Project 1974 MGB GT - The Mustard (Mit) Mobility Scooter - After nearly 7yrs, The End (for me)

[Guest Hooli]

And that's why all classic car owners carry a hammer, it has to be an imperial hammer though.

[PhilA]

Preferred tool of choice on my old man's Sprite to wallop the fuel pump is the dial and handle from our old Servis washing machine. It's easy to grip and where, in modern machines there would be a small plastic spindle, this has a chunk of iron turned on a lathe with a grub screw in.

 

Shite all round. I had a twin SU pump off a Jag (two tanks dontchaknow) in my Victor, hooked up in parallel. That way there was a better chance of one if the damn things actually working first thing in the morning. Quite often needed a thump after the weekend. Fine, quality Skinner's Union junk.

 

Phil

[mercrocker]

Fit a fake SU mechanical but actually electronic pump.   From Burlen Services.   

 

Dear, but I only use a hammer for checking the chassis legs now. 

 

 

 Edit - they still tick too!

[Uncle Jimmy]

Errr, FWD never handles as well as RWD at times when handling matters - ie shit weather. It's easier for a lot of people to drive nearer it's limit, which is often mistaken for better handling though.

 

 

[Mally]

Which leads me onto the question. A lot of people deride Armstrong Lever Arm shocks/dampers, what is actually wrong with them? Apart from being "old fashioned", why are they supposedly "inferior" than telescopic dampers?

 

To me they seem a pretty neat, compact solution. They also have the potential for greater damping reservoir than telescopic dampers.

 

When I had  A60's the Lever arms were always knackered, used to go over a bump and wallow for the next 50 yards.

Cure was to fill them full of grease.

[mercrocker]

When I had  A60's the Lever arms were always knackered, used to go over a bump and wallow for the next 50 yards.

Cure was to buy a proper Morris with telescopic shockers

FTFY!

[Kiltox]

THE M.G.CAR COMPANY LIMITED

JUSTIFYING FIRE INSURANCE

SINCE 1924

FTFY

[Shep Shepherd]

When it's working properly, make sure that you take it to Abingdon; even though there's now very little evidence that MGs were ever made there, apart from the original factory building and some road names, it's the law if you own a pre-1980 model, apparently. The town is worth visiting in its own right, too.

[BavarianRetro]

I once limped an MGBGT home about 5 miles by bumping it over the cats eyes in the road to keep the fuel pump running.

[SiC]

Going to order this Brake Master cylinder, but can't quite decide which to get as several manufacturers make them.

 

First off is Delphi at £65. Big brand and actually bought out Lockheed brake systems (OEM to MG at the time).

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/310735128174

 

Next up is TRW at £48. Another big brand and now owned by ZF (known for their auto gearboxes).

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381290894310

 

Finally there is Classic Gold at £25. A Moss own brand. Seems too cheap to be able to trust it?

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/172837466187

 

Being a single circuit brake system, failure is not an option! Also master cylinder replacement is apparently one of those few real pain of a jobs on the MGB. So I only want to do it once.

 

What would you go for and why?

 

I'm thinking Delphi - but that could be that I'm falling into the trap of choosing it due to price.

[Mally]

Classic Gold for £25?

What else is there to say!

[richardthestag]

normally I would strongly advise against "doing brakes on da cheep" but that is being sold by Moss

 

I am surprised that it doesnt have dual circuit brakes though

[richardthestag]

And that's why all classic car owners carry a hammer, it has to be an imperial hammer though.

 

Land Rover owners have bigger hammers

[richardthestag]

BTW reckon that if you take the end cap off your fuel pump it will be full of carbon dust from the points. 

 

go solidstate

[SiC]

normally I would strongly advise against "doing brakes on da cheep" but that is being sold by Moss

 

I am surprised that it doesnt have dual circuit brakes though

Is being sold by Moss a good thing though? I know they seem to have generally good quality products, but even in their picture it looks a bit scruffy!

 

Dual circuit came in later with the rubber bumper models - I think around 1977 on. Also I think the dual circuit was split between one circuit front, one rear - so loose the front and there still isn't much to stop it.

[Noel Tidybeard]

TRW bought some of Lucas so that might be a Girling part

 

seemingly your choke aint set right the first 1/4 - 1/2 inch of travel should increase the revs without upping the mixture i used to use it like a hand throttle for pootling in traffic with my mini 1000!

 

have you got a squeeky altenator or water pump?

[Guest Hooli]

That ^^^ about the choke is true. If I remember right, the cable turns the choke arm on the carb & after that increases the idle it starts to act on the needle by pushing the housing down to richen the mixture.

[SiC]

TRW bought some of Lucas so that might be a Girling part

 

seemingly your choke aint set right the first 1/4 - 1/2 inch of travel should increase the revs without upping the mixture i used to use it like a hand throttle for pootling in traffic with my mini 1000!

 

Yeah the carbs are all so very wrong. They need a proper tune and sorting. When warm, it does increase the revs a bit but I think the plugs are getting too loaded up when cold. It's chucking quite a lot of white smoke out the back with the choke out and smells of unburnt fuel. The moving back in and then out of the choke made the engine bog down in that video, so I gave a tad few revs to stop it dieing and pulled out the choke again. The revs cleared the plugs and the pulling out of the choke gave high idle.

 

I haven't managed to start it hot or cold without having to poke the accelerator a tad. It turns over and over until you slightly press it and then she fires right up.

 

have you got a squeeky altenator or water pump?

Possibly. The fan was squeaking more until I put the old belt back on. I think it wasn't tensioned correctly. Still have a squeak though and I'm hoping a brand new belt that I've bought will fix it. If not I guess it'll need a new water pump and/or alternator. Alternator isn't original - it has a Lucas sticker with a rebuild date code on it of 1984.

[Noel Tidybeard]

i used to set my mini up by means of a tickle on the plunger under the carb and regular checks of the tailpipe for a nice school trousers grey/ not quite black deposits

the choke was set up so it only ever needed 1/2 travel of the knob to start from cold any more and it would run lumpy and as soon as there was movement on temp gauge you could pretty much choke in and forget apart from the occasional bit of "primus" action now and then

once warm you could just flick the key and it would start on literally 1 turn of the starter!

 

by contrast the old mans allegro needed full choke and 2 turns on the key!

[Guest Hooli]

I'd whip the dashpots off the carbs & clean the insides before you set them up. It never seems to get done & really helps them run right.

 

Setting the carbs up is easy enough, just do it methodically in the correct order to get it all right.

[Asimo]

As for lever arm dampers - one of the reasons they are crap is that the moving parts are levered by a ratio of about 10:1, so the construction has to be stronger because of the levered forces as do the actual damping characteristics, the damping itself has to be ten times stiffer than in a similarly positioned telescopic damper.  The valving is crude too, possibly acceptable so back when they were designed, and for a few months use but telescopic damper valving techniques and materials have fifty or so years of progress compared to lever types.

 

Suzuki tried a lever damper on a Vtwin superbike in the 90s - not a success, they dropped the idea very quickly!

 

I tried to "improve" Morris Minor front dampers by filling them with EP90 gear oil. They were still hopeless, but the mounting bolts broke.

[Guest Hooli]

One thing I liked about the lever arms on my Midget was the mounting bolt holes were slightly too large. That meant by slackening them off, placing a block of wood on the damper & twatting it inwards I got as much negative camber as the expensive new top trunnion things offered.

[SiC]

Solved the dilemma on which master to buy. Did a quick search on eBay for GMC150 (BL part no for it) and this came up less than a mile from my house. Listed as Used but still in its sealed packet and brand new, old stock. Was £35 posted, asked for a discount and got it for £30 collected! Probably very much worth an extra fiver over a Moss own brand.

 

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/122662856612

 

My Ford fuel cut off switch came through too. Just under £16 posted for a genuine manufacturers, new part that could save my life is not bad imo. Not sure if the current limit as I'd rather not have to run it through a relay to keep it simple.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/192292161929

[SiC]

If I hadn't bought mine, I'd be all over this:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/232489175853

 

Which is probably a good thing I bought mine.

[SiC]

Tomorrow I've book the day off work to use holiday up. A few errands to run in the morning first thing and then hopefully if the weather holds out I'll try and get the brake master changed and fuel pump running.

 

Looking at the access to the master cylinder, it's looking like a lot of swearing may be involved.

[PhilA]

Fiat use those magnetic cup/ball bearing inertia switches also.

 

It was the reason the fuel pump on my Cinq got really intermittent.

 

I think the current limit is reasonable, certainly enough to run an SU pump, especially if you protect the circuit with a fuse.

 

Phil

[SiC]

Another day moving this onto the road, jacking it up and trying to fix this thing. Pretty sure I've done more miles in my ownership driving it on and off the drive. Getting a bit fed up with it rotting on the drive and not being able to use it. I'm currently finding the mojo for this is declining.

 

As usual, it starts off buying a collection of things and spending too much, with good intentions of getting many jobs done.

 

 

Main job today was getting that brake master cylinder changed. Not a job that I thought I was expecting and a bit of a pain really.

 

Taking the front cover off, the two bolts that hold on the master cylinder were visible.

 

 

The left is the brake master and the rubber seal on the front looks pretty tired.

 

 

One banjo bolt for the brake hydraulic circuit. Thankfully the designers kindly put a rubber bung into the cabin that allows access to it from behind the dash.

 

 

Opened up the front right bleed nipple and gave a few pumps to empty the master. Then used my Pela to suck up the remaining fluid.

 

All bolts removed released the master. Now that is very Haynes wording, as the bottom nut is rather inaccessible. Half hour of faffing around I managed to squeeze a spanner in there to hold it still.

 

Plenty of crud under there. The cap thing visible was a bit of acorn! I'll admit now, I didn't clean up the crud here. Regret that decision now, however I do intend to pull the pedal box out and give it a paint to freshen it up.

 

The master in all its glory. Pretty sure it's original. Gasket on the front is no longer available but doesn't seem very essential.

 

Removing the rubber bung, it looks rather knackered. Probably wouldn't be worth rebuilding - however I have kept it in the box of spares just in case.

 

To help get the bottom bolt in, I put a few blobs of superglue on the nut to hold it in place. Little neat trick is using superglue activator. This liquid causes superglue to set in seconds and especially helpful to stop the glue getting into the threads.

 

Next problem was bolts. The bottom bolt is supposed to have a slightly shorter bolt. Not entirely sure why, but the new master has much thicker mounting ears. This caused the shorter bolt to be too short. So I used one of the original longer mounting bolts to secure it.

 

As its thicker, I couldn't get a spring washer in. Instead I just gorilla tightened the bolts to make sure it doesn't come undone. Sorry for whoever (probably me...) has to undo it next!

 

Installation wasn't too bad. I used a zip tie to keep the plunger in while fitting to give a bit more wiggle room. Bango bolt washers were fiddly but not impossible. Luckily my hands aren't too sausage like.

 

Filled and bled the system. Had to use my Gunson Eezi bleeder to force fluid in and get the master cylinder initially bled as pumping the pedal had no effect. I started bleeding the front right, as I used this side to empty the master. Once done this one, the others didn't have much air in them at all - especially on the backs. Gave a few pumps with the bleed nipples open which managed to squirt fluid more out of the threads than the bleed nipple. Also cracked open the servo hydraulic line (as advised by Lockheed/Delphi) to try and get air out of there too. Only needed a litre and a half of fluid this time!

 

Pedal nice and firm now, but I might leave a pole pushing the pedal over night to make sure. Not 100% I've got all the air out though and probably won't be convinced for a while due to all the problem I've had with the darn thing.

 

Not had a chance to look at the fuel pump yet. However it kicked in and started up just fine again. It's taking quite a few clicks at startup before fully up to pressure - far more than it used to. I strongly suspect it's got rust and crud in the pipes and what possibly caused it to stop pumping previously. I don't really want to put a new pump on it until I get a new tank installed. Also need to figure how I'm going to get it to the garage for them to do - I really don't fancy doing it myself.

 

Too dangerous!

[PhilA]

Yeah, the foofoo valves in the SU get real leaky if they get full of crud. There is a rudimentary filter inside the intake side but that only stops large rocks and other sizeable detritus. Everything else that is capable of blocking jets and getting in valves is permitted.

 

Phil

[vulgalour]

This is all good progress.  Good to see use of a hammer and bargain hunting on parts.

[stripped fred]

Just want to say that I commend your determination with solving problems on this SIC and your post deserves an A+++ for clarity, interest and layout! I like how you're pushing outside your comfort zone with this car. You are learning lots of new skills and i'm also learning along the way. You will get there in the end. I don't think I'd be too keen to tackle the fuel tank either though!

 

Please keep the updates coming. Very interesting.