of the bodywork, replacing the fenders, door skins, sandblasting the entire car, finishing work, and a nice eurethane paint job. Saving now, that will be coming in July/August.

Lots of new pictures to develop & scan, I'll get those up in May sometime. The current paint scheme is really... interesting.

Still trying to sort out my rear wheel rubbing problem, I came up with the following (see picture).

The bad news is it looks like the 6" rims I've got now are no good, I need something with somewhere around a 1-1.25" (25-30mm) positive offset (moving the tire into the wheel well more). Too bad, because I really like the look of these rims, maybe even more than real minilites. On the plus side I'm sure I can sell them for what I paid for them. The "deep dish" look is awfully nice, though.

Update: I just called Moss Motors, the minilite replica they sell (14x5.5 PN 455-386) has 23 mm positive offset. Main Street Motorsport reports that their minilites (the real ones, not replicas) are available in offset ranges from 15-30mm (backset 105-120mm) and they have a very nice but spendy 14x6 alloy rim. I'll add more results as my research continues, and probably build a new comparison page.

<tire-math.gif>

Posted 2001-04-26 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Rainbow B

Mon, 05 Feb 2001 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Finally had a weekend to do some more work on the car, drove down to see my bodyman on Saturday with a new trunk lid I picked up last week. We fitted and aligned the new lid, and now I have a trunk that closes properly for the first time ever! It just "clicks" so nicely when you put it down, no slamming, no jiggling the edges to get it open. Actually it hasn't closed at all since the bodywork was done, so it would squeak and bang around when going over bumps, which was extremely annoying not to mention I had my emergency spares stolen out of the trunk last month. He had a new parts car in the driveway which had a few more items that I needed, namely a very nice straight bonnet (hood), so I bought that and we put that on too! Basically every external panel on the entire car is being replaced, as it has either been hit or has rusted out on every side. I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw that he also had a Smoothline hardtop in quite good condition for sale!! I like the Smoothline better than the factory hardtop, and since I travel on the highway a lot the extra heat retention and noise dampening that a hardtop affords was looking pretty attractive. The headliner inside is in great shape, the seals are in good condition, and the windows only have some minor fogging and swirl marks that can be easily removed. Next weekend we're going to fabricate some mounting hardware for it, right now I am just using baling wire to keep the back down (the snaps to the windscreen work fine). The wheel rubbing problem may be due to faulty new leaf springs or an error I made installing them, because the car is sitting much lower on one side.

On Sunday, I worked on a bunch of little things - replaced a broken rear tail lens (upgraded to Euro style amber on top), fixed the interior light, rewired the rear lights (brake light was wired to turn light on one side), tried to fix the brake light, still not sure why it's not going on sometimes, fixed the fuel filler so the rubber grommet was sealing to the body (no more trunk leaks?) and tried to fit my battery bin liner, but my battery doesn't fit in it. I also picked up a blue paint pen at a local art supply store and coloured the instrument bulbs - way back, I repainted the instrument cans with high-gloss white to enhance the brightness, but by doing so I painted over the original blue quarter which gave a bit of a tint to the gauges. The coloured lights look great at night! Gave it a good wash and interior cleaning too, just because its tatty doesn't mean it can't be clean. That's probably my Dutch heritage speaking.

Next weekend I'm doing more work on the car, look for another update soon. The car is quite the spectacle now, its 5 different colours!! The body is red & green primer, the bonnet is green, the trunk lid is orange, and the hardtop is burgandy. If you squint your eyes though, it looks great, and you can see the lines are really coming together! More pics coming soon.

Posted 2001-02-05 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

New Tires

Sat, 16 Dec 2000 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Took the car down to National Tire Warehouse for some new rubber.. after much research I decided on the Dunlop D60 A2 JLB's for their combination of price and performance. It's quite hard to find high performance tires in the correct size for the MGB's stock 14" rims. I calculated the original tire diameter of 155/78-14 to be 23.519" and so I got the Dunlops in 195/60-14 or 23.212" which is only 1.305% smaller than original. My new 14 inch "Dan Gurney Victory Mags" are 6" wide which is the mininum for these tires - I think they look quite aggressive without being ridiculous. Unfortunately on the "new" side (green quarterpanel), the tire is rubbing on hard cornering when the car is loaded, so that will have to be sorted out.

Driving impressions: WOW!! The new tires are extremely sticky. Road noise is also down tremendously, and even the steering feels lighter even though these tires are wider. Since I got them mounted with a proper balance job, all traces of wheel shake are gone right up to ~ 90 mph. Combined with the new sills and freshly rebuilt suspension, the car feels like its on rails.

I also took the chance to put on my spanking new K&N air filters. They were hard to locate, as they are Euro P/N 56-9095 and I had to order them from the UK. Moss used to carry them, but now they carry a different K&N setup. These particular models are large enough to fit the TWM induction horns *inside* of them - the other models are not. The combination of free-flow filters and horns, assuming you have a good manifold and free-flow exhaust setup on the other end, will give a boost of several horsepower. Even though my exhaust is stock, I could tell a difference immediately in throttle response. I had to enrichen the mixture on the carbs by 4 flats - the old foam filters must have been extremely restrictive. The car feels like its pulling stronger as well, and the gas mileage seems slightly better. The engine compartment is starting to look pretty trick, when its cleaner I'll take a photo.

Some pics of the (now dirty) final result - dig the nice two tone paint scheme! It's going to get even more interesting when I put the new boot lid and bonnet on.. but the main thing is that the car is now ready (minus fitting the rollbar) for the autocross season starting in March!!

<rear-20.jpg>

<rear-21.jpg>

Posted 2000-12-16 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Rear End Rebuild

Sun, 19 Nov 2000 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

This weekend I spent a good chunk of time tackling one of the last major things on my "MGB To Do" list, rebuilding/replacing the rear end. I have been driving around with bolt-ons on the front and center-lock wires on the back since shortly before I took the car in for body work - sourced a good used bolt-on rear axle and had the local shop replace the bearings and give it a good going-over. Since the axle's going to be out, I'm taking the opportunity to replace the leaf springs, U-bolts, spring pads, rebound straps, brake shoes and cylinders, etc etc as well.

The tear-down went a lot smoother than I was expecting - I must be getting good at persuading rusty parts to part ways. Tomorrow I'm going back to get a few parts I wasn't expecting to have to replace and get the thrust washers replaced in the differential (might as well, while its out)

Day 2 - Picked up the extra parts (if there's one thing I've learned, its that you will always require more parts than you have on hand - which is a big p.i.t.a. for me since the B is my only means of transport) and began reassembly. Moved the differential over to the new axle, and mounted the new leaf springs with the axle on top. Fitted spring shackles and U-bolts with more than a little effort and moved the axle stands to the axle.

Day 3 - Tightened all spring and axle bolts, reattached propshaft and brake lines. Assembled rear brakes, after cleaning all parts in petrol and greasing all the moving parts (adjuster and handbrake lever). Bled brake lines and filled the axle with the proper oil.

<Let the games begin! Axle stands placed just ahead of the rear spring front mounting, and the trolley jack under the axle.>	<Old, rusty rear end. Hopefully the dismantling will not be too difficult.>	<I forgot that I had to get the muffler out of the way>
<Undoing the nuts on the U-bolts, handbrake cable and brake lines disconnected. Replacing rebound straps, so I just cut the old ones.>	<Look ma, no axle!>	<The old wire wheel axle - moving brake bits and removing diff to be rebuilt>
<The new axle and springs, next to my new rollbar (to be installed later)>	<Shiny new U-bolts, springs, et cetera et cetera>	<The new backing plate, sans brake parts>
<All new brake parts - coming soon, a working handbrake?!?>

Posted 2000-11-19 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Phase I Complete

Fri, 13 Oct 2000 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

The car is back as of Sept 22!!! Structural bodywork has got to be the hardest part of any restoration, not only because its the most expensive and labour intensive, but it doesn't look any better when you're done! The carpet was all torn out and isn't glued back in, since its going to be removed again for Phase II (painting and exterior panels) and replaced. The doors don't fit very well (going to be getting new skins anyway) and neither does the trunk lid or hood. Before the bodywork, everything was smashed up the same way so it sort of fit in a crazy way. Now that some parts are fixed and some aren't nothing lines up. I'm getting a straight but temporary (wrong year) boot lid on loan at the end of the month so that at least it will close properly until a proper one can be located.

It's a whole new car under there - from the pictures below you can see how much of the floors and sills were left. It feels 10x stronger going around corners, no more body flex. It's a bit quieter, too, now that there aren't gaping holes right underneather me.

Once I got it back, I had the windscreen and windscreen to body seals replaced at the local glass shop - what a job that was for them, if you're doing this do yourself a favour and get some 4" C-clamps to compress the seal while you line up the bolts. No more drips when it rains! Of course, the leak was on the passenger side so it wasn't that big of a priority but I wasn't winning any points with the ladies for that one. Put on some new wiper blades, although the right hand wheelbox is completely messed up and has been for a long time, I've got some new ones on the way. The right hand (passenger) wiper only sweeps an arc of about 45 degrees. The valves cover has been leaking since I got the car too, it looked crooked which would explain it. I decided to get an aluminum valve cover since they look so sharp - had to file down the cover studs, the DPO had hacksawed them to length and screwed up the threads at the ends which was OK with the old bolts but the new cover bolts wouldn't go on. Got it all lined up though (had to shave a bit off one of the rubber washers to get it to line up) and it looks great. Valves are quieter too - the rocker assy needs to be rebuilt at some point, though, I think.

I've got some KN air filtesr coming from Europe, Euro PN 56-9095 which are recommended by [url=http://www.mgbmga.com/]British Automotive[/url] as giving great flow and also the bonus of being able to fit those TWM induction horns inside them. Might get a few extra HP out of that, although I wish I had got the ANSA exhaust system rather than the stock a couple years back. Anything would be better than the cheezy foam air cleaners I've got on there now - I cant imagine they flow very well. If I didn't have to work this weekend, I'd be rewiring the overdrive (getting rid of the ugly lighted rocker switch in front of the shifter and hooking up the proper crook switch on the fascia), shimming the fresh air vent hinges so the door closes all the way (new foam seal sticks out a bit too much at the top) and a few other misc things... waiting for some backplates to arrive for the new rear axle so once those are here and I can finally get the new bearings in (OMG is handling it) then I can finish the bolt-on swap that is taking forever...

I'm waffling about my decision to go back to the original BRG when it gets painted, I've always been attracted to the black paint with an all red interior - retro yet very sharp and modern. If you have any pictures of MGB's in this colour scheme please send them to me. I've still got lots of time to decide.

Oh and for all of you that are wondering, yes, I am completely insane for tackling a restoration on a car that is (was!) this rusty.. and I don't regret it for a second!

Posted 2000-10-13 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Bodywork Update

Fri, 21 Jul 2000 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

I recently stopped by White Rock to check out the progress and say "hi" to my favorite MGB. I can't wait to get it back, I'm going nuts with all this nice weather and no roadster to enjoy it with.

<skye001s.jpg>	<skye02s.jpg>	<skye004s.jpg>
<skye31s.jpg>	<skye41s.jpg>	<skye42s.jpg>
<skye54s.jpg>	<skye75s.jpg>	<skye79s.jpg>
<skye93s.jpg>	<skye96s.jpg>	<skye97s.jpg>
<skye99s.jpg>	<It doesn't get much more stripped than this! You can see one of the new "trumpet" sections held in place with a large clamp next to the engine bay, and the passenger side sill, rocker, and floor pan has been completely removed. On the bright side, the A>	<In this picture you can see the work that has been done to the rear valence and surrounding area. There's little doubt that the back of my B has been involved in several accidents - the left hand tail light area was completely mashed in (check the pictur>

Posted 2000-07-21 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

New Lease on Life

Mon, 12 Jun 2000 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

This was the big weekend when I took the car to Bryce Mack of Classic Auto Restoration Services for major bodywork. After an initial consultation on a nice sunny day, where we looked over and under the car to get an idea on what would be involved and how far I wanted to go, I decided that I wanted to do a "first phase" repair which includes:

- new sills
- new rockers
- new floor pans
- new doglegs
- new left-rear fender right up to top seam
- new rear valence below boot lid
- maybe a new tunnel adapter piece for later 4-sync OD tranny

... all finished off in beautiful dark green epoxy primer. It's going to look like a Christmas tree when I get it back, half red half green, but it will be solid as a rock with doors that close properly, seats that are actually fastened to metal underneath me, no bondo or fibreglass in structural members, and proper gaps all around. Phase two will include new front fenders, bonnet, boot lid, door skins and a full respray in the original British Racing Green, hopefully in the Fall or Winter. It's going to be in the shop for up to two months but he takes digital photos during the process so I will be posting updates regularily showing the progress. Hopefully no suprises will be found once the car is stripped, namely rust in unexpected places. There has definately been at least one medium size accident in the front and the back of the car, and whoever fixed it was not particularily concerned with "doing the job right".

When I get it back, first priority will be getting the new rear axle in, putting on some nice high performance sticky tires and getting out there for some autocross! It will be nice to be able to slide it around without worrying about broken spokes or the car breaking in half.

Some people ask me why I'm sinking all this money into "that old car" - well if you're reading this you probably already understand but suffice to say I was bitten by the bug when I first laid eyes on this car and no money value can be placed on the feeling this car gives me when I'm bombing around the twisties with the top down... I consider it a "thank you" to the car and a tip of the hat to a time in motoring history that I would have loved to taken part in. Needless to say once this work is done, I'll be doing a regular rubber undercoat and Waxoyl treatment so the car will last another 30+ years.

Posted 2000-06-12 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Spring Maintenance & Travels

Thu, 25 May 2000 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Changed the oil and traced the problem that developed over the last few months with the heater fan not coming on - turns out the switch had gone south, so I picked up a new one and installed it. I love easy fixes. I've been going on some long road trips lately, the B hasn't missed a beat, but I noticed that I was losing some coolant so I took a look under the hood after driving for a while and noticed the heater valve was dripping on the distributor. I'll be installing a new valve tonight before my trip down to Oregon. I've got some new bits and pieces on order, like an aluminum valve cover, heel-and-toe gas pedal, 3pt seat belts, plastic battery bin, heavy duty shock valves, and a used front indicator body (when I bought the B the lens was cracked and the parking light had totally rusted out). I've also received my new (used) rear axle which is being rebuilt by Octagon Motors; if I don't take the B in for new sills next weekend, I'll probably be installing the bolt-on axle, replacing all the rear brake bits, fixing the handbrake, and putting new leaf springs in.

Seems like a few things always break when the weather warms up... a small price to pay for having the top down.

Posted 2000-05-25 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

New Carbs, Shake Gone (Almost)

Mon, 10 Apr 2000 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

I've been a little short on free time lately so I've been getting some work done at Octagon Motors; I got the front rotors and U-joints replaced. Turns out one of the hubs and the front yoke of the propshaft were worn badly, so I got those replaced with used parts. I also had the carbs rebuilt, with some work done to the throttle plate area and oversize shafts put in. I knew there were air leak problems because I could never synchronize them properly, and I was having trouble getting through AirCare this year. The result has been great: no pedal modulation under heavy braking, no wheel shake down the highway at high speed (although I can still feel a bit of shaking from the rear end, which will be solved once I complete the bolt-on wheel conversion and rebuild), and I passed AirCare with flying colours. There seems to be more power and the engine runs a lot smoother, too.

Posted 2000-04-10 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

BMW Sells Rover Group

Sat, 18 Mar 2000 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

As you may have heard, BMW has decided to sell the Rover group which includes the MG and Mini marques, but has sold Land Rover to Ford and is retaining rights to the new Mini. Now that the dust has settled, a new group has taken control of what's left of Rover. Below is the press release. Will we ever see the Octagon return to North American shores? Let the speculation commence! The most interesting part of all of this is that the Alchemy Group is naming the new company "The MG Car Company"!!!

Update: It seems the Alchemy deal has fallen through at the last minute, mainly due to concerns that a lot of jobs would be lost at the Rover plants. Rover has now been taken over by the Pheonix Group.

Posted 2000-03-18 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Engine Out, Clutch In

Sun, 20 Feb 2000 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

This weekend I pulled the engine and transmission out of my car with the help of my friend Scott. His dad has a warehouse with a huge 10 ton overhead crane setup that we used to lift it out of the car. Saturday morning dawned early and after a nice drive to Ladner (just south of Vancouver) we got everything set up and proceeded to drain the fluids and remove the oil cooler, radiator, carbs, manifolds, generator, distributor, starter, engine mounts, and various hoses. One of the manifold studs snapped during removal (I substituted a bolt during reassembly). It's amazing how much room you have to work on the engine bay when the radiator has been removed! We looked at the engine for a while and decided there was no way just the engine could come out. This is because the Bomber came with a later (black label LH type) overdrive and 4 sync transmission. This unit is a lot bigger than the original 3-sync tranny and so there is very little room in my early tunnel to manouvre. Since the tranny couldn't be raised, there was no way to get the engine off the first motion shaft and clear the steering rack and crossmember. So, out came Haynes and Bentley for a speed reading session and I proceeded to remove the clutch slave, wiring, speedo cable, propshaft, and crossmember from the transmission. With the tranny resting on the fixed crossmember, and the bonnet tied with a long rope to the rear bumper for maximum working room, we put the straps around the assembly and positioned the hoist. Very carefully, especially around the exhaust manifold which was still attached to the car, we took the weight of the engine and transmission and lifted it up a little. Then, after a series of lifting and pushing the car back steps, the assembly was tilted back and lifted free of the car. We lowered it to the floor and surveyed the carnage. It was pretty damn exciting let me tell you! This was the first time either of us had done anything like this before.

After cleaning the engine a little bit, we undid the bolts and separated the engine from the tranny. I wanted to give the engine a wash and paint but there's only so much time. I put the tranny aside and replaced the seals on the tappet covers and the oil pressure relief valve. Then we removed the clutch assembly from the flywheel. The flywheel was perfectly smooth and I hadn't had any trouble with it so I decided not to get it turned. The ring gear was also fine. I knocked back the tabs and removed the 6 flywheel bolts which required a breaker bar and a large spanner on the crankshaft bolt on the front of the engine. Off came the flywheel, then the tabs and bolts from the rear engine plate. At this point I could replace the plate gasket and the rear main oil seal (which seemed fine). I made sure to replace all the seals and gaskets I could along the way to try to prevent oil from getting back into the bellhousing and ruining the new clutch. I'm glad I got new flywheel to crankshaft bolts because one was rounded badly during removal. While putting the clutch back onto the flywheel, a bolt snapped. Luckily, it spun right out when we went at the remainder with a drill. Another problem averted! While Scott finished the engine reassembly, I replaced the front oil seal and gasket inside the transmission bell housing and fitted the new carbon release bearing. The tranny was almost totally out of oil! This was quite a shock, I had not checked the oil level recently, I just assumed it was engine oil getting on the clutch and dripping out the "cotter pin drain hole" in the botton front of the tranny. It was quite oily in the clutch area and now I'm fairly certain it was in fact coming from the tranny. We put the engine and transmission back together and called it a night (11 hours).

Sunday morning started a little later, as I felt the worst of it was over. Dropping the assembly back into the car was a lot more demanding than removal, as you have to look out for snagging on things and getting the transmission up into the tunnel. After some unsucessful configurations we learned the engine mounts had to be on the engine, not attached to the body, while lowering. Scott said goodbye when that was in (Hi Julia!) and I proceeded to bolt up the transmission and associated bits. At this point I realized what the people on the MGs list were talking about when they talked about "that *%#@* transmission crossmember". Good thing I have small fingers, it was quite contorted. If you've done this before you know what I'm talking about. Sometimes you have to wonder who designs this stuff. Hit a snag with the engine mounts, the right hand side engine mount would not line up with the holes. I had to use a big crowbar to force the engine back enough to get 3 of the 4 mount bolts in. The rubber looks extremely stretched back on that side, I need to figure out what happened there. Other than that, it was a pretty simple operation of putting everything back on (the end is near!). After refilling the oil and coolant, the car was ready to start. My mind was racing, running over checklists and hoping when it started I wouldn't hear any "bad" sounds. I was vindicated when it roared back to life and I quickly jumped out and made sure there were no major leaks. Turned on the lights and took it for a very very gentle test drive around the block. Seemed good! So I cleaned up, packed up the tools, and drove home, carefully. (8 hours)

The next weekend, I backtracked a little and removed the carbs and manifolds and replaced all the studs and washers. The hardware that was there before was a mix of studs and bolts and instead of the proper thick metal washers, someone had fitted 4 soft thin washers on each stud. I also took off the pedal box cover, after fighting with a horribly rusted metal screw, to inspect the bushings. There is a lot of slop in my pedals, so I'm going to order new bolts and bushings for those, which should make a huge difference. Then I attached the new speedo cable and went under the car to replace the clutch slave rubber boot and bleed the clutch, since I had noticed the fluid was really nasty. Next it was back to the propshaft flange, one of the bolts was getting very close to stripped when I reassembled on Sunday which made me very nervous. Unfortunately, I couldn't get enough clearance under the car to get my big 3/4" drive socket wrench to loosen the rear transmission flange and get the bolts out, so that's probably going to be a take-to-OMG job. For now they are shimmed out slightly with washers so the nuts can bite some fresh threads. Back on went the carbs and after a quick timing adjustment, carb check, and valve adjustment I was ready to pack it in. I'm comfortable taking it for a long haul now, and my test drive tonight was much more "spirited". (7 hours)

I highly recommend doing your own engine work. As long as you attack things in a methodical way, have the right parts and tools on hand, and roll with the punches it can actually be pretty fun. I'll tell you this, everything else I need to do on the car seems pretty trivial now! The results have been great. The clutch is perfect, and the oil pressure relief valve has given me an extra 10 psi oil pressure across the board (40 idle 65 at speed, engine hot). I didn't delve as deeply into the engine as I had planned, such as replacing the rod bearings and timing chain tensioner, but being able to finish the whole job in a weekend was definately a bonus (I do not have a second car). On the down side, the new speedo cable has not brought any movement to the gauge so I'm afraid there's something wrong with the drive inside the transmission. On the other hand, the car is sounding better than ever! Quite a bit more growly. I attribute it to the new manifold gasket and proper fasteners, along with the new engine and transmission rubber mounts. I wouldn't be suprised if there had been an air leak there before. Maybe I can pass emissions now...

Here's the parts I ordered for this job (Moss P/Ns). I think this is almost everything, but I didn't use some of the parts.

190-808 1 3pc borg & beck clutch kit
387-235 1 5-main clutch alignment tool
460-715 1 flywheel lockplate
322-160 6 flywheel bolts
330-420 1 spigot bushing
120-820 1 rear oil seal
291-010 1 oil pan gasket
413-020 1 lh front engine mount
413-010 1 rh front engine mount
413-050 2 rear engine mount
120-300 1 trans. front cover oil seal
296-560 1 trans. front cover gasket
220-540 1 red engine paint
324-650 1 washer, oil pressure release valve
329-210 1 spring, "
460-155 1 valve, "
460-165 1 packing, "
297-520 1 5-main gasket set
460-560 1 block, timing chain tensioner
460-580 1 gasket, "
460-570 1 locktab, "
460-520 4 lock plate, big end
425-660 1 thrust washer set, "

I also got my BMIHT Certificate in the mail a few weeks back. Rather than type it all in, here's a scan. $50 well spent! If you'd like your own, follow the BMIHT Certificate link under Registers below.

<cert.jpg>	<clutch-1.jpg>	<clutch-2.jpg>
<clutch-3.jpg>

Posted 2000-02-20 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Misc Bits

Wed, 29 Dec 1999 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Replaced the float needle valves with grose jets as I was smelling gas now and then, and my fuel consumption seemed way too high. Haven't smelled gas since then, but I've only taken it out a few times in the last week. I also spent an hour under the front bumper sawing through the rusted and rounded bolt holding one of the overriders on with a keyhole saw. It's loose and has been hanging there since I bought the car! Installed a new bolt which eliminates one more clunk when I go over bumps. One of those jobs where an angle grinder or a sawzall would be handy.

Oh yeah, and.... HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Posted 1999-12-29 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

What's That Smell?

Sun, 19 Dec 1999 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Had a bit of a "moment" this weekend! I had gone to North Vancouver to try and get my AirCare emissions certificate renewed. Failed the test, the air leak around the rear carb is to blame I'm sure. The testing people were really nice though, for a change, and didn't charge me the second time I went through. I had retarded the timing and leaned out the mixture but it's the idle test that is causing me grief. Anyway, when I was driving back all this smoke started coming out of the dash! As you probably know, smoke is what powers our British cars, and if you let the smoke escape, it won't work anymore. I quickly pulled off the road and turned everything off. I thought it was the radio, but I soon found it was the headlight switch. I disconnected the offending wire and determined it was the parking light circuit that was shorting out. This caused a light bulb to go on above my head, as I had been moving things around in the boot when I was doing the emissions setup and I had recently had to disconnect and tape up some frayed wires that feed the license plate lights. Sure enough, there were some melted/fused wires back there that I promptly removed from the loop. I'll rewire the whole tail end one of these days, after the leak is fixed! Once that was done I replaced the melted wire coming off the headlight switch and everything was happy again. I also installed one of the bullet mirrors that previously lived on the fenders on the driver's side door. Looks really sharp and helps visibility somewhat, although I have to lean over to get a good view of what's immediately behind me.

I'm really starting to miss those hot summer days, driving around with the top down and the wind in my hair!

Posted 1999-12-19 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Front Hubs

Wed, 08 Dec 1999 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Found someone to swap my wire wheel setup with for a bolt on setup, got the front hubs in the mail a couple weeks ago. Not only that, but I found a nice set of 5.5x14 used alloy rims ("Dan Gurney Victory Mags") at Octagon Motors for a great price, now I can sink the money I was going to spend on Panasports into bodywork and getting some good tires like Yokohama AVS-I's. Swapped the right front hub last weekend, took a while because I haven't done it before, but it was actually a lot easier than I expected. Getting the grease cap and cotter pin out was no problem at all, and installed a new set of wheel bearings while I was at it. Setting the endfloat was a bit tedious but I got it within spec after about a dozen tries. Moving the rubber over from my old rims is a real pain! Breaking the bead is the worst part. This weekend I'll swap the left front hub and then the front end is all done. The rear axle should be coming within a few weeks, I'm going to get the differential thrust washers replaced, replace the U-joints in the propshaft, replace wheel bearings, new brake shoes, new leaf springs, new U-bolts and spring pads, and maybe a new shock link arm and rebound straps. Great excuse to work on those areas that get neglected. While I'm in there I'll get the handbrake cable working properly too. This weekend I might see if I can dig up a half-size spare tire from a Datsun for the boot, it will be nice to have that extra space. The new rims stick out a little bit more than the wires, but I don't think I will have rubbing problems and they look really great. I'll get pictures up as soon as I can.

Oh yeah, and I bought a 500W halogen floor lamp from Home Depot. Wow does that ever make working on the car easier! Got a bunch of misc parts installed that I ordered from Moss including the proper brass heater hose I mentioned last time. Did all my winter service tasks although it's almost time for an oil change again. Haven't been driving it long distances with the current condition of the clutch (that's next).

Posted 1999-12-08 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Fall 99

Tue, 02 Nov 1999 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Not much to report, I'm looking for a new rear axle with bolt-on hubs and new rotors for the front. I'm going to convert to [url=http://www.kspeed.com/]Panasport Minilite replicas[/url] this winter so I can do some autocross next summer. At the same time, I'm going to replace the U-bolts and rear springs since there's a rear end "clonk" on takeup and with the new springs in front, its sitting a little lower at the back. I've been working on restoring my 1962 Vespa 125 scooter in the meantime. The heater hose routing is incorrect in the engine bay, I'll probably fix that this weekend, and have a crack at replacing the U-joints. I should give the kingpins a greasing too.

Posted 1999-11-02 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

More new Parts

Sun, 08 Aug 1999 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

The process of replacing or rebuilding the entire car continues, this weekend I put the refurbished BMC AM radio back in, now that it has a light for the dial it looks really smart. I also finally found a proper distributor for my car (25D PN 40897) from Roop's MG in Pendleton, OR. Got it in the mail on Friday and picked up new cap, rotor, points, condensor, LT lead, and o-ring from Octagon the next day. Cleaned and oiled all the moving parts and proceeded with the installation which was painless. Carefully moved the wires over to the new cap and set up the timing to be close enough to start the car. For the first time ever, I set the proper points gap and I got the proper dwell angle. Hooked up the strobe and set the timing to 15 deg BTDC and locked in the dizzy. The car responds even better now, it didn't really pull before about 4000 rpm before but now it seems to have power all through the rev range. After I had the old dist out I found the part number (41692), its a Canadian spec 45D4 for an 18V engine. I really wish people would give more attention to getting the correct parts for their cars.

Sadly my clutch slippage problem is getting worse and my oil pressure is going down, I see a visit to Octagon in my near future for a new clutch, oil seals, big end bearings, oil pressure relief valve, engine and transmission mounts, and who knows what else. Wish I had access to an engine hoist or I'd give it a go myself.

Posted 1999-08-08 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Breakdown #1

Sun, 01 Aug 1999 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Had my first real breakdown a few weekends ago in Seattle. I had previously removed the radio and the frest air vent for a clean and restore and noticed a lot of dodgy wiring coming off the headlight switch, so I stripped and spliced the wires properly (although I should really solder them). It looks like there was a short at some point in the past because the wires for the rear parking lights were half melted and corroding. After I had done that I noticed the ignition warning lamp was on. I did some tests and determined that the generator was completely dead, no output. I am not sure what triggered it, perhaps doing the wiring, or maybe the engine bay cleaning I did a few weekends back got some water where it shouldn't have been even though I put plastic bags around all the electrical bits. This all transpired on Sunday night and I certainly couldn't make it back to Vancouver on battery power with the headlights on so on Monday morning I drove down to the British Auto Center in south Seattle. Swapped my generator for a rebuilt unit and put it in with a new oil gauge flex hose as the engine cleaning revealed the source of a few oil leaks. Fired up the car and all seemed well, the warning lamp was off. Shut off the ignition and went back under the hood to find smoke coming out of the new generator and the smell of burning plastic!! I cursed my luck and pulled the leads off the generator, got a healthy spark off the D terminal. That's not right, I thought, the control box is supposed to shut off that terminal when the car's off. So I had a chat with the fellows manning the counter and verified that the control box was probably toast. Bought a new one, thankfully it wasn't very expensive, and prayed that whatever fried the control box and generator wasn't going to do the same to the new units, and that I had pulled the leads off the generator fast enough to save it! Carefully put it all together with the new control box and all seemed well. It got me back to Vancouver anyway! This weekend I tested the output of the generator and it seems OK.

Some pics from helping my friend with his 79 MGB:

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Posted 1999-08-01 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Summer of 99

Sat, 12 Jun 1999 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Well its been a long time since I wrote an update, I have been working very long hours which doesn't leave much time for anything else like music or my car. Not to say nothing has been going on though, so I'll try and remember everything. At the end of the last installment I mentioned the Tulip Rallye in Washington, unfortunately due to work I wasn't capable of getting up at 6am to make it down. It sounds like everyone had a great time though, I'm really disappointed I missed it. To console myself I took a bit of a detour around Lake Samish on my way down to Seattle, where I took a few pictures.

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Posted 1999-06-12 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Whistler Drive

Fri, 11 Jun 1999 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

I have heard the Chuckanut Drive route starting in Bellingham is very scenic, I will have to try it someday soon. The I-5 is such a boring drive, but its fast. At the end of April Kim and I went to Whistler for the day.

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Posted 1999-06-11 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Motolita Treat

Thu, 10 Jun 1999 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

To celebrate owning the car for a year, I treated myself to something I have wanted for quite a while: a woodrim Motolita steering wheel. It was expensive but it feels and looks so good that I don't regret it for a second. I got the 13" variety, which is a bit smaller than I like and makes the steering a bit heavy, so I will swap it for the larger size when OMG restocks. I did some maintenance tasks like change the oil and set the timing. I decided to replace all the gaskets from the carb to the intake manifold to try and eliminate the air leak around the rear carb. Getting the old gaskets off the heat shield took hours, they were so old they were practically welded to the metal. Of course if I had a good work area I probably could have removed them with a drill in a few minute, but I digress. I reassembled the heat shield, spacers, and carbs and carb linkage and there was a bit of improvement, but not much. I am selling some old computer equipment I have around the apartment and decided to use the proceeds to buy a rebuild set of HS4s. With the tune up I barely need to use the choke to start the car, and it purrs along nicely and has torque all through the rev range. At the end of May I took the car on its longest trip yet, on a camping trip with friends from Vancouver and California in the Umpqua National Forest in southern Oregon. It was a ten hour drive each way and the car didn't miss a beat, although after prolonged high-speed driving, taking off in first would be a bit "jumpy" - I attribute that to superheated carbon deposits in the cylinders but thats purely a WAG (wild ass guess) on my part. I also visited Bryce Mack of Classic Auto Restoration Services in White Rock to get an estimate on repairing the bodywork. Anyway to get the body all sorted out its going to cost a lot of money (as expected) but I'm definately going to get the sills, rockers, and floor pans replaced in the Fall. Everything else is really cosmetic, I'm concerned with the structure at this point. Who knows, I could win the lottery between now and then and have it all done ; ) The annual Van Dusen ABFM was earlier this month, many really great cars and turnout was high (almost too many people IMO). Chatted with lots of nice MG owners and finally met Bill Spohn of the MGs list. As usual the swap meet was a bit lacking, but I managed to pick up two nice heater knobs and some metal door release handles which had to be shimmed a bit with washers on the inside to fit properly. They aren't original, in fact I don't know what car they are from, but they look smart and feel much more solid than the original plastic handles. No doubt a rebuild of the door innards would make the action a bit less resistant as well. Thats all for now!

Posted 1999-06-10 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Mysterious

Sun, 11 Apr 1999 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

This weekend I toook the opportunity to replace the steering rack boots, as you can see from the suspension pictures below they were torn and had been for some time. I counted the threads before slackening the retaining nut on the tie rod so the toe-in would be the same when I was done, then used my cheapo JC Whitney lever balljoint separator to pop it apart. Put on the new boots and pumped them full of hypoid gear oil as per the manual. It was very easy except on the second side I accidentally distorted the end of the balljoint shank so I had to file off the last thread to get the nut back on. After that I went to change the points with a different set; I had earlier tried to replace the points but saw the points that were in there had the kind of spring where the condensor and coil leads slip over a clip at the end. I thought little of it, as I've found slightly incorrect parts all over the car. The new points don't fit either: the plastic bit that rests against the drive lobes is too short! I referred to catalogues and manuals and it appears I have a 45D distributor when I should have a 25D distributor (PN 40897). My vacuum advance is therefore wrong and I'm looking forward to getting the right unit on there and compare performance. Now I just have to figure out why neither new or old style points seem to fit... In other news its a beautiful day today so I put the top down and went for a nice drive and gave the car a good wash and wax. Looks great, I hope the weather stays good for the Tulip Rallye in Washington next weekend.

Posted 1999-04-11 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Switched

Mon, 05 Apr 1999 00:00:00 -0500

The Webmaster Zone --

Finally had a chance to do some work on the car. Installed a remote battery switch in the battery's earth circuit. Used a Lucas switch, it seemed much more rugged than the red key type switch available from Moss, VB, etc. To install it I drilled a 1-3/4" hole in the body behind the passenger's seat as low and close to the transmission tunnel as possible using a Milwaukee hole cutter thing that I got at Home Depot attached to my drill. What a racket. Then it was just a matter of cutting a starter cable I had bought into two pieces, attaching a new terminal to one end, and a connector on the other piece to attach to the body. I cleaned up the ground point on the body as it was painted over and didn't look like it was getting a good connection. Cut a hole in the carpet for the switch and used some spray-on contact cement to reattach the carpet. A nice clean installation. I thought it would be a good idea to install a battery switch for a few reasons: as a theft deterrant; in case of accident to prevent fuel from being pumped; to ease working on the electrics (you should always have the battery disconnected, nothing will ruin your day like a fried wiring harness); and perhaps to get a free preparation point when I do autocross. I probably should have installed the steering rack boots but hey its a hobby so do what you feel like first! The large, bright thing in the sky is finally starting to make an appearance and I almost made it down to Seattle with the top down; I hit some wet road and the spray and the cold convinced me to stop and put up the hood. The weekend after next is the Tulip Rallye around Burlington/LaConner WA it will be fun to meet some fellow MGs list members and no doubt the drive will be scenic and present many photo ops. I need a new banner image!

Posted 1999-04-05 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Spring (Kind Of)

Fri, 26 Mar 1999 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Not much to report but I thought I would write something just to let everyone know I'm still around. Haven't had much time to work on the car lately, still collecting a few parts before I tackle the rear end. In addition to replacing the U-bolts and spring pads I am going to rebuild the propellor shaft which will hopefully eliminate the clonk when I let off the gas after accelerating. The new steering rack boots need to go on soon (you can see the old torn ones in the suspension photos) and I should replace the points. I hope there are some nice days sometime soon so I can give it a good clean and polish/wax. I have been sick the last few days which is no fun at all.

Posted 1999-03-26 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Suspension IV

Sat, 13 Feb 1999 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

I've been looking forward to my first drive with a new suspension for a long time, and tonight I was not disappointed. The car is transformed from old car to race car!! I can't wipe the smile off my face. It used to be hard to control when going over rough road and of course with two ineffective shock absorbers, it would bounce up and down several times over every bump. Combined, it makes for some stressful trips sometimes as the amount of concentration required to correct for road conditions is quite tiring. Now, it corners like its on rails. The feedback is just right; I can feel the bumps and road surface under the car but instead of going jittery it literally sticks to the road and feels a hundred times more solid. I did the entire reassembly this week. Monday I exchanged the shocks and got most of the parts I ordered from Just Brits. After pressing the last two V8 bushings into the A-arms I attached the shock to the crossmember, and ran into my first and only real problem; one of the rear bolt holes on the driver's side was stripped! I solved that problem by getting a slightly longer 7/16" bolt from Octagon today, so that when it was screwed in a bit of bolt was sticking out the bottom of the shock mount and I could put a washer and nyloc nut on it; very secure. I'm lucky in that it was the rear bolt hole since the front holes don't show out the bottom! Anyway after I got the shocks on I put in the top trunnion pin. Then I assembled the spring pans with the new A-arms (with sway bar link holes). It all went so smoothly that I ended up putting in the new springs and the lower trunnion pins too, and almost put the lower trunnion seals on the wrong way around. I tried to find copper grease or Neversieze to assemble the trunnion pins but of course Canadian Tire didn't have what I was looking for so I made an educated guess and used white lithium grease instead.

Today I took my sway bar to Octagon to get new bushings pressed in. I tried to press them in myself with a 5" C-clamp but they were way too tight. Picked up some cotter pins and a new inner door release handle as well. After work I installed the sway bar and connected it to the link. Greased the suspension and put new grease on the hub splines, then put the wheels back on and lowered the car to the ground. Did the final tightening and put in the cotter pins. Phew! The job probably took 20-30 hours total but I like to go over everything very carefully. The front of the car is sitting 6 inches higher than before, but I'm sure it will settle a bit as the springs wear in. The sway bar reduces the body roll dramatically, I was doing a bit of a test on the road around BC Place Stadium (part of the Indy circuit) and I have a lot of cornering power left to explore. This is the best thing I've done to the car yet, I recommend to anyone who has worn out suspension components to take the plunge and renovate while the weather is still icky. Checked the tire pressure all around and inflated my new improved spare; trips to Seattle are going to be a breeze now! Gotta get a quote on fixing the damage to the rear end, and I've got all the parts to renovate the rear suspension and I still need to replace the steering rack boots, handbrake cable, and install my new Lucas battery switch. If only I could afford that nice Motolita wood rim steering wheel on sale at Moss...

Update: The car handles great on the highway too and wheel patter above 65 mph is almost imperceptable. Had another tire blow on me this weekend though, this is getting ridiculous!

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Posted 1999-02-13 00:00:00 by Skye Nott

Suspension III

Sun, 31 Jan 1999 00:00:00 -0600

The Webmaster Zone --

Got the shock separated from the swivel axle finally this weekend - I tried smacking it repeatedly in situ but it was clear it was fused to the upper trunnion bushes. I figured I needed to get a better angle - working inside the wheel well means you can't get really satisfying hammer swings. I don't have my ball joint separator yet, so I unbolted the steering arm from the back of the swivel axle and unbolted the shock and removed the shock and swivel axle together. Once out of the car I put a large socket under the head of the trunnion pin and went to town on the end of the pin with the lead hammer. I actually got it to move! However once it was flush with the lever arm hole it wouldn't go any further because of course all the pounding had flared the end of the soft pin so I filed the flare off and continued with a center punch. About halfway through the bushes the pin just would not move any more, so I disconnected the bolt holding the lever arms together halfway and loosened the arm. After pushing the arms apart I was able to slide the swivel axle out and the trunnion pin and one of the bushes is still stuck to one arm on the shock. No matter, mission accomplished; I can take the shocks to Octagon tomorrow and exchange them for rebuilt units. Since I wasn't quite sweaty enough I thought I would fix the spare tire tube (leaking again, missed a hole when I patched it). Went to work with the irons and got the tube out but I decided to toss it since it was in a rusty rim for quite a while and is disintegrating in many places. I had another tube with a small hole but it was in generally better condition so I patched it instead and thats drying now. Since the spare was out I took everything out of the boot and removed the sopping wet carpet and hung it up to dry and soaked up the disturbingly large puddles of rain water from the recesses of the body. I refitted the clips to the back of the boot badge, I really hope the silicone fixes some of the leaking problems. I removed the rest of the damaged tail light assembly as well, and bent the lamp base back into shape. I cleaned and glued the chrome lens trim last night, and I have a used tail lens in excellent shape that I picked up at a swap meet last year. The DPO used duct tape to hold the tail lens onto the body when I bought the car; I have found WD40 and Brasso work very well when removing the dried up adhesive goop that tape leaves behind (works well on labels too). Although the assembly won't fit perfectly onto the body until the accident damage is fixed, I think its a good idea to make the light assembly waterproof, and at least it eliminates the bloody duct tape. Finally met the owner of the '72 B that lives across the parking garage from me; I left a note offering any help to get it running again a while ago. Found out that it hasn't been run in 3 years and it was blowing smoke when she parked it. It has a bit of bumper damage and a little paint bubbling under the (possibly) original paint but otherwise looks to be in decent shape. If anyone wants a 72 I'm sure she would part with it...

Posted 1999-01-31 00:00:00 by Skye Nott