MGB Front Suspension Rebound Distance Piece Three Bolter

While revamping the front suspension on the MGB, I found this Previous Owner Hack:

 

MGB Front Suspension Rebound Distance Piece Three Bolter wait ...what?

I *think* that's suppossed to be #17 in this compleatly hand drawn and definately not stolen from the web drawing:

Totally hand drawn

So: please leave a comment if you know why the heck the PO may have done this Three Bolt Hack. It's either to do with the lowered ride height or the installed-and-then-half-removed-before-I-got-it-tube-shock-converstion. Rumor has it this was an Autocross car before I adopted her.

 

So: please leave any clues in the comments!!!

MGB Front Lower A Arm Bushing - Isn't She Pretty In Poly?

We replaced the MGBs front lower A Arm bushings as they were looking a bit ragged with bits hanging out of them.

 

Didn't have a spring compressor, so we used the "jack up the lower spring support until the A Arm is horizontal, then remove the bolts; we only did one side of the a arm at a time so that the spring and front bits would remain somewhat located:

Using a jack to compress the MGB springs - what could possibly go wrong?

We used a 1 1/8th inch socket on one side and a 15 mm socket on the other, mixing units just to be obnoxious; bushings came out without too much cursing:

Pressing out the old lower a arm bushing using a vise and two sockets

Surprise! The old bushings revealed themselves to be the MGB V8 steel sleeved bushings instead of the two piece no-sleeve standard bushings.

MGB Front Lower A Arm Bushing - V8 Style!

We installed the poly bushings from Moss anyway. Note there were no metal sleeves for the interior or exterior of the bushings as is common on poly bushings - inner usually. I called Moss and they checked the kits and decided that was as it should be. I noted the greased bushings slid onto the pins with some difficulty, so there was no room for a sleeve anyway.

Working on a 45 year old car? What time is it? GRINDER TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Might as well grind off the surface rust and paint with Rustoleum before remounting the parts.

Grind baby grind!

Painted and ready to return

MGB Front Lower A Arm Bushing - Isn't She Pretty in Poly?

One last note on the outside pin of the lower a arm: the grease / dust seal has a VERY thin rubber lip, which is east to fold under when reinstalling (if it happens to fall off while you are flailing and floundering trying to get the bolts for the spring pan realigned, not that it would ever happen).

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.