1971 MGB GT - Drives great, looks pretty - see page 27

[camryv6]

Did he charge for the skim and new cable ?

[Peter C]

From Moss UK

[sierraman]

I hope he left some flowers on the back seat as an apology and threw in some piss flaps. 😂

[camryv6]

I am amazed you can still get that switch new

[Six-cylinder]

3 minutes ago, Peter C said:

Do you want to sell it?

No, the car is fully operational so this switch works for a living!

[Peter C]

9 minutes ago, sierraman said:

I hope he left some flowers on the back seat as an apology and threw in some piss flaps. 😂

My MGB doesn’t have a back seat.

I got a free new throttle cable fitted for my troubles.

[Peter C]

9 minutes ago, camryv6 said:

I am amazed you can still get that switch new

There’s nothing you can’t get for these cars.

[SiC]

My overdrive switch was straight and I believe was original. 

I wouldn't be surprised if it varied if they ran out of stock and had to go to a straight switch to keep the production line rolling. 

[plasticvandan]

Good that he took it back and re did it,but a bit more time spent road testing and checking before handing it back would have been good. Obviously being a 50 year old car anything can happen but something obvious like a non operational clutch should have been picked up.The perils of paying someone else to do work for you I guess.

[Westbay]

Thinking about the worn SU's ... you could ... swop 'em for a Weber 45 ... just sayin'  ...

 

Was a Special Tuning option BITD...

[chadders]

38 minutes ago, Westbay said:

Thinking about the worn SU's ... you could ... swop 'em for a Weber 45 ... just sayin'  ...

 

Was a Special Tuning option BITD...

Didn't that suffer from cold starting issues, especially compared to twin SUs?

Twin 1 3/4 SU was the favourite as far as I remember if you were buying new carb(s).

[SiC]

Webber's are bit more complicated than SUs to tune especially as the jetting/etc is correct on these SUs for this engine. If PeterC didn't enjoy or want to setup the SUs then probably not the best thing to retrofit it with an aftermarket Webber. 

[jim89]

21 hours ago, Peter C said:

From Moss UK

Hfm? Plus shipping? 😢

Time some enterprising shiter started 3d printing 'cranked toggle switch extensions' shurely?

[Peter C]

I spent a couple of hours this morning cleaning the MGB.

If you squint a lot, it looks brand new.

I put a full tank in before heading out to London. It’s so pretty.

Cruising on the motorway is now more relaxing as the engine isn’t screaming at 55MPH.

Looking good in the sun. Have I said how pretty it is?

The oil cooler pipe connections are definitely not leaking. There is a recess in the panel under the oil cooler which can only be accessed for cleaning if the grille is removed first, which I couldn’t be bothered to do today. On the motorway run, more oil residue came out from under the oil cooler but significantly less than what I noticed yesterday. The oil cooler is new so unless it sustained damage during the engine removal / reinstatement, I have nothing to worry about.

I need to move the temporary overdrive switch to a more convenient location. I might do that tomorrow.

Great to have the MGB back, I love it.

[danthecapriman]

That’s a handsome old thing! Looks great in that red paint. 
Glad you have it home and everything was resolved👍

[MJK 24]

Great thread!

I’m glad the garage came good for you in the end!

I had some paintwork done on a Mk2 Scirocco a few years ago now.  I asked them to re bush the gear linkage whilst they had it.  (They did mechanical work too).

Bloody awful.  Had to redo it myself afterwards!  

[vaughant]

Looks a lovely car fair play, I love red cars, and kudos to them for repearing it without much fuss.

Having owned a garage shit does happen and also having worked in engineering my whole life I can also say that over the last ten years at least, quality control has dropped through the floor. We used to scrap brake discs which were more than 0.1mm out of tolerance and some I see now don't even have chamfers or weather grooves in them.

The theory is that it's cheaper to deal with the occasional random issue/compliant than make EVERY component perfectly, shame really, particularly on cars like these that don't get used very often, some won't do 1000 miles a year and therefore it could take a while for a major to pop up, and in that time a lot of owners will simply put it down to lack of use. 

As for "specialists" years and years ago when we first had the E36 328i, the handling went really twitchy on it, turned out to the rear bushes which were pretty common to fail on them. It went to BMW for a service anyway which seemed to consist of them simply printing out 50 sheets of paper thing me everything that was wrong with my car and trying to charge more than I paid for it to repair it, well not quite, the car cost me £12k in 2002 🤣🤣.

Anyway, we were told by a friend of my Mrs there was a really good specialist just up the valley from where she worked. We booked it in and dropped it off and straight away I had a bad feeling as I pulled up and he basically ignored me telling me to "park it over there" like a schoolchild and seemed to have zero interest in what the actual issue was.

He phoned me up about 2hrs later telling me I need to come and collect this car as it's got a "major issue" that cannot be rectified and it "needs to go back to the garage I bought it from IMMEDIATELY, it's too dangerous to drive on the road".

Oh fuck, I've only had this car a few months,WTF could it be? 

I get there and he tells me " the car has too much torque and it's ripped the bushes that hold the rear axle onto the car. I think the engine must have been modified because it's got a twin piped exhaust on the rear, which you only get on higher powered cars plus somebody has fitted wider tyres to try and keep the power on the road, but that's created more resistance and I think it's why it's torn through these bushes. It's really unsafe, do you want me to call the AA to recover you?".

Nah I think I'm alright mate 🤣🤣🤣.

What a fucking trumpet.

 Got them done at an actual BMW specialist for about half what BMW wanted who also went through the sheets of death they came up with and found about £500's worth of stuff wrong.

 

[Peter C]

I forgot to say that David had my flywheel skimmed before he fitted the second clutch, just in case and to avoid any possible problems in the future. He didn’t charge me for any of the remedial work.

Overall I am happy with the quality of service that David provided and his work has transformed the way the MGB drives. I only have one issue. When I went to collect the car the first time and noted the problems, I was disappointed by David’s initial response and suggestion that maybe a prop shaft UJ had failed and is causing the problems. That was obviously bollocks.

I will call upon him again in the future if the MGB needs further big repairs.

[Matty]

2 hours ago, Peter C said:

I forgot to say that David had my flywheel skimmed before he fitted the second clutch, just in case and to avoid any possible problems in the future. He didn’t charge me for any of the remedial work.

Overall I am happy with the quality of service that David provided and his work has transformed the way the MGB drives. I only have one issue. When I went to collect the car the first time and noted the problems, I was disappointed by David’s initial response and suggestion that maybe a prop shaft UJ had failed and is causing the problems. That was obviously bollocks.

I will call upon him again in the future if the MGB needs further big repairs.

Human nature. Most people, even genuinely capable skilled people, will go on the defensive in the first instance. Don't take it personal, he did the right thing in the end. Glad it's sorted mind. They really are the ideal old car.

[lesapandre]

We used to use a golfing analogy at work.

It's not how you got into the bunker - but how well you can get out of it.

Sounds like everyone exited elegantly and well from this.  

[vaughant]

12 hours ago, Peter C said:

I forgot to say that David had my flywheel skimmed before he fitted the second clutch, just in case and to avoid any possible problems in the future. He didn’t charge me for any of the remedial work.

Overall I am happy with the quality of service that David provided and his work has transformed the way the MGB drives. I only have one issue. When I went to collect the car the first time and noted the problems, I was disappointed by David’s initial response and suggestion that maybe a prop shaft UJ had failed and is causing the problems. That was obviously bollocks.

I will call upon him again in the future if the MGB needs further big repairs.

I suppose though reading his initial response he'd never had a faulty clutch in all those years so maybe he did think that wasn't the problem but as @Mattysays, especially engineers, often think it can't possibly be the brand new component they just replaced, rather it must be something else. 

I was taught to always prove component failure as a last resort, unless it's obvious, and for possibly 85% of my career, it's been something else that's caused it, usually a poor connection or failed mechanical component somewhere.

However I've worked with many other people whose first port of call is to swap out the component as it must* be that. 

I think the guys proved he's a pretty good egg overall and as you said, you've got a lovely working car and really, that's all you wanted at the end of the day 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻.