Hello List
I just purchased the garage find of my lifetime. Last week a fellow contacted
me, said he knew someone with an old MG, would I be interested? Said sure, and
went to look at it.
Turns out, this fellow had done the body and paint and rebuilt the engine on a
58 MGA (1500) in 1975 then put the car away. It has been in his neighbours
garage ever since and now the neighbour has passed away and he wants to get
rid of the car.
This car looks brand new!!!! The paint/body are perfect, you could eat out of
the engine bay. All the wiring was redone at the same time so it's fresh.
Unfortunately the interior was redone in what I can only assume was cool back
in the mid seventies - brown shag carpets, brown diamond tufted vinyl door
panels and a dark brown wood dash that looks horrible. Hard top is there and
original. He still has the old panels and dash for the interior, but the seats
will need to be redone.
I almost fell over when he said all he wanted was $3500 (Canadian) - that's
about $2600 USD. So I bought it!!
Now, here's my dilemma. What do I do to this engine before attempting to start
it? When it was stored, it was drained of all fluids. The fellow said that
about three years ago he filled everything up and started the car, it ran
great for about 60 second before the diaphragm on the fuel pump went (I'm not
too surprised). He then redrained everything and put the car back away.
So, do I just rebuild the fuel pump, fill everything up and give it a try? Or
should I overfill it with oil, let it sit for a few days, drain it and start
again?
Remember this engine only has about 100 miles since the rebuild, but the
rebuild was 30 years ago.
Any help will be appreciated and pictures are coming tomorrow!!!
This is exciting!!
Cheers
Grant Bush
Edmonton, Canada
50 MGTD
58 MGA
|