Several spanner's in the works.

 So June and July have proved to be a very frustrating month in more ways than one.

Let me explain, you knew I would.

 Engine and fuel leak 

After fitting of the ( clean and rust free inside ) tank I connected up the hoses again under the rear wheel. Devil of a job, fiddly awkward and tough. Connected engine bay fuel lines ( with a new filter) again another tough job as the fuel line ID changes sizes between scuttle and carb inlet.....who knows where as I've seen so many variants I'm past caring. I had to " slide " a fast moving drill bit into some ends in order to make them fit, but accomplished eventually.

Problem  1/.

Fuel leak gushing from overflows, both carbs. Wifey not happy at petrol smell everywhere. 

Smart thing to do...fit empty coke tin onto each overflow pipe. Car won't start !!!!!! Starts but runs rough !

Eventually find out PO home made immobiliser now is operative since the visit of Tony auto electrician.

Decide to take car onto cul de sac for test run, even though it runs as rough as a bears arse since I refurbished the carbs thinking coke tins will work a treat to catch the overflow.  Wrong, very very wrong.

Left a trail of fuel up, down, across, around and puddled at each stop and turn round, including the driveway.

Removed carbs.........again. Cleaned, reset floats, faffed with valves and needle. Fitted , checked fuel flow.

All seemed good except fuel flow still exiting via overflows. Ordered new float valves and left it at that as I was so pissed off with it all.

Decided to move on to Interior, namely the roof lining and Webasto inner lining ( or should I say the lack of it ) purchased a roll of Black Alcantara type stuff from the end of roll bargains that I calculated would just do the job.

I first made a template of the roof from corrugated cardboard. This was only a rough template as it was a bit " bendy" in one direction. Transferred it to hardboard and trimmed to fit. That was easy to type but it took about 10 days on and off to get it to fit. I decided to make it in two halves  ( front and rear) as the Webasto hole is so big the sides are thin and weak. It was fiddly and back aching taking in and out as well as getting the alignment central. That was just the hardboard, it was going to be even tougher with the fabric mostly glued on and tucked up under the cant rails.

Up to now all I've done is carefully, and I mean carefully glue down the fabric to each half with some overlap. It's resting in the shed whilst I got on with cleaning and spraying the inner  cream coloured vinyl a lovely satin Black. Also did the sun visors and rear view mirror too. Whilst seeking out said parts from shed I also found the green tinted wind deflector for the Webasto......result. No mounting blocks though.

Sunroof lining.

This was a real puzzle as I had no idea how it is fitted, how it was tensioned and how to make it look good. I had just enough of the material to cover the large area with a small length to fit over the  front cover cant rail. More photos on this to follow.

More on this later as I'm still a few weeks behind with the blog due to holidays, scaffolding round the house, bowls and wifeys Hip Op. So at some point there will be a lull as I'll be a house husband and it's raining non stop for the next few weeks, but lots more to show and tell till then.

The Wipers Times and Grommet grumbles.

 The title didn't take much thinking up. 

It's a tale of lost and found and lost again, rubber sculpting and grunting. No it's not about the latest Jilly Cooper effort at lustful narrative. 

I left the newly covered door cards in the shed and resolved to get the Important things done, namely fuel filler cap and pipe sealed and secure, fit rubber fuel hose onto fuel pump ( this time with a jubilee clip) then start the engine with catch bottles on the carb overflows. Methinks it's gonna result in removing the carbs again and find " stuff" therein. Sadly a result of my eagerness to fire up the car after the wiring Issues and not fitting the fuel filter ( I've had it skulking around for years but lost it !)

So with great determination I rose early on the promise of a fine and sunny week, very sunny. 

So what did I do ? Nothing much. It was too hot. I did rearrange some of the MG bits strewn around the shed, outside storage box, outhouse and conservatory desk. I was looking for the two chrome triangular door trims ( that fits on the door end top)..... found ONE. Windscreen wipers.....found THREE.

Here is a view of the shed packed to the gunnels with "stuff".

A padded box liberated from work to store the expensive chrome parts. It did contain an Aortic stent delivery device worth about £ 4500 so it will take care of the chrome nicely.

 

A view of my man size vice and work area......guffaw. It's tiny, it's crap and used rarely. You may notice it's rather dark and cramped and that's after I got rid of loads of stuff like carpet scraps, empty paint tins and useless MG crappy rusty stuff. Right at the back is a rather stylish and expensive 1.5 mtr Draughting machine with stand and 20kg counterbalance plus the mountain bike not used for 18 months. Anyways more story.

Since it was so hot I sought shade on the patio table under the brolly

I cleaned up the wiper blades with good old WD 40 and steel wool. Getting the arms off was a fiddle though but with a small bradawl I managed it by only stabbing myself twice releasing this little bugger.

Below is a shot halfway through.

The actual rubber blades were in a bad state. I did read somewhere that you can replace just the rubber part but it was a fiddle. Looking at it and the new type blades it looks near on Impossible. Still, you know I like a challenge. 

Original blade ( big one ) next to a more modern version.

Since I only had the one "new" blade ( left over from the ill fated Peugeot ) that had been in the outhouse for about 10 years. So I called it a day ready for another one whilst wifey was out touring the coffee shops  and garden centres of North Derbyshire with pal Jean. 

Above you can see the teeny tiny slot that the rubber should fit into. Well Mr Hunt of Hammer and spanner MG guru par excellence, you may be wrong on this.  More of this in the future.

A new day was met with sunshine but not as hot, clear skies but not too bright, perfect weather really.

First job fit the new outer rubber grommet on the fuel pipe and tighten new spring clips. Much easier said than done.

The Original grommet was ok really, just covered in some primer overspray ( not me but previous owner) and looked old and tired. 

I wish I'd not bothered.

The new one was thinner and harder with a very small slot for the bodywork to slip into around the outside. The main issue was the bodywork hole in this respect was not just a hole pinched into the rear deck. It was punched and had a lip on the inside of about 3mm/ 1/8". No way would the new grommet slip into the groove without some modification.  So out came the precision Chinesium scalpels and after about an hour test fitted it with the metal filler tube. It and the tube were ok, but it didn't look right.

After some quick research proved it was wrong.  That's how it should be. I thought the cap protruded out too much or the tube needed to have its larger flange inside the grommet. Alas there was no inner groove for the outer flange to fit into to allow the main tube to move inwards. It needed to go in about another 3mm to make it look right.

So I set about cutting an internal groove with aforementioned scalpels. It took ages and very fiddly. It took two attempts and about two hours of cursing, pushing, pulling and prising, hoping I don't damage the inner and outer edges.

Here it is halfway through.

N

It was tricky trying to get the lip over the larger metal flange and not damage it but eventually in it went and looked good. However, I still had to fit the large tough internal hose to the back and onto the tank vertical flange.

Boy what a struggle, even cutting some chamfers onto the inside of both ends it was still a struggle and hard on the hands and fingers.

Then bugger me, when it all fitted together it pushed the steel tube out a little and back over the large flange. Despite what I did it would not go in any further and the lip was looking delicate and stretched as well as not in far enough. After a lot of thinking I bit the bullet and removed it all  ( just as difficult to remove) and tackled the cut-outs I'd made to make them wider and deeper. It was when refitting I noticed that maybe I'd had the big tough hose on the wrong way round. Well I must have done as the vertical flange was a little easier, not by much though, to fit on. The grommet was also easier a bit to get in the hole as was the lip to get inside the larger tube flange.

See the difference. I think it looks a lot better even though it's not as standard, but that's not going to bother me.

Since the roof of the house is to have scaffold around it next week I have to really get the fuel leak sorted in order to move the car forward onto the vacant garage base.

So more soon.