Please allow me to introduce myself. I've been "lurking" on SOL for a
few months now, filing the digests when times are busy and reading
them when a have a spare minute. I thought I'd finally announce my
presence.
I am too young to remember my first experience with an LBC. My folks
owned a '66 BRG MGB and when my mother was pregnant with me she got
into a serious accident, totalling the car.
Since then I've had a number of experiences and adventures with
automobiles. I helped my neighbor restore to show condition a '41
Lincoln. I was a member of Cornell University's FSAE team -- we
designed built and competed race cars based on a 600cc motorcycle
engines. It was great fun and I learned a lot in the process.
Incidentally, as the token EE on the team, I was in charge of the
ignition system. Most of my adventure, though, centered around a
highly unreliable '79 Ford Fairmont I drove through high school and
college. My otherwise imaginative sister dubbed it "Carlos".
In October 1991 my grandfather came for a visit one day and spotted a
red MGB on the side of the road. Before even looking at it, he
decided he wanted the car. Dutiful grandson that I am, I went to look
at the car. It started up well, 60K miles on the odometer, the top
was a little ripped, the paint was in tough shape, and somewhere along
the line it had grown a pair of rubber bumpers instead of the chrome
ones. But once I took it out on the road I was in love. Then I tried
to stop -- the brakes left something to be desired.
I looked the car over and bargained the guy from $2500 to $1500. Fool
that I am, I figured that if I shaved $1000 off the price I must be
doing okay. The seller told me all sorts of lies, and I was too
lazy/naive to look into it further. "The heat works" (the dash
controls weren't even hooked up!), "It doesn't burn oil" (1qt every
100 miles), etc. The guy had fitted on a side draft Zenith, but he
gave me most of the parts to the SU's
My grandfather spends winters in Florida. That gave me the winter to
give it a floor, do some body work, and put on a new top. My uncle
wanted to help, and inspite of the cold outside or the cramped garage,
it was good fun. I have some experience with boat repair, and I chose
to replace the rotted-out lower 1/3 of the body with fiberglass. I
also noticed that there isn't a single wire in the car longer than 14"
-- they've all been spliced so many times. Also, it seems like the
front fenders were both reconstructed, probably from some accident.
Spring was here and my grandfather was returning to RI for the summer
and would need the car. The driver's door needed welding at the
mirror where it ripped, there were assorted scratches all over the
upper parts of the car, and it was spotted in many colors. So I gave
it to my uncle and asked him to get the rest of the body work done and
have the car painted. Never, I repeat, NEVER bring your car to Maaco.
They ripped the top lowering it, screwed up the paint raising it, and
did a lousy job with the paint and body work. If I didn't already
have too much aggravation in my life, I'd take them to court. All
that work *I* did on the body looks great, though!
My grandfather drove it last summer. It was then that we realized it
was using a lot of oil. I didn't need a compression tester to tell me
it was the piston rings: big blue smoke when accelerating under load.
When the smell of gasoline became too annoying I took out the gas tank
to find a silver-dollar sized hole on the top of the tank.
The car looked good and was fun to drive. Besides, my grandfather
only used it to shuttle himself between home, the tennis court and the
beach where he lives in Newport, RI. When I went to visit him every
weekend I would just put in another quart of oil and he'd be fine.
In December my employer forced a week of vacation on me and I decided
I would turn my attention to the erratic carbeurator, the interior,
and a dent in the rear fender someone gave him anonymously in a
parking lot. First I decided I would get it re-inspected.
Unfortunately it failed on 12 points, including HC emissions (greater
than 3x the legal limit for a '73 in RI), U joints, brakes (fool that
I was, I didn't know that when I replaced a wheel cylinder and bled
the brakes I shouldn't put in standard DOT3 fluid -- now the drums are
full of fluid), exhaust, and a few less worrisome things.
I decided it was finally time to fix the rings and I ordered all the
parts I thought I would need for a minor rebuild. Unfortunately, they
didn't come until after my forced week of vacation.
In the mean time, there was a medical emergency. My grandfather
needed quadruple bypass surgery. Fortunately he didn't get a chance
to see his car in pieces or he would certainly have had a heart
attack.
I decided to replace the oil pump, cam shaft (+ tappets), and rod
bearings. I'm still in the dismantling stage. It turns out one of
the compression rings in cylinder #3 was broken. I'm at the point
where I'm starting to worry that I'll never get these several boxes of
parts back together again.
The rebuild kit I got also came with valve seals. I'm not sure if I
want/need to start with work on the head though. Any thoughts? None
of the springs are broken. There's a good build up on the valve faces,
but nothing that can't be scraped off.
Right now I'm having a tough time getting out the screw that holds in
the distributor drive. The stubborn little thing would rather have
it's head stripped than break free. It's turned into one of those
one-way security screws now and it looks like I'll have to drill it
out.
I enjoy working on the car though. And I know he'll enjoy it once I
get it working again. I guess I'll never get my money out (I'm in for
about $3500 now), but that isn't the idea. I get frustrated when I
run into a problem, like a screw that won't give, but I know I'll get
past it. I have a lot of respect for those enthusiasts who use a 20+
yr. old LBC as a daily driver; my '90 Acura Integra is much more
reliable and comfortable. That's not the point though, and I suspect
anyone who owns an LBC knows it -- the MGB is great fun.
You've probably all heard this before, but just in case:
Q. Why aren't there any major British computer manufacturers?
A. They couldn't figure out how to make a computer that leaks oil.
++++++++++ Josh Kablotsky
++ ++++++ joshua.kablotsky@analog.com
++ ++++ (617)461-3586
++ ++ DSP Development Tools
++ ++++ Analog Devices
++ ++++++ One Technology Way
++++++++++ Norwood, MA 02062
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