All Change.................slow,slow ,stop.

Well its finally come to pass.
Yes I bit the bullet and handed in my notice.
Not shared with you on the blog was my restlessness to do something different, to help people and to sleep in my own bed every night.
So three years ago I embarked on an access course at the local college with the aim of applying for a place on a Radiography course. I never thought I would be offered a place. The courses are very over subscribed and its not your usual "student life". Being medical the course is very tough with 3 years academic study and 3 years on placement all crammed into 3 years !!
I thoroughly enjoyed the access course and would reccomend it to anyone, even if its just for fun.
I ended up with the equivalent of 3- 1/2 A levels ( I added extra units to enhance my chances of selection) The people were like me ( older) all had busy lives and jobs and we all had collective whinges, fun and a great sense of camarardarie ( spelling!!)

It was a tough decision to make when I discovered I had been offered a place. It involved all the family and everyone has had to make sacrifices. I must admit this was very tough for the wife as she's the worrying type and was at her wits end over the decision.
However, I will do all I can not to let anyone down over the next three years.

So the restoration will go even slower now. Finances are stretched to breaking point so I may have to resort to begging and borrowing.....................I'm good at this though.

I will miss my friends and associates from work, the company car, laptop ( now replaced with new one with a FULL KEYBOARD- note KL) expense account, mobile phone, whining customers, hours of e-mails ( replaced with hours of essays) motorway traffic jams, M25, A14, M1, A12, A405, Slough , Jedburgh and last but not least all the comfortable little offices I had dotted around the UK ( Motorway service stations to the un-initiated )
I will reallly miss the large Wild bean cafe Latte's that kept me sane.

Another positive note is I've stopped smoking at last, and kept the alcohol units under 15 for most of the last few weeks........................here's to a healthy lifestyle.
Well I could hardly be let loose in hospitals as an Oliver Reed apprentice could I .

So expect in the coming months some restoration fun, a few stories of acadedmic life and other hospital related tales from a student radiographer.
Please note that since I'm now a professional in the health service I'm expected to behave like one. Back to the old lifestyle then ??????? I'll let you know.

Restoration wise I'm afraid I have left a little gap in proceedings.
What is done is as follows :-
All of bodywork, except :- Rear inner wing repair section, sanding of F- RH lower wing repair section, Bonnet clean up, Rear tailgate clean up, chop off front chassis ends to accomodate chrome bumper mounts. Weld in captive nuts.

Engine :- Fit carbs & manifold. Buy two new hoses for cooling system. Fit oil cooler hoses + gauge pipe ( broken when removing former) refurb and fit heater box.

Suspension :- Inspect, clean, rebush, fit lower springs ( got on e-bay) Front & Back

Well you get the picture, its coming along nicely. But so is winter !!!

Any donations gratefully recieved.

Back to Black..........hopefully not

Well, technically black is not a colour, but it is for the purposes of my vehicles previous owner is must have been a very attractive and desirable colour.
I say this because I spent the best part of four hours removing some/most of the stuff liberally covering anything remotely not chrome plated in the engine bay.

Lets start at the beginning of this topic though.
The cylinder head is on and looks, well..............not like it did before.
Before everything in the engine bay was either dark oily greasy black or covered in "horsehair" fluff from the shedding of the under bonnet lid protection.
Actually everything was covered in both. So thats why the cylinder head now looks like a cylinder head. Albeit still has some small corners still holding onto the black paint applied at some stage. The Ally intake manifold was the same. This however could take a lot more aggresion being lighter than the C.H.

The carbs were next on the list for re-furb. They looked awfully dark and "fluffy".
Trouble was meths,white spirit, petrol & thinners didn't touch them.
A trip to the local boy racers heaven ( Motor Factors, full of wheels,graphic equilisers, polish and LED lights ) and a large spray can of "Carb Cleaner" purchased, together with spray on engine de-greaser.

Well they both worked a treat and did exactly what they said on the tin.
The carbs look .................well again almost new. I enjoyed cleaning the carbs. I sat down the drive under the shade of a tree, jacksy parked on nice plastic chair with all stuff laid our before me on old pinic table. What joys !.
I even managed to find an old battery powered toothbrush for the fiddly corners of the carb.
The engine de-greaser was a little scary as it stated rinse off with water.
I'd just covered the entire LH side of the engine and chassis frame.
However, I bit the bullit and sprayed with high powered cold water and guess what, it works. No more smelly, oily, fluffy engine.
To prove a point on the progress here's a before and after .........look up

( for some reason I still can't reposition the photos where i want them...come on Blogger, sort it!!!! )
Lots of the ancillaries have been cleaned too. My point about the black is that at some stage in its early life the car had had a good and thorough ( mild understatement) respray from white to black. This included the inside of all the boot,door, bonnet, sills, engine bay and ancillaries including THE WIRING.
So it took me four hours of back breaking cleaning the wires with thinners to reveal the colour before I could connect up the various ancillaries. Plus the sticky and grimy black electrical tape binding so many wires.

What lets the whole thing down is the area where the large smiths heater sits. It looks a little rusty and still white in parts. I didn't think they would remove this when converting the colour since it took me best part of 2 days to remove.

Next post will reveal what I found hiding in the car from Mr Bodgit & Scarper, or was it Mulder from the X-files ? .................more soon !

Now I've published the post the pictures don't do it justice. I'll try to give a better before and after of the carbs..............promise. And, And ,And what colour should I spray it ?

My feelings say Carmine Red, wifey wants old English white ( Original colour) kids say pearlescent light Blue...........................tell me what you think !!!!!!!!!!!!!!please

...........and a head !!

Well finding the cylinder head was rather easy. It was in the shed all the time. Admittedly right at the bottom of the pile. So, since the MG had had a tool tidy up I moved it into there.
I had to move it ( stored in a handy large Poly-prop box from work ) several times in and out of the car every time I did things.
However, first job was to remove the thermostat housing. Two of the three nuts came away complete with studs, the third...........No chance. It appeared that the stud was slightly bent.
There was no way that was going anywhere. I did't want to drill it...........how anyway ?
A few gentle taps with the large and heavy Aluminiun faced hammer would certainly help.
Yes they did, the housing cracked from top to bottom. At first I didn't notice, I thought it was made in two separate parts, but no.....good old Fufferfour ruined it.
Still, once I realised this it was easy to remove. It still had the slightly bent stud left though.

This brings me to ask the obvious question.........................Why did motor manufacturers use so many studs ?....................They are horrible, always rust solid, break and are not easy to purchase.
The stud in question is about 35mm long ( 2 3/8" for the unenlightened) with a fine thread on one end ( 5/16 UNF) and coarse the other (5/16 UNC)..................................... FFS.........WHY ?
A simple 3/8" bolt , say BSW ..........or BSF, I don't mind ,would do + washer and hey ho.
Think how logical that would have been for good old BL, use 3/8 bolts all round, surely that would help keep the costs down for our struggling icon of manufacturing. But no, all different, hard to source and not cheap ( well not as cheap as 3/8" BSW/BSF anyway)
Removing the valve springs was a bit of a farce. All the manuals say you need a valve spring compressor. I'd priced them up, cheapest was £40 from Halfords. No way.
Thats almost a new doorskin !! After chopping a stout piece of 1.1/2" x 1.1/2" timber I found I could bear down on the spring cover and make the collet top loose. Trouble was it took both arms and my full weight of 10 stone.........................porky alert............14 stone ( 190 Lbs )
So I had no arms free..............except that wifey just happened to be passing by.
So she was roped into service with a screwdriver poking both halves of the collect out as I pressed down. It was approx 8.30 at night and she was tired. Needless to say she had to say it

" do you actually enjoy struggling without the correct tools,
getting cuts and scrapes on yor fingers and getting oily filthy all
over"

Well us guys all know the answer to that..........................and they don't, ..............obviously !!!!
After the third valve I developed a technique that made wifey redundant, but hurt like hell when the wooded bar slipped. But perseverence paid off and by 4.30 a.m I had them all out.
Only joking, it took about 30 mins of struggle, pain, sweat and swearing.

The valves, collets, caps and springs we all numbered, bagged and stored.
I cleaned the head face with trusty scraper tool.
Ground the inlet/exhaust chambers with drill/bobbly grindstone.
Then lapped valve seats.........................cor blimey, what a farce and faffin abaht !!!!!!
The tool resembles one of those Childs toy arrows sold with cheap seaside bows. In fact one of those might have been better. The idea is to insert the correct valve stem into correct hole, smear mating valve face with grinding paste, stick on rubber sucker end of stick and rub hands back and forth as if trying to light a fire. Simple in theory. I read the technique many times and never gave it a second thought as it sounded so easy.
Now three alarming things that they never tell you -:
a/. The paste does not stay put where you put it
b/. Your hands after about five "rubs" are way down the bottom of the stick.
c/. The rubber sucker gets paste all over it and makes it next to useless
At this rate I would finish one vale per year, its going to be a long resto !!!
So I devised the following plan.
The good old Bosch drill was working perfectly, it even has a lever handily placed, to reverse the rotation. And it does it without fuss and seamlessly.
Mounted stick thing in drill, cleaned sucker with ( don't laugh...........ink cartridge flusher)
drill 15 seconds clockwise, same anticlockwise x 5 and check seat.
I was looking for a nice even band of approx 2 to 3 mm around the valve and mating face.
Some steady back and forth with trusty Bosch and the valves were seated a treat.
Off to the boot ( trunk) of the trusty Toyota for a full soak and clean at the works in Slough next time I visit ( via Swavesy for a new thermostat housing..........next story )

Sorry no Photos..........:-(

Its got wings

Here it is, the last piece of major bodywork to be fitted, a lovely RH rear wing with beading.

The photo shows the rear side window and chrome trims fitted temporarily to give me an ego boost that a major phase is over.

The inner wheelarch was a real swine to fit. Well fitting was easy, the welding was not.

Inside the arch there aint enough room for my head(with welding helmet) torch, gloved hand and clamps. Also i must admit i skimped on the grinding a bit and this made the welding , well tough. So my wise advice to anyone attempting this.........Weld prep is most important !!!!

As a break from this I also made a nice flush fit with the bottom valance. This was done by welding in a strip behind where wing and valance meet, then applying some filler and smoothing to a good finish.

Whilst at it I also had a fit of efficiency and welded in some ( two ) pieces in the boot floor near the spare wheel clamp.

This caused a slight diversion as I had to empty the MG of all my tools stored there. Of course, like a goldfish or small child I'm easily distracted so I had a rehash and tidy up all of my tools and stuff in the MG. Well was there some crap. This leads me to another diversion. One of tools.

When restoring the MG a few months ( nay years) ago and starting this blog I listed my top ten favourite and must have/most useful so far, pieces of equipment. See earlier on posts.

I've now revised this in light of more recent experiences.

So here it is

1. Money
2. Money
3. Money
4. Money
5. Workmate ( B&D type) not a real one, although one with spare cash and a garage is OK
6. Patience
7. Angle grinder
8. jigsaw
9. Mig welder
10. trimmingtool/screwdriver/scraper/chisel.....Yet it really is one tool, and I have one.

As we speak ( you know what I mean) I only have item 10. but thats jumping ahead again.

From the photo above you see I left the door in place as an aid to alignment. Good move now the wing is in place.

Next on the agenda is the engine bay ( remember the blog is about now 2 months behind "real time")

I may post that tonight, I might not. Depends how I feel and how hot the sunshine gets late on. See how light and fluffy my mood is. Restoring MG's gets you that way. That and having bugger all money, tough job and a penchant for red wine. +++++ for some reason I can't place another photo near the bottom of the blog, only at the top, which would ruin the continuity of the story so far. So thats it for now.

When tools have "Off Days"

Some time after welding on the rear wing, or was it just before, I had a real bad tool day.

Same as the wife's bad hair days, only worse.

I had to cut out several small rectangular pieces using the trusty jigsaw. The jigsaw has served me well over the years and has cut lots of things. I had "modified" it to get at awkward parts on the MG, by removing the base, and somehow never got it to go back together exactly right.

On the day in question I did manage to get it back as it should be and proceeded to make an extra long cut in a removed doorskin. See.......I'm even managing to make it a green car by recycling as much good steel as possible. But I'm afraid it just died. Even after suspecting all that was wrong was the brushes, no, it had run its joyful and varied life. The rotor/commutator windings had just disintegrated, poor old B&D jigsaw.

Still all was not lost, I just did it the old fashioned way with hacksaw and effort. God I missed the jigsaw. So then to welding, after 1 minute of expert welds, spit, spatter, silence.

The welding wire had all been used up !. God when I bought the welder it had about 37 miles of wire on the spool. So 4 CO2 bottles later it had eventually gone. What to do on a sunday afternoon with intermittent fine drizzle and sunny spells ? More grinding, thats what I'll do.

The grinder had allready had new carbon brushes fitted a few months ago, Ten Bloody pound 99p, when the whole grinder cost only £ 14.99..........Scre**ix are not my favourite people.

But no, it coughed and spluttered,I shook it, I banged the brush mounts with relied upon persuading tool ( Hammer) but nuffin. Inspecting the brushes showed thet were not quite worn down but the copper wire connecting them had parted company with the carbon, Both sides !!!

Then, whilst cleaning up and "reshaping" the battery box cover the workmate jaws just gave up and turned from two just functioning ( they have been out in the rain for the last two years)

parts into four non functioning parts !!!!!!!!!

So there I was, well and truly Scr#*(ed/f!xed). Thats when I hatched a plan to start on the engine.

Well after all it was all cluttering up the shed methinks.

So the bodywork and tools could wait till the cash was plentiful, all I need do is find the engine parts,clean& inspect and re-fitt............................hahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

oh, and try to make new workmate jaws.........this is an easy job,....... innit ?????

Next Instalment................................................... How to hide a cylinder head and many auxillary engine parts in an average 3 bed semi ( with shed at bottom of garden)

Back to reality

Again for Matt.........the real thing.

As you all can see some great progress has been made, particularly on the engine and bay.

Later today I will post carrying on in sequence as this shots has fast forwarded a few months, even though it is current.

Here it is...........Just for Matt !!

If only it did look like this.............................but one day !

Its been so long

Well folks, apologies for not posting sooner. I've been busy !!

The MG progresses slowly but steadily, life continues and work, work busy busy.

Yipee.......College has finished. Yayyyyy.......ended up with 75 credits at level 3 and 15 at level two. Truth be told I should have got 90 at L3 but eased off when I was offered a place at University, already having the required amount. However,I did eventually manage a level 3 in Psychology at last.

Sadly the Sociology lecturer thinks I'm the student from hell, so no L3 in this subject.

All after me...........Do I care, ........do I $^?**!

Work has been very busy since March, with two trips to France and many more visits to the carbuncles of this sceptred isle.

Anyways back to the blog in hand. I last left you having prepared the rear wing for replacement. Well its on and looks great.

I also had to repair the inside of the "C" post in the corner. It took a lot of fiddling, grinding and even more welding of small patches but here it is. The bottom photo shows the tricky piece welded in, which as usual was ten times easier to do than I thought and pondered months over.

The inside was also very rusty and needed lots chopping out and rewelding in.

The finished results don't look pretty but hey, the're strong, rust free and covered up by all the trim.

I've decided on a new stratagey....................lets get the thing finished !!!

So, a two pronged attack, bodywork and engine. I have done lots and made some good progress on both. The only snag was the door, or more accurately the door hinge. Whilst repairing the front wing lower section i decided to remove the door. Bad move. Had to drill out the six screws holding it on. The the captive plate retainer gave up the ghost. i.e it was just not there only a faint brown apparition of where it used to be before the rust.

More in depth photos and discussions tomorrow ( hopefully ) now time and tide is with me.

More on than off

Above shows the new sill welded in position and a good door gap. Its better than the LH side as then I removed the door ( bad move) However this time i left the door in situ and look, it fits great. I only made one error. A small one at that. I forgot to buy a jacking point when I purchased the sill from MGOC. Not so bad though as I can always weld it on later.



Next job is to repair the Inner wheel arch, replace whole of LH wing, but first make new repair section to rear window base. Its rusted completely through and no new panels are available.

I'm going to bend one at College on their ace bending machine. It comprises of a short vertical piece of say 8mm then the horizontal base with another bend tapering along its length down 90 degrees at say 8mm ( this is where the new wing will attach)

The job thats got to be done that looks a little fiddly is the hole in said window corner. Its a large radius in a 45 degree apex with little or no chance of getting in the scary grinder to dress the welds so I'm thinking I may braze a section in, if only I knew how to braze or had the kit !

I wisely did all this a few weeks before the easter hols, and guess what , ever since its been either snowing, raining, gale force winds or all three so I,m not so frustrated.

The earthquake also put a stop to things for a while.

After hearing what sounded like a dumper truck depositing 3 tons of bricks on the roof and a quick check that we were all ok, a rece showed the chimney stack had reduced in size and came to rest in the conservatory via the tri-ply roof. So my office has been out of bounds for some time till its replaced, the chimney stack has been repaired so we are not living in fear of errant bricks or slates anymore. When the weather is better and money abundant the car bodywork will be virtually done bar a few minor touch ups and cosmetics, then on to the suspension, or engine, or chrome, or carbs.............and on and on.



More soon folks !!

More off than on !

That is bodywork wise anyway. Another glorious weekend and I set too removing the rear wing. I debated long and hard about removing it. I have the cash to buy a new outer sill and new wing ( left over from x-max prezzies) and i have in the shed (for shed read vehicular temporary storage area- non garden bottom orientated-ie i save it in the MG) a partial outer inner wing, brand new. So, i thought i would need all these parts before removing the wing.

The great god Mr Mark Evans says its important to repair the inner wing BEFORE removing the outer................................please forgive the petulance and disobediance Mr Mark ,but you're wrong ! Especially since you don't know MY CAR, previously bodged..big time.
Below is a prime example. Look at said wing removed.

This is the removed wing. Its had a repair panel "sort of " welded aroung the wheel arch. I say sort of since the norm is to replace all of the lower half at the seam/swage line, or joddle a new section/s under the damaged/cleaned up wheel arch. This was neither, just lots of filler over the whole area right down to the rear valance and rear light cluster ( including much gauze below the light cluster) The panel was a doddle to remove for 2/3rds of its connection . The final 1/3rd was a right swine, its the part thats nearest the rear door gap. The actual wing fits over some areas of gently bent ( 90 degree bend with lovely radius) and fits under other areas, all making a nice join at the point you notice most when opening the door. I took me ages to discover the tiny spotwelds, some inaccessible, some invisible most impossible. Surely it did not take this long to remove the other side.,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,!!!!!!No yer great clot!!!!

You bought the car with no rear left wing, remember, all that time long ago, when you were blissfully ignorant of bleeding knuckles, eyes full of grit, pores full of Duckhams and a shed you could actually walk into. So a few gentle taps with the omni tool ( part chisel/part screwdriver/part upholsery prise bar/part rust basher/scraper) some sardine can like peeling with the water pump pliers after a slicing sesion with trusty grinder ( + slicing disc) and yipee.

Tried to work today ( Saturday 2 pm) but despite the sun shining its bloody cold. Only managed to dress up some rusty edges on wing before my toes and nose said no more please. Spent most of following Sunday catching up with college, its still freezing cold out though.

Next job on the list is to Purchase and fit outer sill. Make and weld small tabs to secure A post to sill.
Then remove rust from wheel arch HERE <
Fit new wheelarch repair panel. Weld to rear of new sill.
Fit new wing and weld then repair base of rear light/pointy thing and join with rear valance.

Should keep me happy for a bit, if it don't rain !