The Tale Of Mabie

Had the newest addition to the family delivered last Wednesday. Our Free B arrived with a trail of pieces. It is a chrome bumper with rubber overriders, a 1974 MGB currently in Thati blue and uh... black. The previous owner has done some work on the rusted undercarriage by replacing the floorpans and the areas around the underside of the motor, we still have to put it up far enough in the air to see underneath to see exactly what has been completed.

Here are a few shots of her in the garage and the mound of parts that came with her. Now we have to work on sorting through everything and cleaning it to see what we have and what we need.

6/7/10 - Sold this car to Scot Abbot a few months ago in order to concentrate on converting my '78 B in to a V8 machine.

8/7/07 - Updated the air filter set up with some help from the gang here on the forum. With the new set up there was a big change in how engine temp came up, with the pancake filters the car was starting to read hot much earlier than it had. So with the K&N's on the engine is running better and getting lots more air. Also worked on topping off the fluid levels in the rear shocks, they were a bit low but are in good shape now.

5/15/07 - Received the new O rings for the carb on Friday and hope to take off the carb and try the rings to see if it stops the gas leak that developed from the underside of the bowl. Also got the Miata seats picked up that were purchased on Ebay, still need to photograph those and then begin the dissection of the original seat covers so I can begin work on the new ones to match the red interior I hope to put into the car.

5/31/07 - Turned out the O ring wasn't the problem but the jet on the rear needed to be replaced. Ordered and received a new one from Joe then got it installed tonight. Installation went in pretty well for a first timer, other than a couple pull offs and put back on it went well. Had to readjust the idle speed once everything was back on but finally got her settled back in to under 1000 rpm's.

Almost forgot to update regarding the change from the Weber carb over to a set of HS4's. We changed to these to get rid of the hesitation that we felt using the Weber's, others have said that it was normal but I prefer to skip that part so the new HS4's are all set up and I have to say they look really cute in there. Especially after I put the little chrome dashpot covers on and shined them up.

Next I am deciding if I want to change from the black interior over to a tan interior. I am leaning this way especially after seeing a 78 MGB on the site here that had the tan interior. It just seemed to pop, and tan should have less heat than the black does. But we will see.....

4/19/07 - Decided to go with the red carpet instead of tan, now just to pick out the interior panel color. Plan to make the seat covers and interior parts myself but looking for a set of Fiero or Miata seats before making the covers.

Also licensed and took her out today for the first ride around town for the start of spring. Plan to take her out for another run tomorrow to a Tech event sponsored by our local club.

4/23/07 - Had our first real outing on Saturday, drove about an hour across the city to the tech session hosted by one of our club members. Weather was beautiful but held out on the way over and kept the top up. After spending a few hours there headed home with temps close to 80, so even with a bad cough we had to drop the top. It was gorgeous, car did great but kept wishing she had a 5th gear .

Little slow on the update, but we moved last year to Elyria, OH. Joined the Emerald Necklace MGB Club and look forward to the outings coming up.

Well when the time comes why not an MGB? We found this one locally for sale by the current owner and stopped over to test drive it on March 26, 2006. Quick test drive and a couple looks at her and she found her way into our household. Picked her up on the 2nd of April and brought her home. Now she needs a little work, the last owner managed to send along lots of spare parts as he intended to restore the car back to original. Now me I think that pretty much everything is already original in its current state. So we are taking on the task of making Mabie a fun to drive run about little car. Much work is needed in the engine bay as it has been several years since but the new carpet and reasonably new interior do help offset the shock under the hood. We have been able to take her about the back streets for a couple quick runs and are happy to say......... it is a blast .