Two steps forward one step sideways

 At least I'm heading in the right direction.

Fitted today ( after 3 days of absolutely pissing with rain ) the three fuse holders that wizzo auto elect Tony condemned. Took  2 weeks to get hold of them and used yet another supplier. MGOC had none in stock, Bhive didn't stock them and ANG/Mechspec neither. Only option was Moss ( they have the most info  on-line but are the most expensive) not to mention their tech set up for order processing , see last post !.  Trouble is I forgot to take a snap of them fitted, doh.

So on to fitting the interior sound deadening ( 6mm closed cell rubberised foam with adhesive side)

Gave the areas a good clean with white spirit and a light blow with heat gun whilst I cut out the shapes. See below for me trying to make the most of the 1 mtr x 3 mtr length. After all I am a Yorkshireman so I like getting my value for money.

One side had a newspaper template made comprising of floor, outer footwell, inner footwell, sill vertical, toeboard and transmission tunnel. The templates are simply turned over for the other side with only minor amendments for the drivers side inner due to the pedals. It took ages to maximise the 3 mts square mass with the templates but as it was getting late I was glad to finish, so in the shed it all went until a good day weatherwise.

Saturday dawned bright , sunny if a little bit breezy. I also felt a little better myself as since my Covid booster I felt rather tired and foggy. Onwards and upwards.

I really dreaded fitting the sticky sided closed cell rubber stuff. I was convinced It wouldn't stick or just unfurl half way through. No fears though, the stuff was a dream to fit. Test fitted before removing the backing, trimmed as necessary even with crap scissors.

According to the template planning I was toeboards and footwell outer shapes short ( both sides) so I did a very Fufferfour thing and ignored them all completely. Did the trans tunnel first, then floors, then  inner sides finally the sill verticals both sides. I used a couple of large offcuts to make the inner footwells in 2 pieces each and job done. Even had a couple of sizeable rectangles to do the door skin inner both sides. Well chuffed with the result.

Before

After

Next job is to refurb the handbrake mechanism as it looked a little manky ( rusty) as did the underside mechanism, spring and adjuster as well as the fuel lines looking flaky. Also to be done is the rear seat cover fitting and I've still not bled the brakes yet. Son No 1  ( I only have the one son, same as No 1 daughter, yes they are non identical twins) is 3 nil down in the favours stakes. Parenting means you are forever at the service of their needs. As he was ready to set a date for helping he had an urgent repair on his house that need my assistance. Hey ho.

Deffo next job is to protect the sound deadening as the rubber is rather delicate. I have tons of carpet in the shed left over from hallway refurb a couple of years ago. This will be used on the outer of the car under the new cover to give some air circulation. Also employed in the car over the polythene .

I had to add this photo from the dog sitting day for said son on what must have been the rainiest day of the year so far. It still makes me and wifey laugh at the sheer misery of us both out and about in that crap weather. Little boots enjoyed in not one bit, for hours.

I also purchased from Amazon a 6 layer winter cover which arrived nearr the end of todays efforts. Its massive, thick and silver. So gone is the Swedish thick timber polythene which has served its purpose well for about 8 years. It will be re purposed to protect the deadening whilst bleeding the brakes etc. 

More room in the shed too as an added bonus now the carpets gone. Sadly a load of  stacking crates being given away by out local bistro/ coffee shop has replaced them. But at least its organised storage yet to be utilised. I also took the opportunity whilst in the shed to review whats stored in there. F**k me , lots of MG bits. I did find things I knew I had, had lost and now found again. Like the seat runners. All taped up some 10 years ago. The writing on the masking tape had long since dissapeared and unfortunately so had the  8 spacers and nuts. They were found in a random ice cream tub in another  box. I think the writing on the crispy masking tape said " look in the ice cream tub" !.

More very soon..............depending on the weather of course.

One step forward three steps sideways.

 A few weeks back I fitted the new secondhand shorter springs and painted the suspensions in black hammerite ( at least the parts I could reach).

Whilst doing this I noticed a lack of castleated nut and split pin on the upper fulcrum LH side. A nylock nut was employed, this is an acceptable substitution according to MG OC. So I thought that whilst I was fitting the grease nipples and bleed nipples, I did an unusual thing. I looked in the Haynes manual for the torque setting for said bolt ( upper fulcrum ) 40 lb/ft.

No way could I get the nut to anything like this as there must have been only two threads engaging on the nyloc nut. 20 ft/lbs was the max I could manage without the nut spinning. Very risky indeed so used MG Hive for a new pair of bolts, castleated nut and split pin. The threads on the old one were badly cross threaded.

So easy to order, efficient staff and quick. Not so with most other vendors. And the part came in 2 days.

Some vendors are painfully slow, inputing details, doing the search even when you know the part number, checking address, da de da ditto. I'm whinging now because with my new found enthusiasm and funding I've tried most of them lately. The chap from Moss was very nice but painfully slow on a circa 1970's ZX spectrum computer, was confused because my name and postcode showed someone else !!!!!!!. In fairness it sounded like it was his first day. One of many to come it think with their computer set-up.

Back to the adventure. Fitted the bolts easy peasy. I expected trouble aligning the slots in the castleated nut with the hole in the bolt, but no, job done, torqued up to 40 ft/lb, more grease pumped into nips.

Cor what a faff fitting the lower grease nipple though. Its angled about30 degrees from the vertical and impossible to get a nut on due to the proximity of the brake dust shield. Managed it eventually with a bit of medeival sourcery and derring do attitude. I also found the location of the third nip whilst fitting the RH fulcrum bolt. On the RH side its at the front middle. On the LH side its at the back middle. Another task complete.

Next job up was seam sealing along the footwells and inner sills plus any other ( lots) of misc patch welds in the floor area.

No.

A step sideways. I'd read that if new doorskins are fitted ( mine has, several years ago) that seam sealer shoud be applied on the upturned inner edges. It took ages !

Couldn't find the caulk gun in the bowels of the shed, found one that didn't work then one that did.

Caulk all dried up in tube. Trip to Wickes to buy another tube. Got home the knocked white spirit over so back to Wickes again for another !

Did LH door on back and lower edges, front edge impossible without taking door off. No chance of that.

Cleaning the footwells was another matter. Tried Meths ( methyated spirit ) first. Rubbish, took ages to dry and didn't clean very well. Tried  "Gunk", I had high hope for this but same as meths, rubbish.

The problem appeared to be the original rubber sound deadening. Iv'e decided to leave it in situ, whats left of it , around 70 %. Its only been removed on the outer edges and footwell ends where I welded years ago. Fortunately I'd Red leaded soon afterwards. Cleaning just seemed to soften the edges of the rubberey stuff and make it snotty and smear. Lots of dust and crap was also ingrained into it as well. You could be sweeping the grime up till doomsday and it will still keep coming.

So I bought another tin of Hammerite from Halfords ( yet another trip out) but this time I'd read you could  thin Hammerite with white spirit, not the very expensive Hammerite thinners. I gave it a try. It worked. Still all the fluff and grime got into the seamsealing but by this point I didn't care.

Sat in the shed is 2 mtrs of sound deadening bought a few weeks ago after lots of soul searching and guilt at the amount I'm spending of late, not to mention the hours wifey don't see me as I'm a man obsessed.

My choice would have been Dynamat, or Noico or some other horrendously expensive stuff, but considering most of my original sound deadening is still there I bought sticky 8mm rubberised foam for £26.00.

Whilst waiting for the paint to dry in the LH footwell area I moved on the th RH cleaning. But first remove the handbrake lever. Two very tough Phillips screws, one other Impossible to move with ensuing gnarled slots.

This meant drilling out carefully with three drill sizes, then inspecting said lever and deciding it needs a clean-up and refurb..........another row on the to-do list.

A view halfway through the Hammeriting.

Almost finished

I decided to tidy up the wiring in the engine bay whilst waiting for the paint to dry. In real time I did this the previous day as I tend to have several thing ongoing at the same time. 

 

Before, as left by me and wonder auto electrician Tony, waiting for new In line fuses to be delivered.

After.

Took all day to do this, under the new fuse box, relays and ignition box. As usual I spent even more time wondering what the three stray wires are. I also hooked up the horns. Pfffft. One pair of purple wires gives a constant voltage thus loud horns, the other pair of purples does nothing.

More to follow later on in the week on other trials and tribulations.

Amazing progress at last

 The seats are done ,

I think they look rather good. Not perfect, but no wrinkles and fairly firm.

Let me pass on a helpful tip. I was going to buy new seat base foams but that would bo approx £55. I may still do yet but thats for much later on in its life. 

I used a wallpaper steamer on the old foams and poof  !!

They came up like they were inflated pretty much.  Bear in mind it won't make them firm again just back to its almost new size. Time will tell how long they keep their shape.

I couldn't resist starting her up after the electrician had finished but alas it was not to be. There was a constant leak from the gatorade bottle lash up tank and a big drizzle from the butterfly pivot hole.

So I decided to really splash out and buy a new sealing washers for the spindle at the grand sum of £1.25 each. Sorry to say that didn't work, it was still leaking this time much worse.

So I splashed out another £30 odd quid on a seal kit from Burlen fuel systems. 

Meanwhile removed the carbs to clean and fettle. What a struggle. He RH lower carb nut is really difficult to get at and it has to be unwound about 1/2" . The thread was very tight and it took a lot of effort, bent over the wing legs splayed. The other three were not as difficult but nevertheless a long back aching job.

There is a very good Youtube vid by a nice Irish chap named Endfloat who refurbs his HIF4 carbs so I followed this and it proved a great help. The RH needle spindle was stuck solid and float bowl full of a white chalky residue everywhere. So The cleaning was well justified as it would never have run properly anyway.

I'll not bore you with the details but several chemicals were used to get a cleanish looking finish. They all failed. I put four of the seals in the wrong way round then after fitting had to remove them again as the throttle spindle lever was the wrong way round.  Repeat for the choke lever assy, dohh !

One further tip I would reccomend is run a 5/16 unf die down the studs and re-tap the nuts too. This made the awkward nuts fairly spin on.

Looks much much better now and hopefully now no leaks as the gatorade bottle has had a smear of silicone sealant.

Also fitted a new front hose easy peasy. Fitted new fusebox and new starter relay. Bound the behind grille wiring after a bit of tidying up and now have only six stray wires to sort out for the horns, all Purple and purple/black but thats for later. 

Fitted new front brake bleed nipple and grease nipples because after a dog sitting favour for my son he promised to assist me at the weekend.

The lovely 6 month old Boots, an Italian greyhound ( a tiny whippet)

Just ordered a quantity of sound deadening so next up is a thorough cleaning of the inside, a little seam sealing then maybe test fit the seats.

Before all of the above happened though I fitted the dash and dash top and crash pad. This was by far the most knuckle grazing and frustrating job. It took all day and at one point was ready to walk away through frustration. Its in now though and looking good.

Just the heater controls to sort out and a few switches and it may be time to turn attentions to bodywork prep, bumbers/ brackets and front spoiler.

 More very soon folks.

Cover kerfuffles and carb conundrums

 The seat frames are all painted, webbing replaced and sat patiently in the shed whilst the wheels were finished. Now they are done I called the local upholsterer to see how he was doing with replacing both front seat deckchair orange/brown mess.

He was charging £200 for both covers with fluted seams. Fair price I though and was perfectly willing to pay except ; before I called him I was surfing good old ebay over breakfast. There I saw a set of fluted black vynyl covers, front and rear......£119.00 from Watford classics. 

Read some reviews which were mainly good with a few sniffy comments regarding made in China etc, blah blah. I'm not looking for a concourse show stopper, just some reasonably priced items. I called the upholsterer and told him to stop work on them. Nice chap but wasn't in, passed the bad news onto his wife who runs the biz whilst he's out delivering.  He'd had the new vynyl and old covers 4 weeks but fortunately not started them due to Illness etc. Collected them and the new vynyl an hour later and ordered the new covers from e-bay, around 11.30 am.

They arrived the next day after 3 pm. They  are fantastic. Well made, finished well with quality vynyl.

I couldn't wait to fit them. But first I had to fit the foams, add a little side foam and lumbar foam support as well as some 10mm thick very soft " wadding" which I cadged from the upholsterer when I first went to discuss my requirements. I had enough to completely cover both seats and backs.

Wadding applied

Foam side bolster additions

How to shape foam.

Yes an electric carving knife and the scary grinder with 80 grit flap wheel. The flap wheel worked great but made such a mess with fine particles of blue dust everywhere, and I mean everywhere. 

The first fitting of the backrest showed I'd been a little generous with the blue foam side bolsters and getting the cover all the way down was not possible. 

So thats when I had a brain wave ( yes another) I knew wifey had an electric carving machine. She's never used it as she has always been a vegetarian, I've used it once in 20 years, at christmas to slice a beef joint.

So I had no qualms in using it. Besides I needed to slice most of the bottom half of the blue side bolsters in a nice flat straight-ish line. It worked a treat. Nice even and tapered nicely at the bottom where the covers were at their tightest. Finished off with the scary grinder and on with the fitting. Once I'd got it on and looking nice I realised I needed  to remove it again to add the headrest hole and ferrule, damn.

Ferrule fitted. It was rescued from the old covers and was a swine to get them off and  bend back the

Tabs holding in place.

I made the hole in the cover top by using a soldering iron. That too did a good job. I was very nervous about getting the hole in the right place and making a mess of the whole cover alignment. Fortunately I could feel for the hole through the vynyl and used the deep slot in the seat frame to guide the soldering Iron

 This shows the blue foam prior to trimming.

Getting the covers streched and clipped in was a right faff. I did the logical thing and did the passenger seat base and back first. Lots of swearing, cursing the sky as it looked like it would rain at any moment, bruised and stabbed fingers. But got there eventually...........until I bolted back and base together.

Look closely at the very left or right flute alignment. The left outer flute seam base is about 1/2" to the right of the seat back seam. How annoying. Was it that the  covers were made incorrectly ? Was it the wrong foam ? Is it the correct back frame or base ?. It took some pondering to figure  it out eventually.

Sorry, final reveal soon and a carburretor story. Its been another long day, but this time gardening and tidying up for winter with wifey.

Wisdom comes from having some money and enthusiasm.......usually

 Well, finally got the wheels coated in Nimbus grey ( 3 coats) and a couple of coats of clear lacquer before masking up for the black quadrants before I buggered off to Greece for a well deserved retirement present of 2 weeks at a 5 star. It was great, now its over and back to the grind. Well not really, since I don't have to go to work anymore.....yay.

First job was to take the wheels now well and truly cured after sitting the conservatory for  2 weeks for their new rubber. Before that though the black quadrants needed attending to.

Normal masking tape proved too wide to go around the tight corners, inside or out so a trip to the local craft store saw me buy a box of 3mm wide luminous craft tape. £3. Bargain.

Each wheel took around 50 minutes to mask, phew. x5 . 250 minutes just masking. By the end of it I was getting quite good. I did have to use the normal tape to and newspaper. A lot of masking. What I did was a sort of logical production line, masking one, masking the next one, back to first one for  light first coat, same for second one, mask third, coat first wheel fully, mask fourth.....ditto....ditto.

Twas a long job, 3 or 4 coats of Satin Black. I lost count near the end as I think some had four coats and some two, maybe. Anyways they looked great.

Except...........some corners had bled under the craft tape, pfffft. And one wheel had been missed altogether with its top insert horizontal craft tape......doh !!

Soon fixed a couple of days later with 400 grit sandpaper, more masking and delicate touch ups .

You might just see some of the bleed at around 1 o clock position, it happend on 4 of the 5 wheels, more or less similar. This shot was taken before the touch up, so Five rims are all looking perfect.

New boots fitted. Fat, hard, shiny and ROUND , for the first time in about 10 years.

Look.

You will note that the front end is a little high.This I knew would be the case since I fitted some new secondhand springs bought on e bay several years ago from a nice chap who lived about 5 mins away.

The springs were definitely shorter, but alas when fitted compressed a lot lot less, as in not at all,

so I left them for a few years so I could get on with other things.

Since I didn't want the brake calipers to disgrace the new wheels and tyres I decided to give the front corners a clean and paint. Removed the calipers to paint in nice Hammerite direct to rust Black.

It was then I noticed something quite startling and a little embarrassing

Amongst the various cast in markings on the caliper was a distinct "arrow".  Was this a direction indicator ?or just some random manufacturers mark. Then a thought dawned on me. When trying to bleed the brakes all four corners were difficult and I never quite managed it. 

I thought it was my " helpers" lack of perseverance, viz, wife and son got bored after 5 mins and buggered off. Also, and a very big also is that how the calipers were fitted meant the flexible hose was attached to the caliper at the bottom. When I purchased new flexible hoses from the MGOC and fitted them the hoze was bent at 90 degrees and definitely too short on full lock of the wheel.

So I spoke to MGOC and the bloke was adamant all MG's had the same hose length. 

They must be wrong !. Since the bloke was rather condescending at the time and my daughter confessed to buying me a gift voucher from them and at great difficulty as the " salesperson" on the phone was rather rude to her, I sent a snotty email to the chairman expressing my displeasure.

Never got a reply.

Now it dawned loud and clear. A confirmation from tinternet piccys of calipers showed  the flexible hose is at the top of the caliper. Many years ago when I re-furbed both sets of pistons and seals I fitted them wrong way round on opposite sides. Ooooooops. What a dick.

It gets worse. The pistons were a swine to push back into the calipers. 

Made worse by the fact my "4" G clamps were cheap pressed steel crap that always went sidways when being used. It was at this point, wrestling with many configurations of heath robinson attempts with the piston/ caliper that I broke one half of the workmate jaws. New workmate jaws !!!!

 The old ones only lasted 15 years, these lasted less than 6 months.

I managed to repair them with PVA glue and a section of  2" thick worktop screwed to the underside.

Back to the pistons. Since the crap clamps would not fit inside the caliper pad orifice I decided to slice the top off the G clamp so it would, inserted a socket into the  inside of the piston, clamp and push in. Done !

This time I fitted the calipers without the pads then fitted the pads. Three of the four pads went in easy peasy. The inner drivers side would not go in. The piston was about a millimeter too proud. I had the same problem  when I originally re-furbed the caliper so after some debating I removed the caliper and pushed the piston in more. But not enough though, it still was impossible to get the pad in.

Then a brainwave, loosen the caliper to gain a little more room between it and the disk. Job done.

Scary grinder with knotted wire wheel employed on disc ( new but lots of surface rust) outer hub and upper/arms and a coating of Hammerite.

The fitting of the new springs was an ordeal, at times it seemed impossible then bingo, in it went. Same for the other side. 

I spent a long long time filling the grease gun. How can such a simple tool be so confusing and very very messy. To cap it all no grease was going into the nipples on the suspension at all. Hey ho, new nipples needed then.

On a final note I the fitted the wheels............excitement !

The measurement before the new springs were fitted was floor to wheel arch inner was 26 ". Too high as can be seen from the picture above. After all that faffing of  calipers traumas, spring fitting, upside down calipers and broken workmate the new height was

24 7/8"        FFS.

But, and a big but. It now looks level and flatter so all is good. I'm sure it will settle more after a drive or to, to be slightly lower.

Much more to tell regarding the seats and engine bay and dash.

Here's a hint.