Today we finished the windshield installation and drove the car. Ray put over a half tank of gas in the tank, fuel gauge appears to be working. Speedometer and odometer work, but the speedo does appear to be reading really high. So we put the car away in the next door storage unit for the winter - both of us have plans to head south for warmer weather, we'll both be back by mid February. Next spring we will drive the car more and complete the shakedown process.
Here's the windshield in place:
Here's a view of the interior of the car. Ray did a nice job on the seats and side panels:
Yes that is gravel you see behind the seats, we need to install the cover over the battery area.
Then here's two overall views of the car:
Meantime we completed the financial transaction, the car now is fully Rays and we've removed some of the funds from our joint account. But we've left enough for purchase and initial expenses on another project car. So the hunt begins for our next project!
We attempted to install the good used windshield glass we were given by the prior owner. Had the glass sitting on the work surface and scraped crud off of it to get it ready for installation. Came back after a weekend and the glass had a two inch crack across the corner. Bummer!
So ordered new glass, today we got the new glass installed in the frame. Lots of little, special length screws used, glad they have clear instructions on what goes where! Here's a picture of the completed frame:
They give you a much wider strip of rubber than needed and you trim it back to the edge of the metal frame. We used soapy water to aid in getting the glass into the frame, we opted to wait until this soapy water dries out before we trim off the excess. Plus the inside of the frame is much easier to trim while it's off the car. We also installed the rubber on the bottom of the frame that seals against the cowl of the car. So in three more days we will trim the rubber and install the frame onto the stanchions on the car.
Couple of other items. The rear differential was almost empty of fluid, and the transmission fluid was really gunky. We decided at the recommendation of a friend to fill both with automatic transmission fluid for about 20 miles or so. This should flush out any remaining nastiness, then we will fill both with the appropriate Redline synthetic lubricant.
Turn signal switch was staying on for about 2 seconds, dismantled switch and cleaned up leather seal, adjusted bleed valve, and now this pneumatic switch stays on for about 20 seconds, as designed. OK, it's not a good design since it's not related to steering wheel position, but still it does work as it was originally intended!
We have everything working from an electrical point of view except the tachometer. The charging system was not working, removed generator and had it checked out at a local auto electric shop. They said it was working fine, so problem must be in the voltage regulator. Reinstalled generator and now the charging light was not only staying on but was VERY bright. Measured voltage and it was 24 volts! Apparently the shop that checked out the generator didn't know the car was positive ground, and they switched the polarity of the field winding. We reset the field winding polarity and amazingly the charging system now works just like it should!
Fuel gauge moves toward full tank when you disconnect sending unit, need to actually put in more gas and make sure it is accurate. Blower motor and wiper motors all work.
Connected speedometer cable, need to confirm after next run that speedo actually works.
Hand brake was rusted up, after some PB Blaster it's now now working well. Bled brakes again and we've got a very hard brake pedal.
So after windshield installation is complete and one more drive around town, then we put it away for a couple of months before getting it out in early spring to finish it's shakedown process.
Ray and I both drove the car today. Runs pretty darn well, considering how little we've done to tune up the engine. More importantly, the clutch and transmission worked fine. Here's the obligatory first drive video:
After the drive we changed the oil in the engine plus drained the transmission. Tranny had some gunky looking 90 weight oil in it, glad we're putting nice clean 20W50 in there.
Even made some progress today on electrical issues. Cleaned contacts and wire connections for turn signal relay box. Then ended up bending the armature to make it easier to close the contacts and both side turn signals started working. Still only have one brake light, suspect it's root cause is also poor contact inside the box.
British car folks talk about wiring problems as "letting the smoke out of the wires" when you have excessive current flow due to wiring defects. Well, this MGA has entirely new wiring now and we are pleased to report that none of the smoke has come out of the wires......yet!
Here's a picture of the new dash with mostly older gauges and switches installed in it:
This is a "new" used dash because the original one had an extra hole for an ammeter which is not stock. Ray prepped and painted this dash, looks very nice. He also re-covered the black dash pad above it.
Here's some views of the lights on:
Turn signals don't work yet, complex system with large relay involved. We found the steering column is actually adjustable although it's rusted up pretty bad, this needs some attention. Then we have all the pieces to install a good used windshield into the original frame. From there our list should get pretty short, unless driving the car surfaces some new issues. Hopefully next blog post will include views of the car on the road!
Made a lot of progress this month. Wheels and tires are done, they look real good, Ray used some pretty shiny paint for the wheels:
We have the brakes all bled and ready to go. Not real happy with the solidness of the brake pedal, but with drum brakes we need to drive the car and let the shoes situate themselves. Plus we aren't getting any more bubbles as we bleed the lines. Sorry, no pictures to show for bleeding brakes.
Last item we had mentioned in prior post was wiring. Made lots of progress there. The original harness was gone and replaced with a variety of individual wires. This second, very poor attempt at wiring has now been completely removed, and most of the new harness (just like the original) has been installed. Looks great!
Ray was able to buy quite a few good used parts from a guy in Kentucky, including a new dash. The original one had another hole added for an ammeter, which was not original. Once the paint job is complete on the dash then we'll reinstall it, the gauges and switches, plus wire all this stuff up. We've got all three heater and air flow cables repaired.
One other little job was to repair the battery tray. These typically rust away. We got a new one and our friend Nick the welder welded it in for us:
He also welded in a bracket that had broken off for the exhaust system:
So looking good for perhaps driving this thing before year end!
What a good day, we need one of these every once in a while.
We got our fuel and coolant system leaks resolved and installed a Pertronix electronic ignition system. Earlier this week we tried to start the engine, using a spark tester we confirmed we had a good spark. But we could not get the car to start.
After consulting with Donnie, another SIR Brit member, we removed the valve cover and basically found out the firing was occurring 180 degrees out of phase. In other words, instead of firing after the compression stroke of a four stroke engine we were firing after the exhaust stroke, which does no good. We started to reposition the distributor, but fortunately before we got too far along in this process Donnie suggested that we simply move the plug wires around to get the timing back where it needed to be. Did that, still would not start, messed with timing again because it seemed like it was firing before it got to TDC (looked like it would stop), and finally it took off!
The engine ran fine, idle a little high, good oil pressure, very smooth. Here's a little video footage:
After running for about 15 minutes we shut it down and checked compression again. Delighted to see the compression figures improved dramatically - all four cylinders are now between 120 and 135 psi, excellent. You could even see blowby coming out of the valve cover at initial startup that slowly went away after running - probably due to rings on #2 cylinder freeing up and sealing the piston to the cylinder wall. So it looks like we have a good engine with no further work required on it's internals.
Messing around later we wondered why the tach did not work. Found the drive cable for a mechanical tach, but no place to connect it on the engine. After more google and catalog searches, turns out our engine serial # indicates this engine did not come from an MG but came from an Austin or Morris sedan, which did not have a tach. Our best option at this point is to get an electrical tach from an early MGB and install it (looks the same, pretty easy to wire in).
Running engine also showed temp gauge did not work, typical failure of a broken capillary tube, new ones are available fairly cheap.
So major progress today. Three things need to happen now before the car is drivable:
1. Finish installation of brakes and bleed brake/clutch systems.
2. Install new wiring - current wiring is all loose wires with no bundling, what a mess.
3. Finish wire wheels - replaced broken spokes and trued the wheels up, now need paint, then mount new tires and tubes.
After much soaking and cleaning up of cylinder walls, we finally got a little rough with it and used a sledge hammer and block of steel to break cylinder #2 free. Once we got it moving then things went pretty quick. We cleaned up all four cylinder walls, they all look good. Did some prep work for reassembly - removed tappet covers and got the tappets put back in place (four had come out of their holes), cleaned up the threads on the exhaust manifold pipe connection, then took inventory of what parts we need to start this thing up. Here's some video of the pistons moving (Ray's under the car rotating the harmonic balancer with a wrench):
We then ordered about $70 in parts. We look forward to re-assembling the engine and see how solid it is!
Today we started on the MGA, specifically the stuck engine. We had loaded the cylinders with PB Blaster and Marvel Mystery Oil two months ago and let it soak.
First try was with a wrench on the harmonic balancer bolt. No luck. Second try was pushing the car in gear while in the garage. No luck. Third attempt was with a battery and jumper cables to the starter. No luck. Fourth attempt used a pull strap and a diesel truck.
This is the setup:
Tires dragged easily across the gravel, so moved to library parking lot across the street. Left rubber on the lot:
At this point we decided this motor was not likely to break free easily, so we proceeded to remove the cylinder head and see what's inside. Here's what we found inside cylinder #2:
The other three look fine. Also the previous oil we had put in had dripped down into the pan on the other three cylinders but not in #2, it's well sealed around the piston to the cylinder walls so there was about a 1/2 inch of oil in there!
The cylinder head was also very gunky around #2:
So the question now is, did the corrosion occur after the car was parked in the early '90's, or did it occur prior to that event? We were told it ran when parked, making you think it occurred later.
At any rate, we are going to use steel wool and clean up the walls of the cylinder and see if it can look more like the other three. Then see if we can use a sledge and wood block to get the piston to move. If it moves and cylinder wall cleans up, then perhaps we'll do a valve job and put it back together and see how it runs!
We have purchased our third project prior to finishing the second one. We know, not a great idea, but could not pass it up. 1958 MGA, locked up engine but very little rust. About the opposite from our current project where it was a rust bucket but the engine was revived just fine.
This car is now on it's third owner in the last several months, all members of our local British car club. And yes, that is an extra engine on the back of the trailer in case we can't get the current engine to "unlock".
Our challenge is to finish project #2 (1964 MGB) and get it sold before we get too deep into project #3.
