Back to square one FFS

 So the day started bright and early, wifey out for the morning leaving me with a whole day to get on with stuff.

The priority was :-

1/.    Get engine running briefly, fill with water, check oil and any leaks. ( It's been connected to battery charger for at least 10 hours )

2/.   Attach choke cable to lever/pull knob ( weld) then re-route to carb linkage

3/.   Wire wheel tailgate and bonnet catches, find screws.

Well, how many do you think I achieved.

One.......number 2/. Only...........hence FFS.

As soon as he battery charger was removed and the key turned..........nothing but the fuel pump chattering away. Red light on on dash, goes out when key fully turned but nothing from the engine bay.

On investigation there was an errant black wire coming off the cluster of wires at the starter relay not connected to the terminal of the ignition relay. No bother, 5 mins to make another and attach to the earth side .

Bad move, starting up again only saw a pluther of smoke coming from said relay, and a melted wire, again.

The same thing happened a few months ago which prompted me to get Tony the wizard auto electrician. He'd had it sorted and left me with a few tasks like renew fuse box and fuses and tidy up the wiring.

So again I spent hours trying to figure out where I went wrong with the relay/fuse box wiring.

So it looks like I need another relay and another visit from Tony.

I left it at that and dragged the mig welder up from the shed and fitted a Halfords stainless steel brake cable [ more than long enough this time] It was a doddle to weld with just 3 dibs  holding it firm and a light tickle with the scary grinder fitted with a thin disc well worn down small.

I was worried about the routing of the Bowden cable ( the outer sheath) but once poked through the centre fascia it was obvious where it was to go. One problem is that when you google the routing there is so many American sites they all show the LH drive routes, so as I said it was fairly obvious once the cable was in a little way. One good tip was to fit a large nut behind the choke body on the inside of the fascia. Apparently the proper nut is a thin version and difficult to tighten as well as get to. Thank you to John Twist of University motors for that top tip.

As usual when I have a list of items to get on with I go and do something totally irrelevant, so I gave the sun visors a good scrub. They were filthy but cleaned up nice, see.

The back of the visors is cream/ beige and didn't clean up so well. So due to the fact the side cant rails are in the same condition I.e  stained and discoloured I've decided to paint/ dye them black in the fullness of time, together with a black roof lining.

I've noticed that all of the black vinyl I've cleaned always seems to leave a brown residue in the bottom of the creases/ texture. Does anyone know how to resolve this ?. So far I've tried :- windowlene, hob cleaner, meths, white spirit, WD 40 and lastly surgical spirit. At least I now know what the strange smell coming off old people is .....guffaw.

Next up is the repair ?? and cleaning of these

More soon folks after Tony electrical wizard visits . P.S.  the pressure is on as we are having the roof ridge tiles replaced and the driveway will be full of scaffold so the MG needs to move preferably under its own power.

Seat shennanigins and fuel faffs

 So spring has sprung and the long awaited summer heatwave promised never happened, but we did have fair weather, enough to get the MG fever going again.

All winter my aim was to start on getting the fuel pump fitted, hoses connected properly then test the pump and maybe get some fuel forced along the fuel line.

Closely followed by bleeding the brakes. After early last year I discovered the calipers were upside down and on the wrong sides. No wonder I never managed so much as a slightly firm pedal, just a soft pedal with a strange " fart" sound at the bottom of the travel. 

Since I finished the seats and underfelt ( very soft neoprene/ rubber that stuck down very well ) fitting of the seat was to be the first job, as well as fitting some old carpet from recent redecorate of sons room.

I wish now I hadn't bothered. The carpet was losing its underfelt in a mass of powdery dust and was a swine to cut. But at least it is protecting it for when I finish off the dash switches and heater pipes.

The fitting of the seats was next. I heard they can be fiddly so I was prepared for the challenge.

And what a challenge it was. 

One seat has four parts which all need aligning so the 5/16" bolts can be fitted in from above. A long steel runner each side underneath, which is fitted to the seat runner by a small lip about 3mm/ 1/8" deep.

Only the front two or rear two can be fitted then the seat moved fully forward ( or back) to fit the last two

It has to be temporarily fixed to the seat runner either sticking out fwds or rearwards so the bolt holes  are 

visible when placing the seat. There lies the problem. The lower loose runner is difficult the attatch and keep vertical on the seat underside and get the base somewhere near the holes.

The other component is the wooden runner that sits under the lower rail. It has two large holes about 25mm/  1" dia with thick 1" dia washers. This has to line up with the holes in the floor, as well as line up with the lower runner.

Then the hole in the runner, with nut inserted has to be " get attable" with a ratchet.

An added complication was that with pliable underfelt and crappy stiff as hardboard scrap carpet the bolt was about 1/4" too short to engage with the cabin floor.

I overcame that by cutting a long square slot in the carpet, another messy faff, then removing some underfelt.

However, I'd used sellotape ( yes yes I know) to hold top and bottom runners in place but it kept letting the lower runner either slide forwards or collapse sideways out of the seat channel.

Bear in mind you have to do both seat sides at the same time, get them the same amount sticking out then align over the runner hole, washer and tapped hole in floor. I must have tried about six or seven times with the seat far forward and doing the rear pair. Trouble was the " new" seat was fat and the tunnel was fat so I moved on to fitting the front pair. This time I used some electrical tape tied to the runners.

The seat would just not go back far enough. The tilting mechanism just kept hitting the outer sill.

By this time I'd been on the job about 5 1/2" hours so I decided to call it a day as I was thoroughly pissed off and hungry.

After dinner I did a quick Google photo search and saw to my horror

I WAS FITTING THE WRONG SIDE SEAT.....ffs

The following day dawned clear and bright. I did the job in 35 minutes ( after swapping over the seats)

Onto the fuel stuff. The hoses I decided were on their unions far enough. Connected the battery charger and tested the pump with the ignition on, bingo !. A nice little chatter from the rear.

I popped a container on the fuel pipe under the bonnet in place of the trusty Gatorade fuel tank and lo

Green fuel ?.  Quickly filled the tank with 5 litres of fuel, fitted the fat fuel filler hose and re tested. Result.

However, I couldn't' find the fuel filter. Its been hanging round the engine bay for about 6 years, maybe. Or I could have stored it somewhere safe, and secret. No matter, onto the brakes.

I had purchased a vaccuum bleeder kit from amazon for the princely sum of £13.25. This was forced on me due to the fact no one in the family would assist me for the normal method.

It worked a treat. Pedal firm as f@+>k. I was convinced the master cylinder or servo was causing the fart, but no all is silent. 

A few other little jobs to finish before I give it a run on the cul de sac such as:-

Attatch choke cable wire and fit to dash. I did fit another bike cable to the knob end but it was too short so I'll have to buy one and re-weld. How is it routed through the dash though ?

Clean up and paint boot lock mechanism, the fit and test.

Ditto bonnet hinge and latch.

The maybe just maybe a drive...............it'll have been about 14 years + since it last moved under its own steam. 

See you all soon.

.

Recap on status ( or a mans dismay on the winter weather)

 So, not touched the car since mid December. That month was unusually mild for the UK and especially so here in Derbyshire.

I left it with the fuel tank fitted. The fuel pump installed after some cleaning, sender unit in with a new longer black wire soldered on at source where it was spliced in badly near the battery box cover. The fuel line rubber hoses fitted......sort of. 

They are 75% pushed onto their respective unions but if I remember I did not have the correct jubilee clips and the rubber is at its most difficult when almost in place, so I did the usual fufferfour thing and left them till next time with a mental note to make it first job on the list when the weather improves.......sort of.

Thats because the very last job was to put on the rear wheels. It was at this stage I noticed the dreaded "clunk" from the diff and propshaft. Definitely at least 3/16" free play between wheel rotary movement and propshaft moving. I wonder why I never noticed it before ?. One of the mysteries of life. I'd had the whole axle off and on the bench several years ago, painted and looking good and its lead a lonely and sheltered life since, albeit being painted with cheapo  pound shop matt black paint.

It looks a fiddly frustrating job to cure and for sure the tank will have to come out after only just having been fitted. Still, the " cure kit" from MGOC only costs about £14.00 so another unforseen job to the list.

The re-cap thus is this, if I can remember, sat here waiting for the imminent snow fall thats been promised for the last few weeks.

1/.     Undo fuel tank connections and drop tank

2/.     Re-fit diff spacers ( 2 brass cup washers, 2 fibre flat washers. Clean diff cover mating faces and fit    new gasket. Sounds easy but involves partially moving drive shaft on one side 1/4" outwards, and  knocking out rollpin and pinnion pin)

3/.      Consider re-newing whole remainder of steel fuel line. I have a feeling that this would be a mot failure knowing how keen they are on fuel related stuff.  I've just looked at the prices and may defer that option.  £114 for the kit ( which I have renewed most of anyway) or £40 for the long pump to engine bay unit.          I think I'll clean up the existing then prevaricate a little more.

4/.    Test fuel pump.

5/.     Fill up radiator, drain and refresh oil

6/.     Bleed brakes ( now the front callipers are on the correct side and the right way up)

7/.     Attatch bonnet hinge, latch and release cable.

8/.     Connect tailgate lock mechanism ( I found the key so I refurbed the lock fully)

9/.     Start up and test drive up/down the cul-de-sac. ( after test fitting a refurbed seat )

10/.     Wonder when the weather is going to improve ( I think this should be first on the list but in reality its been a constant thing every hour the last 15 years.

11/.     Wonder at how expensive the Interior carpets and fittings are, what type to buy and when.

12/.     Wonder when to fit in all the home made vynyl interior things like door cards, roof lining.

13/.     Wonder how many more lists I have to make.

Here's some photos showing how good the wheels look in comparison to the rest of the vehicle.

Or I just may ignore all of the above and fit some slightly flared arches and re-align the doors again.

More soon I promise folks.

Tank in time out

 The fuel tank is fitted. It was easy enough using a bolt kit from MGHive. It was all painted matt black, twice and three times on its top surface. Offcuts of foamy sound deadening used as spacer cushions.

Fuel sender unit located easily enough in boot space. Attatching the hose to the fuel tank easy. Twas a new section of fuel line and quite a tight fit but eased on with some vaseline. However, attatching it to pump was not. Also I did not have the correct size jubilee clips, just a mish mash of clips and springs. To make matters worse fixing the new hose to the metal end of long fuel line and fitting the other end to the pump was not fun. It was very tricky with lots of swearing, during which I found the live feed which was crusty and brittle. It also ran a snaking route around the fuel line and earth connections. 

I bit the bullitt and added a new section of the correct colour from my " spares - electrical" collection, double insulated it well and heatshrinked it on .

But that was enough, it was cold wet dark and breezy. 

I left it there till the weather improves. I did want to run the engine but decided against. The water had been drained anyway. So a liberal dose of WD40 all around and thats how I left it.

It has a nice new multilayered waterproof cover over it, several lengths of carpet under that and a tight nylon over over all of that.

I may recover the rear seats or refurb the fuel cap. One good piece of news is I found filler cap key .

More soon-ish.