It begins! (project thread)
- Thread starter DingleBerry
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yup rubber bumper, though it was only a cosmetic change, i stand corrected.
actually i was really disappointed with the drive so now i know the crome is better i might try one of those
Yup the Americans brought in lots of wonderful regulations such as not breaking any lights in a 15mph(?) collision which required the stupid plastic bra which incidentally also has a massive lump of steel inside it. A minimum height for the bumper to protect pedestrians which raised the car too far. They would probably have used the wooden blocks to lower it back down again, its what you use nowadays if you've got the rubber bumper springs (although I think they are metal nowadays). I think they went up 2 1/2 inches which ruined the car.
That's not to mention the emissions controls which lowered the power from around 98bhp in the early models down to 75ish bhp in the last. It wasn't that fast in the first place so that loss really hurt! And don't forget that 75 was 30 years ago, several of those ponies are going to have bolted since then.
Don't get me wrong the chrome bumper models are hardly supreme handling machines but they are a darn sight better than the rubber bumpered ones.
I don't know if you've got this, but a few months back I picked this from the 'high street store beginning with W'. It was marked down to only £1.
http://www.markevans.co.uk/acatalog/An_MG_is_Born.html
I'm pretty sure I've also seen it in other 'W' stores too, so it may be worth your while having a scout around your local one's bargain bin. 4 hours of restoration/documentary and some great insights if you're rebuilding one yourself, like you are.
http://www.markevans.co.uk/acatalog/An_MG_is_Born.html
I'm pretty sure I've also seen it in other 'W' stores too, so it may be worth your while having a scout around your local one's bargain bin. 4 hours of restoration/documentary and some great insights if you're rebuilding one yourself, like you are.
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got it 
is a good watch. Apparently he spent 80k on that rebuild....I won't be!
[Edit] Sorry that was a complete fabrication.....£100k!
http://www.markevans.co.uk/mgbforsale.php
Its not worth £20k, mainly because its been for sale for about a year, maybe 2.
is a good watch. Apparently he spent 80k on that rebuild....I won't be![Edit] Sorry that was a complete fabrication.....£100k!
http://www.markevans.co.uk/mgbforsale.php
Its not worth £20k, mainly because its been for sale for about a year, maybe 2.
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Aye, I watched that show when I had mine. Got me tinkering and playing around. I got some right bargains when I had mine, most notably Smiths gauges which were worth a tonne. I bought a clock, voltmeter and air/fuel ratio gauge off some guy for ~£10. Sold them for over ten times that when I sold the car :/
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Hairiest moment was when the battery died. It's under the rear bench, my mate and I removed the bench then the panel and chagred the batter. Not wanting to shoot ourselves in the foot, we drove round for half and hour with the bench off and the cover, so you could see the road. Bad luck the road had a dip and the car bottomed out and stones came flying inWas only going slow as well (rear brake kept binding
)
hehe I remember not to do that then! I'm always afraid I will spear the battery on something sooner or later. There really is very little protection back there.
I had some problems with the overdrive on this one where it would only reverse when the gearbox oil was cold. This meant that while you could reverse out of parking spaces you couldn't reverse into them. I was very good at forward parallel parking for a bit! Ah happy times.
It shows how knackered my MG was. I bought it, was told it didn't have OD, but the switch was in ALL models in case you 'added it' ... the seller was a numpty. After some digging, it turned out my car did OD, it had just been poorly looked after.
In all fairness, I bought it to drive around in for a few months for £700 (with MOT), and sold it for £700 at the end of Summer several years ago (without MOT). So it was free motoring essentially.
Lovely little cars though, I will definitely be buying a better example when I graduate along with everything to look after the thing.
In all fairness, I bought it to drive around in for a few months for £700 (with MOT), and sold it for £700 at the end of Summer several years ago (without MOT). So it was free motoring essentially.
Lovely little cars though, I will definitely be buying a better example when I graduate along with everything to look after the thing.
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People do that with overdrives, they can be expensive to fix so they just pretend its not there. Sounds better than announcing a fairly vital part of the transmission isn't working properly and could render you devoid of reverse or better still any drive what so ever. My OD switch is on the dash board where it looks significantly cooler Plus the wires don't break inside the gear stick every 6 months.
The weeks tinkering time was spend on the xsara so I've not had any time to do anything to the car since last time BUT I've bought telescopic shocks all round and some nice black mk1 mx5 seats to replace the disasters in there at the moment. You don't sit in mgb seats...you sit on them, until the corners. Or of course the ravages of time reduce the foam to dust and you end up sitting on the springs...NICE!
Incidentally I can start the xsara without a cloud of smoke now, so that's a plus!
The weekend after next is pencilled in for engine removal which is quite exciting!
Plus the wires don't break inside the gear stick every 6 months.The weeks tinkering time was spend on the xsara so I've not had any time to do anything to the car since last time BUT I've bought telescopic shocks all round and some nice black mk1 mx5 seats to replace the disasters in there at the moment. You don't sit in mgb seats...you sit on them, until the corners. Or of course the ravages of time reduce the foam to dust and you end up sitting on the springs...NICE!
Incidentally I can start the xsara without a cloud of smoke now, so that's a plus!
The weekend after next is pencilled in for engine removal which is quite exciting!
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which is an improvement on metal bars and springs 
that and they are the only seats from a production car which fit between the cill and transmission tunnel, bar some obscure pontiac seats. And they've got speakers in the head rests! Buckets seamed a little pretentious for under 100bhp...
that and they are the only seats from a production car which fit between the cill and transmission tunnel, bar some obscure pontiac seats. And they've got speakers in the head rests! Buckets seamed a little pretentious for under 100bhp...
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Had a nice productive day yesterday. We thought we'd put the new seats inside to makes sure they fitted, which thankfully they do! Makes the car look that much better than the faded monstrosities that was there before.
All I've got to do now is work out how to mount the damnable things! Mattius how did you do it? You don't happen to have some handy premade brackets going spare do you?
We've got the dizzy. starter motor and general rubbish off this side and started losening the bell housing and engine mounts
This side was last times work. We are happily manifold free! I've got a crane coming next week so next weekend we should be ready to take it out! Then we can start dealing with the rust and crap all over the place.
You've no idea how long it took to remove this \/ grrrrr stupid bolts inside the wing...grrr
Last week we had the massive dent in the cross member this week we've got the brake servo. Can any one spot the deliberate mistake?
All I've got to do now is work out how to mount the damnable things! Mattius how did you do it? You don't happen to have some handy premade brackets going spare do you?
We've got the dizzy. starter motor and general rubbish off this side and started losening the bell housing and engine mounts
This side was last times work. We are happily manifold free! I've got a crane coming next week so next weekend we should be ready to take it out! Then we can start dealing with the rust and crap all over the place.
You've no idea how long it took to remove this \/ grrrrr stupid bolts inside the wing...grrr
Last week we had the massive dent in the cross member this week we've got the brake servo. Can any one spot the deliberate mistake?
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hehe I think that would have become slightly more obvious!Have you run the fuel line into the servo?
Bingo! So my nicely servoed brakes....aren't! I presume the servo failed at some point so they took it out of the circuit. As even the repair kit is £60 and £150 for a new servo I'll probably just leave it off and put the battery in its place which makes significantly more sense than having it under the back seats. I drove it for 2 years without it and didn't even notice!
Dont repair a servo whatever you do, you need specialist tools to do it properly. I picked up a big remote servo exaclty the same as yours from ebay brand new for 90quid and there are more on at the moment, although normally you wouldnt really need it, my brakes were fine without one, i just need mine after the accident.
Battery in the rear is quite a clever idea in these lightweight cars for weight distribution, i would take as much out the bonnet aread and move it back as possible.
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Caporegime
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Mk1 Mx5 Seats?
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I've pretty much decided to bin it anyway. Its another point of faliure for the brakes. I can lock all 4 wheels without it. I didn't know they were hard to fix. Probably explains it being bypassed
Hmmmm you might be right, probably made more difference when they had 2*6v . I'm not sure you could tell. Although i'm not sure i'd call it a lightweight car but there you go!
yup...not exactly period but I'm toying with the idea of a tseries turbo so being period isn't exactly a problem
yup...not exactly period but I'm toying with the idea of a tseries turbo so being period isn't exactly a problem
pah wouldnt worry about that, comfort is way more important. Just how comfy is those seats?
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Pretty comfortable! A HELL of a lot better than the old seats.
My crane's arrived this morning which is nice. All I need to do now is sort out some strops and we are good to go. Then I've got the small detail of an engine rebuild/tart up to be getting on with.