Project 1974 MGB GT - The Mustard (Mit) Mobility Scooter - 6yrs ownership & the end is potentially nigh!

[Guest Hooli]

These engines run well under almost any conditions anyway. If you want a modern experience in a GT type thing get something like a aldi TT...

 

 

 

AAH.

[Geep]

Why not arrange an evening drive out with the wife? You in the MG and her in her own car then drive to a nice pub somewhere far away to get some confidence. She will witness it working fine or will be there to bring you home if it doesn't. Win win. 

[SiC]

Question, re the oil pressure gauge:- at idle does it move much when hot? If not, try flicking it repeatedly with your finger, if it moves about with each flick then it's just a bit stiff inside and TADTS when they get old.

It's definitely sticky when cold. Flicking the gauge will get it higher by 5-8 psi. Not used it enough when its warm to know if it does when hot!

I wouldn't be surprised if the gauge is a bit dodgy, as I'm pretty certain its original to the car.

 

 

Once you've built up a bit of confidence in the thing let me know and I'll give you a real nice driving route to go take down through the Mendips. No really busy roads, places to stop if you need to and such.

That would be great. I'm a bit short of places to drive at the moment. I usually go North of Bristol but all the roads are pretty busy and I wouldn't like to breakdown on a blind bend that is in a 50-60mph limit.

 

One of the reasons I'd like to move and why we are looking again at the moment is somewhere that is not so frantic and busy. Not just for driving old cars but just general less stress.

 

The only reason I would want fuel injection and electronic ignition on a B-series would be the ability to add a knock sensor so it could adjust the timing accordingly and not need the pfaff with choke to make it run when cold. A moderately simple MAF/TPS/IAC/CTS/CPS system with oxygen sensor and knock feedback with two throttle body injectors on the original carbs (mostly gutted) retaining the distributor but losing the points would probably see that engine run well under most conditions.

 

Phil

There are these about: https://www.advancedautomotives.com/weber-downdraught-retroject-3838-fuel-injection-throttle-body-kit---webcon-atb400-6604-p.asp

 

Not cheap, but two of them along with a Webber to B-series manifold would get a lot of the hard work done. Part of the reason I bought an old HS6 carb was because it was cheap and the thought of stripping it out to convert it to EFI. Even a simple throttle body injection I think would be perfectly adequate. I mean that is essentially what a carb is, in some respects! Too many projects though and not enough time, so on the back burner for now.

[busmansholiday]

See my comments in the news today. It's one of the joys of old cars

[Zelandeth]

It's a shame you're not closer.

 

The best thing to help get miles on a car like this without major stress is to do it with a mate in tow in a support car. Get a bit of time in each others cars and feed back observations to each other.

 

A good afternoon like this and it's easy to get a hundred miles or so under the wheels.

 

My van had only done a handful of miles in the last few years - I've deliberately been using it as close to daily as possible over the last week though and the difference now is like night and day compared to when I collected it.

 

It sounds okay to me, it's not a concourse one with an engine rebuilt every 250 miles with polished fan blades... it's a real engine with a bit of wear on. The oil pressure is showing on the gauge when warm so I'd stop worrying about it. You've mentioned possible issues with the oil being too thin I think...get some good quality 20W-50 in there and the correct oil filter, then you can tick that off.

 

Mixture is fine based on the plugs.

[captain_70s]

This better be SiC driving to work tomorrow.

[Eddie Honda]

The best thing to help get miles on a car like this without major stress is to lend it to Eddie Honda one afternoon and he'll drive it to Gretna and be back in Bristol in time* for breakfast

FTFY

[PhilA]

Get yourself down south by any means you can and give this run a try. Ends up in the midst of nowhere but it's a really pretty view.

 

There are some challenging roads, some fast roads, some twisties and some laid back bits. I'd say come down and go through Chew Magna and up across the lake on the way down, aim to go through Longwell green, that kind of way.

 

https://www.google.com/maps/dir/51.2764356,-2.5774201/51.2153667,-2.6457789/51.268287,-2.6529565/51.2646754,-2.6918163/51.2838323,-2.7064273/51.299209,-2.716042/51.3059685,-2.7968969/51.2782189,-2.7358339/51.2635243,-2.69892/51.2525293,-2.7088964/@51.2740049,-2.7389961,15619m/data=!3m1!1e3!4m5!4m4!2m1!1b1!3e0!4e1

 

 

To back home, relaxed run on B roads or up the A38/A39.

--Phil

[plasticvandan]

The best way to get some miles on it is to lend it to someone else on here for the day,so long as they have breakdown cover,oil and water they arent going to worry that much because its not theirs.if it makes it back mission complete

[Guest Hooli]

Roffle it, I'd use it as a daily.

[BorniteIdentity]

Are you still not using this dear boy?

 

If not - my genuine, heartfelt suggestion would be to just sell it.

 

What are you truly worried about happening?  You're a man of means, you have other vehicles, as long as you're not stupid enough to drive it to work at 5am (lke I do with the Sierra) then I can't see the world ending.

 

It's only a car if you drive it.  Otherwise, it's as much a dildo as it is a motor vehicle.

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Just flippin drive it!!!! Srsly, you will only get it reliable with a 50/50 combo of fiddling and driving. You're still on 90/10! This thing really needs a proper good long-distance thrashing I reckon.

[320touring]

Everyone chill out! He's doing his best, AND restoring an Austin ADO16 too..

[busmansholiday]

The more you worry, the more problems you will find, just drive it, and enjoy how many people stare at you and think "I wish I had one of those".

Has the breakdown of mine put me off?, has it bollocks.

[SiC]

This better be SiC driving to work tomorrow.

I'd love to be doing that! Unfortunately no chance in Bristol. Most of the time is spent sat idle. At the moment, this is my reliable* form of commuting transportation.

 

By far the quickest way in and out of the centre. Means less time spent commuting and more time fiddling/fixing the 1100!

 

 

Are you still not using this dear boy?

 

If not - my genuine, heartfelt suggestion would be to just sell it.

 

What are you truly worried about happening? You're a man of means, you have other vehicles, as long as you're not stupid enough to drive it to work at 5am (lke I do with the Sierra) then I can't see the world ending.

 

It's only a car if you drive it. Otherwise, it's as much a dildo as it is a motor vehicle.

I've thought about selling this a couple of times and had this conversation when I was out with my FiL. Part of me says if I'm not enjoying it why do I own it still. The other half says that I'll regret selling it and probably only end up buying another one again.

 

What am I worried about happening? Combination of things. One, is it breaking down and costing me more money. Money taken away from restoring the 1100 and saving to move house. Two, the inconvenience of breaking down and recovery. Three, if it breaks down I can't really fix it on the drive as my [dickshit] neighbour moans about me leaving too many cars on the road. As we're looking to move I'm trying to keep the peace and not cause myself problems. Four, I suspect in recent years I have developed anxiety issues. I would never have been that bothered breaking down before but now I have a fear of it. Especially the thought of breaking down and being completely in the way. Bristol is not a car friendly place as it is and breaking down on a roundabout or on a blind bend is dangerous.

 

However I'm trying to fight those points and why I've been out in it recently. Helps that I went with the FiL as it's useful to have someone there to assist if things go wrong. I think he's quite nervous driving it though as he doesn't want to break it!

 

In some ways I bought the wrong one. I bought this on the basis of good bodywork. Which is mostly has. No A+ but more a good B. However this car hasn't been used that much for a long time and thus the reliability issues. What I should have got is one used as a daily driver. If I knew something was reliable to the last owner before hand, it would have given me a lot more confidence it can be a reliable car.

 

The other problem is that I don't have oodles of spare time. What spare time I have, I like to use maximising enjoyment. At the moment that is greatest when working on the 1100. So given a choice of going up to drive the MGB or sand down the 1100 fuel tank, I'll choose the sanding.

 

In some ways because it's garaged I feel less guilty not driving it. Will hardly be degrading nor devaluing much sat up there.

[SiC]

I'm still optimistic about using it more. I even put down on the insurance to do 3k p/a again this year!

[Mr_Bo11ox]

You do seem to have a lot of anxiety about it breaking down. Earlier you dismissed a whole district as not really being suitable to take the MG for a spin as the roads didn't look suitable for breaking down on.

 

But you're in a catch 22 situation, the less you drive it, the more likely it is to break down when you do go out.

 

If you have breakdown cover and a mobile phone though, surely breaking down when you're just 'out for a blezz' rather than trying to get to work or whatever, is just a fairly minor inconvenience rather than a serious problem?

[Mr_Bo11ox]

Also, when you break down, it rarely happens with no warning whatsoever. The chance of you ending up blocking a roundabout or blind bend even if you do break down, is slim to nil. You pretty much always get some spluttering, funny noises, odd behaviour of some sort which gives you a chance to stop in a safe place. The only thing that will really stop you dead is a broken trunnion or something, and if you and an MOT guy have inspected that lot you've got little to worry about there.

[Mally]

Only thing likely to stop you dead is electrical.

You are very good with electrics.

[PhilA]

Psh, plenty of places to break down in Bristol.

 

I've done it enough times in the past. You just get out and gesticulate a bit at people, or provide «gallic shrug» and start pushing the vehicle aside. If it's old enough (your B is) then people get less impetuous than if you were to break down, say, in a modern Audi.

 

If you're sitting idle a lot, you're going the wrong way round.

 

Phil

[1970mgb]

She's still rattly. Balls. Almost certain its the top end that is rattling as sticking a 0.08" feeler in quietens it down. Also maybe that I'm crap at setting clearences.

 

I want to get it MOT, so I'll get the garage to set the clearences again. If it's no better I'll just ignore it. Maybe longer term I might get a Peter Burgess Fast Road head with Unleaded conversion. At £470 it's a fairly expensive but should gain power. Just a basic unleaded conversion is £235 which isn't to bad either. Worse case, brand new head is £430.

 

Just a few comments, even though I know this comment was made a while back, and I think it's been addressed.

 

When I first bought my car, I was told that if the valve train "sounds like a sewing machine" the clearance is probably good. That's what mine sounds like with 15 thou all the way across(stock cam). If one were to....say...not tighten a lock nut on an adjuster all the way(not that anyone would be stupid enough to do that...) the adjuster will work loose and you'll easily hear the "tapping" valve.  I recall once having three work loose(don't ask) and aside from being down on power from only running on 2 cylinders, the engine sounded like someone shaking a can of rocks-it would give me a headache in 10-15 minutes of driving.

 

Replacing the rocker shaft(they're about $10 from Moss US) can take up some of the play and help things.

 

Still, though, I've found that with my valve lash set at 12 thou or so, there's next to no noise from my valves. I DON'T run mine that tight, as I'm always afraid of burning a valve.

 

Note that oil/lack of oil/viscosity has essentially no effect on the valve train noise on these engines. With hydraulic self-adjusting lifters, low oil or too low of a viscosity can cause noisy valves since it's involved in actually setting the lash. The B series engine rocker train gets oil from one place-there's a single oil galley at the rear of the head below the rear rocker pedestal. It feeds oil up into said pedestal, and it then gets fed down the rocker shaft and onto each of the rockers where it drips out. It splashes all over the place on the top end from there and lubricates the tips of the rockers, the pushrod "cup", and then, assuming you don't have a lot of blow by combined with a poorly sealing valve cover gasket(often a product of overtightening the sheet metal cover and distorting it-I use an aftermarket alloy rocker cover for this reason and not for its "bling" value) that cause oil to blow out all over the head, it then drips down the tappet galley and onto the tappets and camshaft(and back into the sump).

 

I have to plead ignorance on home market spec cars, as by 1974 US market cars had "low compression" engines and smog ports in the head. The "smog" heads-12H2923 would have been used in 1974 in the US-have a terrible reputation for cracking, to the point where you might find one usable one out of 5. I THINK that home market cars kept their high compression engines and non-smog heads up until late in production.

 

For an MGB, a "high compression" engine has a c/r of 8.8:1, and a low compression engine is 8.0:1. The former uses shallow dish pistons(don't know their volume right off the top of my head) and has a nominal combustion chamber volume of 42ccs. The latter reduces the combustion chamber volume to 38ccs, but offsets it with deep dish pistons to get the lower C/R. In the US, the change happened for the 1973 m/y.

 

When I decided I needed a valve job, I sourced a good, crack checked and refurbished(with new exhaust valves and hardened seats) 12H2923 head. There again, this is a smog head but has 38cc combustion chambers and "big" intake valves(CAM1106 is the other, post-77 NA spec small chamber head, but is less desirable for a couple of reasons, and also more crack prone). I'll mention that the "big" valves don't really add anything on a street engine, but are nice bragging rights . Dropped onto my shallow dish piston engine(18GH), I have a C/R of somewhere around 9.5:1 with a composition head gasket. Using a thinner OEM type copper head gasket can actually bump this a bit more, but the composition head gaskets have so many other advantages that I wouldn't recommend doing that. This gives the engine quite a bit more grunt.

 

Your price for an "unleaded conversion"(which presumably means crack checking, planing, fitting hardened seats, new exhaust valves, new springs, oil seals, and new guides if needed) sounds high to me. That would normally be $300ish in the US. On the other hand, if I could get a Peter Burgess head for the price you mentioned, I'd jump on it!

 

BTW, my car is not a daily driver, but I don't hesitate to hop in it and make a ~200 mile round trip. As someone else said, the car gives plenty of warning when something isn't right. There's also a lot that can be fixed on the side of the road.

 

One thing I will say-I run points although folks would argue with this. In any case, 90% of the problems on these cars are ignition related. You will be surprised at what having your original distributor rebuilt will do. In the US, we send our distributors to Jeff Schlemmer. In the UK, go to the Distributor Doctor. He will bring it up to factory new condition(which is better than the made-in-China repros out there now). I've actually been meaning to order a set of fiber-heeled points and a condenser from him-we have a real issue with point and condenser quality in the US. Jeff actually does some work on all the points he sells before shipping them, although we're still stuck with the same crummy condensers.

 

In any case, be sure to get the "red" rotor from the Distributor Doctor. The black ones with a brass rivet are junk-the black pigment can be conductive at ~20KV, but the bigger problem is that the metal rivet can short to the ground. The red rotor eliminates both these problems-both by not using a black pigment and a plastic "rivet". I suggest a phenolic cap with brass terminals. I run Bosch wires, but there are other good ones out there. The factory specified Champion N9Y© plugs, but I'm not wild about Champion quality these days. I suggest NGK BP6ES plugs. Avoid the temptation to get precious metal plugs-stick with good old copper core-and also avoid resistor plugs(NGK BPR6ES, Champion RN9YC).

[SiC]

Now for a really important question.

 

Black bolts?

 

Or

 

Silver bolts?

 

I'm leaning more to silver bolts.

[320touring]

Silver

[dozeydustman]

Tough decision. I think as fully black steering wheel, black bolts. If it was alloy spoked, then silver bolts.

 

Maybe try both on the car and see what both look like in the cockpit

[SiC]

See silver looks more classic race car like to me! But the black on black looks like a good match too though. I specifically chose a black wheel as it's a bit different from all the alloy ones.

[busmansholiday]

I think you should fit a tiller steering system like DW's Invacar.

[MorrisItalSLX]

Keep the original steering wheel, unless it is damaged in some way, then black bolts.

[1970mgb]

Keep the original steering wheel, unless it is damaged in some way, then black bolts.

 

Agreed.

 

I know steering wheels are somewhat personal, but I find the 15" thin-rim 3-spoke wheels to be quite comfortable and make the car feel a lot more "nimble."

 

I've driven a fair few Bs with 14" "thick rim" wheels. They were stock on 77 and later, and the of the ones used I'm partial to the 3-spoke "finger breaker" used on the (NA market) 79/80 LE.

 

Still, though, I wouldn't jump right into a 14" wheel without driving a car with one. Remember that you don't have power steering, and the extra 1" makes a surprising difference in steering effort. There again, there will probably never be a consensus on "thick" vs. "thin" rims, but I wouldn't want to give up my thin rim.

 

Short of a "banjo" wheel, though, in the 15" size I do prefer "finger breaker" spokes over the simple spokes on the OP's car but then the wheel on the OP's car is original.

 

I'd go with silver bolts, though, if I had to change the wheel.

[mrbenn]

Silver bolts look better IMHO.

[SiC]

I don't find the original wheel very comfortable to use. Even though I'm not particularly big nor fat, the bottom of my legs almost rub against the bottom of it. Plus it doesn't feel that great to hold either.

 

The stock wheel measurers nearer 16 inches in diameter and feels a bit bus like. This one is a 14 inch wheel. As long as I don't scratch or damage it, Moss said I could exchange it for a different size if it was too small.