Restoration Sickness
4/9/06
The lunch room paper is to blame. An '75 MGB ad led to a call. No, it has not been sold and is good working order. Unable to justify another vehicle and having little time or money to work on an extended project was not reason enough not to at least look at it. One look at a 30 old car full worn rusty parts and I'll be able to get this obsession out of my head.
This guy opens his garage reveling an MGB, all in one piece, pulls the pulls the choke, turns the key and it runs; well. It's unrestored and in very good shape. Damn the luck, even my wife Fran is impressed at it's condition. We agreed to buy.
This car has not been licensed for about eight years, do to emission issues. I was able to drive the car home easily. Nearly everything worked except the front suspension is very loose.
What follows is the first installment of the restoration adventure. I chronicle the process for inspiration to those with projects underway, yet to be started or as entertainment. I claim no mastery of the process and hope we can all learn by my mistakes. Critique my methods, propose better methods answer my pleas for guidance and take credit for setting the new guy straight.
As purchased
Compete and Drivable but very rough. Time has taken all the soft parts to their grave.
With no visible rust or major crash damage we'll just have to put this one right. A bit of preview what can be done with a wire brush.
Initial assessment:
The doors, hood, trunk fit and operation are exceptional. Light body work and full repaint.
All seals and interior parts show their age. Complete interior and rubber seal refit.
The engine, transmission, rear axle and brakes felt good driving home. Front and rear suspension rebuild, possibly including springs.
Refit all smog gear and carefully tune.
Exterior lamps, lenses, mirrors and a great many little repairs will also be needed.
I currently am guessing $6000 in parts and materials (audience laughs) and equal amounts of elbow grease and enthusiasm. The wiring and instruments look really good.
Putting up a small storage shed makes room for the parts during painting etc...
Stripping the car in the reverse order of final assembly stacks the storage space with trim pieces to the back and running gear up front. After painting, the plan is to put the suspension, drive train, brakes and running controls back together first. The windows, lighting, body hardware and interior can wait until the fundamentals are made right. It is critical to group things into kits bagged up with related hardware (i.e. bag all right door panel hardware, window cranks etc with the panel).
Every piece will have to come back out to be judged for serviceability, sanded, painted/polished, repaired, adjusted or inventoried for replacement. Used items will do do fine for most metal parts. Bright work may be re-polished and/or chromed. Soft parts such as seals and upholstery are generally best replaced when needed.
Finding replacement parts is a big job involving:
- Inventory parts requiring replacement.
- Gather supplier catalogs and web site addresses.
- The Photos tell the rest of the story
Suspension
12-3-07 - The suspension front and read are rebuilt using all new spring, bushings, brakes, hoses cables and lines. The shocks seem to work so we'll give them a try. I added a sway bar and lowered it 1".
Then engine at 95K still had visible hone and no scratches or ridge in the cylinders. The valve and guide are still good (reground and faced though). I had King Balancing of Phoenix do the machine work and am quite happy with them.
The engine has been stripped, the rods re-bushed and sized, crank polished, rebored, the heads have been reworked, rockers re-bushed, cam and lifters replaced, new oil & water pumps, balancing . . .
12-25-07 - I did all the final cleaning, painting and assembly and in the last week. To insure a relatively leak free installation, I setup the engine to run on a little home brew stand on the floor. Very quiet and smooth with no blow by and ran quite cool during the cam break in run. I ran it again a few time to fully heat cycle it and found a freeze plug leaking. This would have been a real pain to fix in the car so the extra effort of test running paid off.
Shell cleanup
Wire brushed to bare metal and primed for paint.
Paint
Lancaster Paint in Glendale, AZ painted the car with PPG O-SO-Orange. It has about seven coats of paint between base, peril and clears. The photos don't show the gold yellow and green color shifts. It the bright sun it comes out nicely.
I am now finalizing all the parts I have been working on and putting them back on the car, the suspension, lighting, heater, pedal assembly, wiper and sprayer system and other things are in now. I put on 15x6" Pansport wheels and Michelin radials too.
Now the fun begins
Brakes, heater, wiring new wheels and tires.
Many more photos and text are in the photo gallery (see sidebar) - Ken
And Them There Other Things
I got the Zenith Stromburg 175 though smog after through restoration and a new Catalytic converter. But I could get the smog setup to run well at all. The idle was erratic, under hood temperatures was too high and worst of all the car vapor locked if left stopped for over a few minutes. The original smog setup is, at best, a work in progress. After Weber carburetor installation the prior problems seem to be behind us.