...........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.