OK Listers,
You asked for it so here goes. My wife got tired of
driving to car shows in our Van with our special needs
son in tow. So I set out to find her a car. I was in
the process of looking for a chrome bumper car to add
to the small choral at the time(78B). My best friends
daughter knew this couple that had an MG for sale and
was desperate to sell cause of another child on the
way. So my buddy Mark told me about it and I went
right away. Sure enough it was an MGB 1970 flame
red(poor fading paint). It had made a noise in the
engine a few years earlier and the guy just parked it
cause he had no money to fix it (Piston rod had
fractured somehow I discovered later). I found out
from PO that it was a 1990 Heritage body shell he had
bought for 4500.00 from Moss. He had a parts car he
took some important parts from including the Vin# and
title etc. Talk about a botched job! I found a bolt
used to hold the clutch fork together. He used ply
wood for the door panels and console. The wiring was
all yellow with numbers attached to each ( Italian I
think). The seats were from a Fiero and in bad shape.
Only 2 bolts held each in place. The positives were
nice Minilites with Goodyear low profile tires. A
great body and some parts salvagable from the damaged
engine. The PO was asking 4500.00, I got it for
2500.00
(-: So now what to do , I flat bedded it home to the
garage were it sat for 6 months while I devised a plan
to restore it. First I went out and bought a 71B for
engine and many extras like tops, tonneaus, boot bar
etc. Cost $1000.00, it had been hit in rear. I gave
what was left to a friend that would later help me
with the rebuild. I took the seats out of the 71 and
redid those with a Moss kit using the 71's foam.
I bought the door panels and rug at the same time from
Moss on sale. Ripped out all the yellow wiring and
used the 71 wiring. Put the 71 engine in and left
it untouched until summer of 2001 when I did a lower
end main bearing change to bring oil pressure up to 50
lbs. at idle warm, 55 at start up. This engine had
nice HS SU's with K&N MG filters on it. Now I had all
this ready in the garage and basement waiting for the
summer of 1999 when my frienf Reg and I stripped
everthing off
the car we could and did a little prep work for a
repaint. I only had $800.00 left in the budget at
this point so I drove it around on a tow dolly to get
estimates knowing all along it was going to the local
Macco shop. Sure enough, Macco did a nice job
shooting the engine bay boot and car for $700.00. Hey
it's not a 100 point car but nice enough to drive to
shows and not be embarrassed. Anyway, then the fun
started. It took a week of 18 hour days in the middle
of July to put all the parts and rugs etc. in her.
The only thing it was lacking was an O/D. She ran
great and I got some nice front and rear bumpers from
my brothers 69B that will need re-chroming now. I
have the original split bumpers as well as some nice
ones I bought at a swap meet at Rock's MD show. I got
a nice console from British Racing Green in Del. from
a junker there. Slowly over the years I have found
bits and pieces to add or replace old parts from the
original car. Summer of 2000 bought a 1970B parts
car($200.00) and have used several things off it this
summer. Such as replacing the rear tube shocks with
levers that were perfect. Did this cause new springs
were just to stiff with tubes. I bought an original
hardtop from David Deutsch but it didn't match up
with the clips in the back. Someone said that these
shells had several problems with not matching up
things. I went to put the heater vents on today and
discovered the holes are square , not rectangular like
suppose to be. So I bought an after market hard top
that fits fine and won't put the heater vents in by
the feet. Didn't need them the past 3 years anyway
so... I also bought a crank and head from David with
plans to put a bored out hot 1900 or so in some day.
The collapsable covertable top is nice in the summer
and the white top looks good but needs replacement, so
that is next summer. I put an O/D in it summer of
2001 when I did the lower end. It now cruises at 70
no problem on the highway. All toll I've spent
approximately $6500.00 and many man hours but am real
pleased what I've been able to put together on shoe
string budget and 2 right brains (-: My brother calls
me a parts changer. I don't understand most of the
mechanical things but can tear down and put things
back together again. So now do any of you have
questions?
Jim
78B for sale
70B Heritage body shell
seeking MGCGT/C
/// or try http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
/// Archives at http://www.team.net/archive
|