9/25/2010: New Tires and Powder-Coated Wheels

Got the wheels back yesterday. They turned out incredible. Add to that the Firestone 185/675/14 rubber and the look is awesome.

Put them on last night and tightened the knock-off nuts nice and tight. Took it for a drive around the square mile of the house and drove it back to the garage to re-tighten the nuts. Took it back out for a faster second run. As I was driving down the semi-backroad on the way to the main road, when I applied the brake I heard and felt the nastiest grinding noise/sensation you can imagine. Happened every time I applied pressure to the brake. I thought, "What the hell did I do to the brake calipers just putting the wheels back on?" Turned it around before getting to the main road and limped back to the garage to have a look. 

Jacked up the front end and took the left-front wheel off. Didn't notice anything particularly unusual about that side, so I went around to the right-front and immediately noticed the wheel about to fall off!!! Matter of fact, the knock-off nut took two hand turns to remove completely. I obviously came within minutes or even seconds of dropping the right-front nose of the car into the pavement had I not turned it around when I did.

Maybe I hadn't tightened it enough? Not sure. So I tried re-tightening it, but as I was doing that I noticed the wheel pretty much spinning on the hub and making the grinding I had hear. Oh shit. The hub on the car or the wheel is bad. Took the wheel back off. The hub on the car is fine. Ran my finger inside the splines of the wheel and clearly felt the wear. I hadn't noticed before. The car ran fine before I took all the wheels off, so this must have been the spare wheel. I arbitrarily chose which wheels would get the good tires mounted on them based upon the damage or lack of damage each wheel had. Looks as though the spare wheel had less surface damage but an obvious smoothing of the splines.

Thinking that I had used the damaged spare wheel as the right-front, I took the now spare tire from the boot assuming it was okay, inspected it and it was, and mounted it just fine. Splines were all good. Drove it around fine. So today I took the good and bad wheels back to Firestone to have the tires swapped. All is good now on the car.  I just need to find a good used wheel to use for the spare. 

Fortunately this experience didn't drive the right-front of the car into the pavement and it only cost me 1/5 of $180 in powder-coating cost. All in all a good day. The new exhaust is fantastic on the car. It breaths great and is responsive as hell. The rattle I heard before is now completely gone, implying that it was indeed the smashed exhaust that was making the noise. And the tires handle awesome. Had the wife go out and pace me to check the speedo. It is about 12-15 MPH over what the true speed is, so at least I now know that. 

9/19/2010: New Exhaust Installed!

And it sounds SWEET! Still sounds like an MG, but you can tell the engine is breathing much better now. Also scraped quite a bit of crap from underneath, topped off the transmission, greased the universal joints on the driveshaft, and spent some time cleaning up the engine bay. Oh, and found where the little field mices were nesting in the sides of the fender wells in the engine bay. No bodies, but lots of nesting material and mouse poo. Vacuumed both sides out real well.

Header shot.

Mid-section shot.

Rear shot.

Tail pipe shot.

Fairly cleaned up engine compartment. I'll be doing a little bit more each time I am in there, but this looks pretty good right now. And did I mention how good it sounds with the new exhaust?

9/18/2010: MGB is getting new exhaust!

Looks like a previous owner tried to hop a curb at some point thereby nearly taking out the stock exhuast system. Take a look at the crush job. From the end of the down tube off the exhaust manifold past the middle glass pack as you can see here. It was terrible damage and rattled and leaked something fierce:

So, to correct things the way Haddox does, I must replace this damaged system with a bright, shiny, polished stainless steel performance header and pipe/muffler system. Check it out below. I got the header installed today. Going to scrape up as much of 41 years of shit off the bottom of the car tomorrow morning and then install the reset of the system. I did, however, go ahead and start it with just the header on there. Man! Didn't sound like an MG. :-)

9/17/2010: And so the Haddoxizing begins...

Got up early this morning to move the MGB over a little in the garage and get it up on stands all around to remove the wheels. Taking all 5 to Firestone Auto to have the tires removed so that I can take the wheels to Glendale Powder Coating in the morning to have blasted and coated high-gloss silver. $150 for the 5! Will pick them up next weekend and take them back to Firestone to have new rubber mounted and balanced.  Have never messed with spoked wheels that mount to the wheel hub with a knock-off nut. Interesting configuration. Truly old school. Now just need to figure out how to true them between now and then.

9/11/2010: Got her home

Of course I needed to employ the help of Dave and his truck and trailer to get her home, but we did without issue. Put it in the garage and immediately figured out what I needed in order to get her running good: 2' of rubber 5/16" fuel line, upper and lower radiator hoses, oil and filter. Tried turning it over on its own power to no avail. Hooked my battery charger up and got big fat zeroes on all the readings.

Thought if I was going to the auto store for lines and oil, may as well try to return the *new* battery and get another. Removed the negative cable and the little felt post washer came off with it. Tried pulling it off the cable and it was stuck to something. Seems the cable had been tightened around the little black plastic post cover new batteries come with. Cable was never contacting the post! That's why it wouldn't start when I first saw it without the aid of the charger being connected directly to the cables!!!

Removed the plastic cap from the cable and re-attached to the battery and it fired right up. Went to the parts store to get the lines and oil I needed. Total cost: $35. Took about an hour and was able to cruise around the block just to get a feel for her. Runs good...

Put her back in the garage and removed the soft-top and hardware (the top had a small hole eaten out by a field mouse), removed the non-operational radio antenna, and took the headrests off. I like the cleaner look. Not to mention, without the headrests or the side marker lights (not present on an early-'69), it looks just like a 1968. Washed it good and tore into the oxidized paint with an orbital buffer and some rubbing compound and wax. Got it fairly shiny, considering, but think I need a real polishing wheel in order to get the paint as polished as I can. Not high on my list yet, but I'll get it shinier :-)

This weekend I am planning to take the wheels off to prepare them to be powder coated. I will be enjoying relatively cooler evening drives until then. It will probably be up on stands for at least a week so I need to enjoy it now, but October is just around the corner and the days will be cooler too. Thinking about replacing the badly bottomed-out exhaust system too. We'll see...

9/9/2010: Going to see a 1969 MGB Roadster to likely buy (if all is good)

Found a great deal on a 1969 MGB Roadster with a rebuilt motor 15,000 miles ago (circa 1992). Fairly complete car and it runs great. The day I went to see it the owner had bought a new battery for it. We couldn't get it started however without the help of the *Start Engine* option of his charger and a little starting fluid. We got it to fire and it ran for about 10 seconds before I noticed fuel spraying out from a few tiny pinholes in the section of rubber fuel line to the carb. Told him to kill it. I had heard it run for a bit so I was good. It needs small things in the interior and some minor body work and a paint job eventually, but all in all it is a sweet little classic. A deal for $2000. Here are some pics from the day I first saw it.