MGB Handbrake Install

Our sister race team, Ruby McQueen (fka DRTy eThirties), has had two (count um: two!) hydraulic brake failures during races, the driver having Steve McQueen-like cool-headedness to gently use the handbrake to do anti-smashup maneuvers and save the car.

Knowing that, it only took us two and a half years to finally get around to installing a working handbrake into our race MGB...it was stripped off years ago - we thought for weight savings... turns out it was also probably because it may have interfered with the new rims and fuel cell.

Even though the MGB body did not change dimensions through its years, naturally there are eight different hand brake cables for the MGB - all varying in different sectional lengths as shown on this great Moss Motors application note: Supplemental Information for MGA & MGB Handbrake Cables. That's right: eight. That's what warm beer will do to engineers' brains.

The cable we are installing onto our 1973 MGB GT chassis is from a 1978 MGB convertible. You can see where this is going already I bet.

First, reinstall the handbrake lever back into the rear wheel backing plate and brake shoes. Then, drive around the block and curse because the steel lever is a bit too long and scrapes the inside of the soft aluminum rims; who would have guessed steel is harder than aluminum? Turns out, when not connected to the brake cable the arm relaxes, pivots in, and snacks on the shavings. 

 

How Queenie got her groove back

The answer, as usual, is GRIND BABY GRIND! to remove the tiny bit of offending material.


"Just a little off the top, Gov."

The handbrake lever clevis pins looked to be a bit long and may also interfere, so we added 4 washers to raise the pin (it is the bottom outer edge that was scraping and the bottom of the pin may have also scrapped).


Why the clevis pin is twice as long as need be I'll never know.

 

With the wheel installed, pic from underneath (that's the leaf spring at the top of the pic):

Ahhhh.... elbow room.

The next 'interesting' item was the brake cable itself - the eighth inch rod that spans from wheel to wheel - comes within a quarter inch of the front edge of the fuel cell. In summary: Do Not Want!

Too close for comfort.

So we sliced up some old rubber vacuum tubing and wrapped it around the metal of the cable / rod, and zip tied it in the open section.

 

"Drivers" side:

 

The view from underneath of the complete install - note the waaaay too long handbrake cable loop - guaranteed to bug the hell out of me until I can find the proper replacement. The cable stay actually pulled the rod away from the fuel cell a bit more, but we will be keeping a close eye on it.

The Tip of the Iceberg: an actual MGB GT Handbrake!

 

A Right Proper British Gentleman Never Raises His Voice

Pop quiz:

It's 1pm on a fine springtime Saturday afternoon and your beloved wife reminds you that not only is the always-excellent Frederick Celtic Festival today, but that Frederick Maryland's very own Clustered Spires British Car Club is hosting a car show at the festival!

But... your loud and obnoxious race exhaust (note purposeful omission of the word 'muffler') would no doubt scare the populous away. What to do?


Introducing Gormless Racing's Emergency Shut The Hell Up Exhaust Hack, in 7 easy steps:

1) Drill a few holes near the end of the exhaust:

 2) Scrounge some hardware cloth or any metal screening:

 3) Professionally fabricate a 'catch basket' to hold the material

 4)  Acquire some all copper rust proof scrubbies, the more the merrier; stainless steel will do in a pinch but they will rust eventually and take your exhaust pipe with them:

 5) Stuff It (TM):

:

 6) Stuff in the catch basket:

 7) Use safety wire / stainless steel wire / long cotter pins to capture the catch basket to the exhaust pipe:

Ah... much better!

We made it to the show, and there was much rejoicing.

Done with the To Do List!

Scot: "Carl, how is it going on the car? The race is sooner than you think!"

Carl: "Pretty well, I am almost done with the To Do List"

Scot: "Wow that's great!!!! What will you do after that? "

Carl: "I'll probably start doing the things on the To Do list."

Scot: "SON OF A #%*€£¥^  %#%#!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

 

This joke shamelessly stolen from one of my favorite writers' comic strips:
Wondermark #479: Oliver’s Busy Day http://wondermark.com/479/

Driveshaft Mayhem

A mechanic that is actually a mechanic said we needed to replace or service our MGB GT drive shaft u joints.

What we found:

• Front u joint to flange bolts were loose (all - of - them)
• Back u joint to flange bolts were rusted on tight; had to cut off with grinder
• Back u joint assembly had no grease zerk fitting, was old sealed type; front had zerk!
• Both u joint assemblies were in dire need replacement; loose, grind-y, gritty, nasty.
• Some bolts were self locking nyloc and some were nut plus lock washer and at least one was just nut without lock washer.

Grind baby grind!

Some notes from the [MG-MGB] yahoo group:

• heat to free rusty nuts, or use torch plus birthday candle trick
• remove zerks and plug with bolt if worried about loosing one on road; however this may unbalance shaft a bit
• manuals call for self locking (Nyloc) nuts, but lock washers ok; suggest a drop of blue loctite as well

What we did right:

• ordered all new driveshaft bolt sets when we ordered new u joints
• marked up the shaft in two diff ways (paint, dremel engraver) which was good because paint came off at one location

What we will do better next time:

• add some extra grease in the u joint bearing cap ends before reassembly; after installing the zerks and using grease gun, extra grease only came out of 1 of the 4 bearing cups - I couldn't tell if grease even made it into the other 3 (all 4 come with some grease, but more is more better)

Can't get the u joint bearings out of the u joint assembly? Cut it to pieces and weld bits to underside of car as a warning to others.

We will not be satisfied until complete destruction is assured.

Race Report: 2013 Monticello There Goes the Neighborhood

Race Report: 24 Hours of LeMons 2013 There Goes the Neighborhood at Monticello Motor Club in Monticello, NY, April 6 & 7, 2013

Drivers: Brandon, Ruffy, Steve, Scot, Carl
Guardian Angel and Good Luck Charm: Zouneda


A 24 Hours of Lemons race at Monticello Motor Club is a rare event; in fact this will probably be the single time it will occur in the history of the Earth so it was imperative that we race there... even if it is to be very very very cold and tractionless.

A Beautiful Course, primped and proper, not at all what endurance racers are acclimated to:



Monticello Motor Club North Course



A bit more to scale I'd say



Tech and Safety Inspection: we mostly passed, with only two warnings... I lost a quart of sweat while the officials negotiated Warning (go race) vs Fail (go home).

 

1) The Kirkely Race Seat we have is a tall back, and the seat harness comes through about a foot from the top of the seat (making a weak point) - we need to add a support bar or brace behind the top part of the seat to keep it from folding back via helmet strike. Note the support does not have to attach to seat, only stop it from folding back.

 

2) One of the roll cage 'star' connection points is weak since someone cut out a section of tube years ago; never mind that the car has been in five prior LeMons races and passed tech - I see their point!

 

Thankfully, they let us race with these two points of 'oppertunities for improvement' with a deposit of promise to fix them before the next race.

MGB GT 50 - Gormless Racing, pic courtesy of official LeMons photo gallery

 

 Last minute check of the car yielded a loose bolt - THE loose bolt - that holds the brake and clutch pedal assembly on. This is the bolt that came off during the 2012 Captiol Offense race while Scot was driving. No coincidence that it is Scot's hand in the photo tightening the bolt!



More tea, Vicar?

In the first 15 minutes of the race, our driver pulled in complaining of loud clacking in the engine. We pulled off the valve cover and sure enough valves 7 and 8 were a bit off (0.016 instead of 0.013 warm), so we adjusted them and sent him back out.
Later, one of our newer drivers got into a bit of a tangle with one of Those Annoying Volvos and smashed in the front fender - luckily the tire was there to stop the steel from bending all the way in.... er....


Ruffy the MGB GT Front Fender Bender Mender - adding airspace between razor sharp jagged steel fender and soft supple race compound tire

We had to visit The Judge twice before we had bent the fender back enough to be deemed safe to rejoin the race:







 

At the end of Day 1 after 7 hours we were in 9th place in C Class and 80th place overall out of 121 entries.

 



MGB GT 50- Gormless Racing in action, pic courtesy of official LeMons photo gallery

The remainder of the race was spent adding oil, or trying to find out where the oil was spraying from, or swabbing the oil out of the engine bay, or borrowing oil from other teams, or cleaning up oil from the paddock.


Scot checking... something, while two supervisors keep him in check.

Cardboard & Kitty Litter - yep, it's British Leyland!

MGB Head Gasket bubbling like overcooked eel pie

MGB Engine Bay - now with built in rubber glove dispenser for oil cleanup!!

We ended Sunday after 14.5 hours in 66th place overall (out of 121) and 6th in C Class (out of 16) - not too dang bad for having 3 brand new drivers and taking our sweet slow time in the pits.

MGB Heater Valve / Hot Water Take Off - now 50% off!

The MGB Heater Valve that takes hot water from the head and routes it through the "heater core" radiartor leaks sometimes... and when it does it leaks directly onto the distributor or squirts a stream onto the alternator - neither a good choice for an endurance race car. 

The one pictured below, from a 1978 MGB-GT, leaked onto the distributor. Time to go. But what if you're too cheap to buy a $15 nice looking blanking plate for it? pfft.

Follow Gormless Racing's easy 5 step process.

1) Remove said craptastic valve, mock liberally:

 

2) Hack saw into two pieces, removing the 'crap' part and leaving the 'tastic' part:

 3) File, Grind, Cackle, Tap (that only counts as one step, but you can use up to a full case of beer if done correctly):

4) Douse with thread sealant, use lock washer, bolt, and newish gasket:

5) Install, enjoy:

Unreasonable English Engine Studs

After measuring the compression of the cylinders as 150/110/100/100 and finding water in the valve cover area it was obvious that, at a minimum, the head gasket needed replacement. Sounds simple, until the you realize the engine in question may not have ever been disassembled since 1978, and all the bolts are fuzed to the block.

Those that gave their all in attempting to remove the head from the engine block:

MGB Engine Head - Stubborn as a British Tory

Autocraft Stud Remover - only partially accurate :-(

MGB Center Head Stud - Snapped; air injection holes plugged.

Finally - after many injuries and curses - the head is removed; the head gasket looks less than optimal - perhaps we shall not reuse it:

MGB Head Gasket is less than fantastic

Well now that the head is removed.... I can't get ANY of the seven remaining head studs out of the block. You can see the center stud is a bit shorter than the others, mostly due to its upper part BEING STUCK IN THE BLOODY Autocraft Stud Remover And Snapper(TM). As we have a race in about three weeks, I shall decline to snap the remaining bolts and let a professional snap them. They will probably be quicker - took me a few days to just snap one!

Seven Angry Studs

Rev Limiter for MGB Survival

We surmised that we over-revved the MGB engine in the first race of 2012, because:

    1) there was no tachometer

    2) there was no speedometer

    3) the engine is underpowered, causing drivers to floor it all the time, for the entire 14 hours

    4) the 4 speed manual transmission really really needs a 5th and 6th gear, causing drivers to floor it all the time, for the entire 14 hours

So we installed a tachometer from another MGB and rotated it so that 5250 is pointing straight up - she really could use a "shift now" light for gears 1, 2, and 3 and a "sit back - you're just along for the ride at this point" light for 4th gear. Some day.

We installed a Rev Limiter instead since our driver pool is often hungover and barely focusing on the road ahead much less the little numbers on the tach.

The Rev Limiter we ended up with was the Procomp Single Stage Rev Limiter PC2031, and it did just fine as far as well could tell. 

1-800-Dial-a-Prayer!

Also on the menu was a new fuel pressure regulator, the Holly Fuel Pressure Regulator had died after a failed attempt at rebuilding the internals with new rubber and filter element. Oops.

All those pretty blue AN fittings were a real pain to match up, but they sure mate nicely and are clean etc etc. Soooo un-MGB like.

MGB Fuel Pressure to Weber Carb should be about 4.5 psi and very shiny.

Race Report: 2012 Capitol Offense - The 24 Hours of LeMons

Race Report: 2012 Capitol Offense - The 24 Hours of LeMons at Summit Point Motorsports Park's Shenandoah Circuit in West Virginia

The Mighty Shenandoah - an MGB Friendly track if there ever was one... 22 turns, no waiting!

Never Mind the Bullocks Here's Gormless Racing MGB!

We had over-revved the engine at the last race and grenaded the engine, and so for this race we had installed not only a tachometer but a Rev Limiter as well, set to 5000 RPM - the suggested point at which cylinder 3 bearing starves for oil, melts down and goes all shambolic.

It worked great as far as we knew - engine didn't blow in any event. We sailed though Tech Inspection.

50 Years, 50 Horsepower, whatever

In the first 40 minutes of the race the accelerator cable popped out of the trunnion and left Driver Carl idling around the remaining 80% of the track, until pulling into the paddock. Remarkably no other teams noticed the speed difference. The FAIL was poetic justice, as Carl was the culprit that had gerry rigged the connection in the first place.

"I have NO IDEA why that trunnion would fail. Weird. Why do you ask?"

Dave and Scot hacked in an emergency repair and it lasted the rest of the race. About an hour total was lost.

"Ah HA! Here's the problem - Hamster wheel came off it's axle."

SEEMS LEGIT

We had also noted a half quart of oil "missing". No one would admit to taking it, but our sister BMW team was in the paddock beside us, and something about Germans stealing English oil rings true - they would not confess however.

2 hours and 15 minutes into the race, Scot driving... the entire pedal assembly holding the brake pedal and the clutch pedal fell off! oops. Scot was nonplussed however - explaining that one bolt was still sort of hanging on, and if he tilted the assembly correctly he could EITHER shift OR brake, but not at the same time - which was fine by him, as he swore to never use the brakes anyway. We noted another barrel of missing oil, so we tightened up the oil cooler lines at the engine and adjusted the connection angle.

"Look MA! I made it all the way to Turn 17!"

The rest of day one was only fun fun fun for us, cranking out the laps - slow yes - but laps none-the-less. Added 1/2 quart oil here and there, while wrapping various oil lines (there seemed to be a 'mist' around the distributor side).

Our poor sister team was pulled into a mashup, and smashed up their front end, enough to moved the drive train an estimated 3 inches forward!! They spent the rest of the evening replacing engine mounts, radiator, and trying to get old Ali running again for the next day. Quite a crowd gathered to help out, late into the night.

:-(

The only 'event' we had Sunday was Dave was attacked through the Esses and the gang of cars sheared off the passenger side mirror!

Saturday Night's Race to the Emergency Room: note inebriated skateboarder hanging onto the moving Boat-Mobile... which would later hit a newish expensive car when doing donuts in the parking lot...

Barely any water loss, so maybe head gasket ok. Oil consumption may be valves, rings, leaky oil pan, or leaky oil cooler hose... or all four. Probably all four.

It wasn't raining, and so "Queenie" was mounted to the windshield wiper post and continued to disapprove of our driving the entire race:

No matter what you asked the old girl, it just wasn't good enough

The home-made Cool Shirt cooler & pump worked spectacularly; highly recommended.

All in all: we finished 64th out of 117 starters... pretty damn good for taking our time swapping drivers, having the pedal assembly succeed from the kingdom, and having only 50 horse power.