John S's Journal

I picked up a 1970 MGB Tourer when I spotted an ad on Craigslist and noticed it was located about 2 miles from my house. I was told it needed a clutch and hadn't been driven for about 2 years but the engine had been rebuilt about 6 years ago and hadn't seen much use. Battery was dead (who sells a car with a dead battery?) so after jumping it and confirming it wasn't seized and that it looked to be a rust free split bumper former California car, I made a cash offer and had it towed home. A new battery, some clean plugs and a little fresh gas and it's a runner with good compression across the board! Put my 1979 Tourer up for sale and it was gone within a day of the ad posting. Now fast forward a few weeks.

Engine and gearbox are out and clean as a whistle. Engine is in primer as are lots of the bolt on ancillaries. Parts have arrived. New B&B 3 piece clutch kit, new mounts, lots of gaskets, brake & clutch MC's, slave cylinder and hose,etc. Pedal box stripped, painted and MC's installed.
Flywheel is surfaced and ready to go.

Next is to get all of the engine and components painted, reinstall all the freshly painted bits, install new seals, install the clutch components and mate the engine and gearbox back up. When that is done, I'll move on to the engine bay cleanup and respray.

Finally getting around to finishing what I started way too long ago. Lots of time on my hands and a coronavirus lockdown is the perfect time to reawaken my 1970 Tourer. Took the completely painted engine off the stand last week and have been slowly moving towards getting it back in the car. Surfaced flywheel and clutch components are back on, washed out the engine bay that was painted months ago. All of the horrible red paint was stripped from everywhere. All lines and brackets back to bare metal as they where originally. Engine paint was rattle-canned with a close approximation of the Primrose Yellow, black components were cleaned and resprayed where needed months ago. The wiring harness was stripped of the sticky electrical tape and the correct blue harness tape was applied then as well. Did a little more harness and electrical cleanup yesterday. New bullet connectors and some fabric harness loom for the sub-harness that goes to the rear of the car. New clutch slave cylinder and hose installed and new motor mounts installed. Pretty much ready to jack up the car and drop the engine and gearbox back in.

Got the engine and gearbox back in a couple of weeks ago. New slave cylinder mounted and bled. Tried to bleed it the conventional way but couldn’t get all of the air out. Purchased a couple of 60 ml syringes at the local hardware store and reverse bled them. Bingo! Got the brakes bled with the help of my wife. New positive battery cable made up at Interstate battery and installed. Moved the battery from the driver's side over to the passenger side and installed a battery disconnect on the parcel shelf. Drained about 3 gallons of old gas from the tank and inspected the tank with a boroscope. Looked pretty clean so the plan is to give it a go and order new if I start having problems with contaminants. Everything underneath the car all buttoned up so i moved on to the engine bay. All electrics hooked up, cleaned up carbs installed, radiator suport installed, oil cooler lines run through new grommets, new radiator, hoses and clamps installed and water added to check for leaks. New bottom hose was leaking and had to double clamp to get it to stop. Added a couple gallons of fresh gas, new plugs,
oil and filter. With the car still up on jacks it was time to see if the car was going to run. The engine ran when I had it towed home almost 3 years ago so with the distributor unchanged and the engine wasn't touched, in theory it should fire. And it did but carburettors need some fine tuning.Time to check the clutch work that I did which was how I purchased the car. The owner needed his garage space and the clutch was gone so with the engine running I was able to run it through a couple of gears while it was still up in the air. All good so one step closer.
Last week it was time to put together some headlight and horns relays since the grill and bumper are still off. I had some aluminum c-channel laying around that was a perfect fit over the radiator support on the passenger side. Gathered up some correct color wire from an old harness, bought some cube relays and worked my way through the process of checking all lights with the help of a battery charger and some jumpers. Got all of them working except the high beams and flash to pass. One horn was dead. Opened up the column to get at the switches and discovered a mess. Wiper switch is beyond saving and the directional switch was better but couldn't get the high beams and the horn push was non-existent so it might be from the wrong model year. New switches ordered. High tone horn dissected and after much cleaning and a new gasket made, reassembled and got it working. Painted and installed.
This weekend it was time to check the valves and the timing. Adjusted the valves and timing and tweaked the HS4's a little and smoothed out the idle quite a bit. Still not great but good enough to take it for my first ever drive in this car. Off the stands, aired up the tires and cautiously checked the brakes and first and reverse gear. Decided to get it out in the sun and since we have a steep driveway, positioned it so that I could drive it forwards down the driveway. Quiet streets because of the shelter at home order so without a hood, expired plates and no turn signal switches it was time to see how it would do. Finally! I have a running, driving and stopping car. But it's not done. Stay tuned.

Now that I know that the clutch work and all that followed was a success and after a couple of short test drives, I figured it was time to see if I could get it smoothed out. Checked and adjusted valves first and then re-checked. I had done a quick check with a timing light after the initial test drive but thought I’d have another look. Disconnected vacuum line at the dizzy and plugged, fired it up and had the idle about 850 rpm’s but noticed the timing was too far retarded. Set it at 20 digs. BTDC. Got the vernier caliper out and used the end gauge to check jet levels. Rear carb was quite a bit low, .530 below the bridge vs. .750 on the front. Set them both to .700 to start and went for a longer ride since it is insured and registration renewal sent in to DMV. Filled the tank but now shows around 3/4 full so that needs a look.

Running much better now so decided to focus on putting the console back in and wiring switches and lights up. Hazards weren’t working when I bought the car and had it towed home. At the time, I put a battery in and confirmed it was going to be a worthwhile project so it went right into the garage for a clutchectomy and lots of might as well jobs. Got the hazard switch wired up but fused brown wire to the switch was dead. Further investigation and the wire is toast up into the loom behind the dash. The PO had a cobbled up stereo installation in the console. Now I know why the radio didn’t work and the hazards as well. So it’s dash removal time.

Now that I know that the clutch work and all that followed was a success and after a couple of short test drives, I figured it was time to see if I could get it smoothed out. Checked and adjusted valves first and then re-checked. I had done a quick check with a timing light after the initial test drive but thought I’d have another look. Disconnected vacuum line at the dizzy and plugged, fired it up and had the idle about 850 rpm’s but noticed the timing was too far retarded. Set it at 20 degs. BTDC. Got the caliper out and used the end gauge to check jet levels. Rear carb was quite a bit low, .530 below the bridge vs. .750 on the front. Set them both to .700 to start and went for a longer ride since it is insured and registration renewal sent in to DMV. Filled the tank but now shows around 3/4 full so that needs a look.

Running much better now so decided to focus on putting the console back in and wiring switches and lights up. Hazards weren’t working when I bought the car and had it towed home. At the time, I put a battery in and confirmed it was going to be a worthwhile project so it went right into the garage for a clutchectomy and lots of might as well jobs. Got the hazard switch wired up but fused brown wire to the switch was dead. Further investigation and the wire is toast up into the loom behind the dash. The PO had a cobbled up stereo installation in the console. Now I know why the radio didn’t work and the hazards as well. So it’s dash removal time.

After discovering that I needed to fix a toasted brown wire that ran from behind the console up into the main loom behind the dash, I knew it was time to remove the dash. It came with one of those plastic dash caps and it was loose so it obviously had a badly cracked dash beneath so I figured I couldn’t make it any worse. After some geriatric gymnastics, I managed to get it pulled up and off the studs to get at the various gauges and discovered some very crispy white wires on the tach so all in all it was a blessing in disguise. Removed gauges one at a time after taking some pics for reference and then plugged the wires back onto the gauges.

With the dash out now I could assess the state of affairs in the loom. Decided to tackle the burnt brown wire first so started removing the dried out blue tape at the console and on up to the brown wire cluster on the right side behind the pillow part of the dash. Dead wire had fused to some of the other wires but was able to separate individual wires to see that no other wires needed repair. A little electrical tape on a few where the insulation was thin just to play it safe.Clipped the soldered end where the brown wires were joined and replaced the burnt one. Soldered, heat shrink and a big wire nut for added measure. Wrapped new blue tape over all of the wire from console to the firewall end behind the wiper motor.

On to the crispy tach wires next. Peeled back the blue tape to sort out how far back and where the two individual wires ran. One to the coil across the dash and out through the firewall to passenger side. The other to a multiple bullet connection on the driver side. Fished a couple spare white wires out of my stash and soldered in a couple of repair sections, heat shrink, and re-wrapped the rest of the loom from the other repair area all the way to the driver side. Done.

This stuff was done a week or so ago and the thought was that I’d re-glue the cap back on and be done but it was such a gooey mess to try to clean up just to put a half-ass fix on so the thought process changed to sourcing a new pad and a few other goodies to put the dash pad to it’s former glory. Pillow dash detractors will argue it was never considered glorious but I rather like the fact it was only used for four production years. That in addition to it being a one year only split bumper car kind of makes it a little more unique. Next journal entry will detail the dash pad replacement learnings and installation.