Stewart's 67 MGB GT

[Stewart]

Finally got the last missing piece of the overdrive. Now I just need to figure out how to hook it up

[VWNate1]

Here we are in August and no further reports ? .

This thread is fascinating ! your B GT looks fantastic .

.

[Stewart]

It's just sitting happily in the garage and it's absolutely filthy thanks to lockwood valley road. Other than possible getting an oil change and lube before the next run there is not much going on with it at the moment. And now I've cursed it.

[VWNate1]

' cursed it ' ~

How so ? .

[stuntflyr]

Hi Stewart, miss you guys in SoCal, I moved from the Palisades to Tucson this summer. The car is in the hangar waiting to go to Monise Motors for some maintenance, then I'll drive it out. Your GT is my favorite GT ever.
Chris...

[Steve Simmons]

Nice early B, Chris!

[Stewart]

Thanks Chris sorry to hear you're leaving the area.


Finally had a set of original bumpers chromed and installed them on the car this week. They still need a bit of tweaking but the fit is already so much better.

Currently going through the brakes as the car developed a nasty habit of pulling hard to the right while braking but only when the brakes are warm. Brakes strait as an arrow when cold.

[Stewart]

and after going through the brakes with a fine tooth comb, going through a quart and a half of dot 5, changing all the hoses, installing new front calipers and it pulled even harder to the right. Changed the front brake pads and now it brakes true again. wth

[VWNate1]

That's interesting .

Was there uneven wear on the pads ? any visible sign of chemical or road mung contamination of the friction surface ? .

Same thickness of both discs ? .

[Steve Simmons]

Maybe one of the old pads was hanging up.

[Stewart]

Something weird was happening. Pads looked good and all had about the same wear. Rotors had nice even wear on them. Bedded in the new pads today and still braking true even when smoking hot so I think it's fixed.

[VWNate1]

Pardon my silly question but :

You do always use a metal toothbrush to clean out the calipers where the pads go , right ? .

I see this step is skipped by more than 1/2 the ' mechanics ' I talk to .

Rust and brake powder normally and naturally build up in that area causing the pads to drag or stick .

[Stewart]

Finally going to finish the last job on the car Steering. The cars getting new swivel axles, the steering column rebuilt and either the current rack rebuilt as it has developed quite a bit of play where the steering shaft exits the rack or replacing it with a new rack. Also picked up a new tool for the garage to hopefully keep my back a bit happier. Seems pretty good so far and it didn't fall off last night during the little earthquake.

[Steve Simmons]

New racks aren't as good as the originals! The turning radius sucks.

[whitebuffalo]

Where did you get that lift, that would be perfect for my garage?

[Stewart]

it's from ezcarlift.com Goes up to 26" and assembles and disassembles pretty quick and is aluminum an steel. Uses a drill to raise and lower. It was a bit pricey but it's not Chinese made junk. Guy who designed and builds them is in Goleta CA. Very nice guy to do business with.

Steering column is out and the upper bushing fell apart on removal the the lower one surprisingly still had a bit of oil in it after 50 years. I'm hoping with the steering rack it's just a worn out bearing which I can get and not the bushing which I know moss doesn't carry but maybe someone else does.

[Fifty Six MGA]

that lift is cool. Your new garage looks like a nice workspace.

Interesting reading about your brakes pulling to the side. I need to pull the wheels off my car and figure out what's going on. They pull, HARD, but only very intermittently and unpredictably. Kind of scary really.

[Stewart]

That wonderful feeling when you get everything back together properly aligned and ready to go only to find out the nub for the turn signal return is 3/16th's of an inch shy of actually doing its job. Time to redo the whole steering rack alignment routine again.

[Steve Simmons]

Ugh. I would have been tempted to move the nub. Sounds like you may have it at the run tomorrow. Congrats!

[Stewart]

Alignment done and the cars on the road so all is good. If I hadn't of thrown my back out this would have been done weeks ago. Had to go with the new rack as the used replacement I bought needs a a tear down for cleaning and I ran out of time. New rack seems to be alright, the turning radius is about the same and everything feels nice and tight. As a bonus it took care of a rattle that I could of sworn was from another part of the car. This was the last bit of the car with the exception of the internals of the rear axle I haven't touched so from this point on it should be maintenance only.

I hoped to get the aluminum radiator in but it's not going to work without completely redoing the lower outlet. So if anyone wants a really nice Wizard mk1 mgb radiator and is not using a supercharger I'll let it go for 250. Mounted twice but never filled. Fits perfectly just doesn't work with the crazy lower hose configuration of the supercharger.

[Stewart]

Got around to installing a 123 distributor with Bluetooth. So far I like it though the software is a bit buggy. It really woke up the car and I was able to dial it in fairly quick. Have a small issue with the vacuum advance/boost retard not wanting to save for some reason so as soon as that is fixed it should be a good addition. Unfortunately as I was romping on it like a loon the throttle started sticking and now the car doesn't want to idle at less than 1800 unless I physically push the throttle closed at the carb. So now I've got to figure that out.

[Steve Simmons]

I'll be watching this with great interest. I don't like modern parts, but so far I haven't been able to make the original parts work perfectly with the blower setup. That mid range pinging is driving me crazy. And I'm glad you're doing the ground work because I can't screw around with my daily driver too much!

[Fifty Six MGA]

So the distributor is programable via bluetooth? That's pretty cool.