• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.

    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Need a little help

jcnz

Freshman Member
Offline
Sorry ahead of time to all of the purists. My 77 B was my first car. I've had it for 10 years now and 5 of those it has been sitting in storage. A couple of months prior to the car going to meet its maker I had the tranny clutch and engine rebuilt. The engine for a multitude of reasons mainly electrical, crapped out on me and has sat in an auto caccoon for the last 5 years I am going to go for the chevy 60 degree v6 option. I had read in a post some time back about a back that was specifically written on the subject of taking the GM engine and swapping into an MG. If there is anyone out there that may have a book in mind please let me know. I have searched and searched and the only thing I can find on the subject is the v8 swap. Thanks ahead of time for you help.
 
I guess I should also mention that I am going to try to bring the ol' girl back to life over the next couple of days. When I gave up on the car originally, shame on me I know, it was backfiring idling rough and stalling if not kept above a certain RPM, among many other small but fatal problems. I would like to bring the engine back to running condition so that I may be able to get a little bit of money out of it. The tranny and clutch are fine. Who knows I may love the purr of 4 cyl. and decide to stay with it. If anyone has any particular tricks up their sleave for waking a sleeping B please feel free to pass along any knowledge or experience.

BTW Thanks Mickey for the quick response
 
this seems to be a popular link and has a lot of detailed information:

https://www.theautoist.com/awakening_a_sleeping_b.htm

as far as the backfiring, rough idle and stalling prior to storage.. I just went through that with mine over the last few weeks.
For my solution it was: Charging the battery, replacing the points (yours may only need adjustment, at the very least looked at), cleaning and regapping the spark plugs, double checking the firing order (check the dist. cap for corrosion), disassembly of the carbs and a serious cleaning, and of course the ever so fun Carb sync and tuning.

Granted, this is what worked for me. At the very least I would check your firing order and clean the spark plugs and your carbs.
 
This ncould help: bring up Google and enter MGB V6. The first page that poppe4d up for me had four listings.

Guinn
 
A few things to think of before you do a conversion. Is this really what you want? It will drasticaly change the characteristics of the car. Do you have the time and skill to do it your self? It will involve many hours and some troubleshooting depending on which choices you make in the conversion. Most of the problems have been sorted out by various people including me so there is help out there. During the swap you may do things that are completely irreversable. I did my swap for around $2000 and I got lucky with what I came out with. It took lots of extra time and work to keep the prices down. Do you haev room to keep another car or two to use parts from and part out to make your money back? Do you want fuel injection ($$$$) or a carb ($$)? FWD ($$$$$) or RWD ($$$$)? GM slave cylinder ($) or HTOB ($$$)? It took me 10 weeks start to being able to drive it, and I'm still not done. I just helped Tony Barnhill put a V6 in his car a couple of months back and it is almost time to crank it. any more questions?
 
[ QUOTE ]
A few things to think of before you do a conversion. Is this really what you want? It will drasticaly change the characteristics of the car. Do you have the time and skill to do it your self? It will involve many hours and some troubleshooting depending on which choices you make in the conversion. Most of the problems have been sorted out by various people including me so there is help out there. During the swap you may do things that are completely irreversable. I did my swap for around $2000 and I got lucky with what I came out with. It took lots of extra time and work to keep the prices down. Do you haev room to keep another car or two to use parts from and part out to make your money back? Do you want fuel injection ($$$$) or a carb ($$)? FWD ($$$$$) or RWD ($$$$)? GM slave cylinder ($) or HTOB ($$$)? It took me 10 weeks start to being able to drive it, and I'm still not done. I just helped Tony Barnhill put a V6 in his car a couple of months back and it is almost time to crank it. any more questions?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well to answer your questions yes this is REALLY what I want. I have been researching the subject for months and I have truly put my mind to it. I daydream about the wind in my hair and being able to push the car above 70 mph and not sweating it out whether or not the darn thing is going to fall apart right there on the interstate. Yes I do have the room and I am leaning towards the 94-95 Chevrolet setup, RWD, and I am leaning toward fuel injection however this is debatable. I have an acquaintance that has access to GM computer diagnostic equipment where he works as a mechanic and that is going to be of a great help so I am confident I can accomplish the task. However, notice I said acquintance and not friend which usually means it will cost me albeit for a considerably smaller price than usual. This is why I am in desperate need of written reference material but don't seem to be able to find any. Thanks again guys for your help. My heart is set on it, and as most of you know when it comes to the B bug it's near impossible to get it out once you have contracted it. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/lol.gif
 
If it is really what you want to do, go for it. The only thing I can talk you through the entire swap except for some of the fuel injection. If you are going to use SFI, buy a complete car and part out what you don't need so you have the wiring harness, all the sensors, and computer, and te gauges if you want. If you are going ot use the SFI for sure, get a wiring harness from https://bmcautos.com/ . It may seem expensive, but trust me it is worth it. It is completely brand new and it have everything you need. The only problems I see with using teh stock fuel injection is te removal of smog equiptment, such as EGR, and the air pump. That is what I wanted when I first started, but I later realized that 2.8 was cheeper, and easier to come by. The 2.8 has more power than anyone needs. Visit https://www.mgbexperience.com/phorum/list.php?f=40 for a V6/V6 board that can help you through almost any problem.
 
Back
Top