Since the weather report for the weekend here in DC looked good, I
decided to carry out the much needed rear axle swap on my MGB. While
I was at it I replaced the rear springs and the u-joints in the
driveshaft.
Having taken apart old MG's before, I was not expecting to get to
drive this one again until next weekend. Oh me of little faith! I
forgot that this time I had air tools at my disposal. Very few things
were rusted badly, so those places that the air wrench couldn't
reach were a breeze. There were only two major problems. The bolts
that held the front of the springs were rusted to the steel sleeve in
the bushing, so turning it with a wrench just made it spin. My dad,
after a lot of bad words, cut the bolts with a reciprocating saw. The
other problem was getting one of the u-joints out. That just took a
couple of hours of heat and hammering.
The old axle was noisy, and I wanted wire wheels, so we put in a
different axle. There are a couple of differences between axles from
72 and 77 MGB's. The brake hose mounts in a different place, as does one
of the tie downs for the emergency brake cable. The later axle has
the mounting for the anti-roll bar, but that does not get in the way.
The car looks a little odd, but if you block out the Rostyle wheels on
the front, and just look at the rear of the car, it looks awfully
nice. I have noticed that the car rolls a lot more now, because of
the raised center of gravity caused by the new springs. However, the
muffler scrapes the road much less frequently, and the chrome strip
down the side looks better when it is parallel to the ground.
There have been many discussions about the pro's and con's of wire
wheels, but the thing that really turned me onto wire wheels was the
time I drove up to Boston from Washington, and I got a flat tire at 1
am on I-95 in Connecticut in the pouring rain. If you keep your
splines well greased, you can change a wire wheel flat much quicker
that a lug-nut flat.
This was on a different MGB, by the way - a GT that is awaiting
restoration.
James
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