Rebirth of the B

[Stewart]

Beeing ratty.
This week will begin the process of turning one big bit into many little bits as prep work for the body being fixed and painted and interior replaced begins. Right now I'm in Tokyo and am leaving thrusday night so thrusday morning the work should begin yes morning it's not a misprint. Anything to stay awake long enought to get back on a normal sleep schedual. Colors are pretty much solid at this point. Sticking with the Black interior though still debating on switching over to a fully carpeted or if it's still available staying with rubber. I've decided on a current jaguar color slate which I think should look good especialy with the morspeed front and rear bumpers. Also going to use the grill from a 73/4. Going to be a fun summer project and I'm sure I will be asking plenty of questions.

Heres a pick of the color I've chosen.

 

[John Moore]

Re: Last week of the B

Is that Zicron Blue? If so I just suggested it to someone else on the board.

Speaking of Jag colors, I was thinking of painting my B Carnival Red, which is a current Jag color.

 

[Stewart]

Re: Last week of the B

Its the "Slate" color. Between silver and charcoal would be the best way to decribe it.

 

[John Moore]

Re: Last week of the B

That will look sharp! You don't see many silver or grey B's.

 

[Radford]

Re: Last week of the B

Color looks like a great choice. Different, but not odd.

 

[Stewart]

Re: Last week of the B

GRRRRR.

Stupid rental places. I was going to strip down the B this afternoon and then trailer it down to where the body work was going to happen and I was denied. Since I don't have a full size truck I couldn't rent a flat bed trailer even though the trailer and B are well under the max towing capacity for my truck. Will start tomorrow though as I'm just going to drive the B down to have its guts ripped out.

 

[Stewart]

Re: Last week of the B

Finaly a good start

 

[John Moore]

Re: Last week of the B

Woo hoo! She's out! Are you going to completely strip the bay?

 

[Stewart]

Re: Last week of the B

Pretty much. I need to find a place to get the bay and underside steam cleaned to remove the 30 years of oil leakage and grime after that a good sanding then prime and paint.

 

[John Moore]

Re: Last week of the B

Cool! I did that to mine last two winters ago. And now I have it all apart again. It's a sickness I believe! lol

 

[Stewart]

Re: Last week of the B

More work done as the rear end is being striped down. So far no signs of rust under the tank and the tank appears to be in excellent shape and just needs some clean up and paint. There is some very light surface rust in the truck but it scrapes right off and is very solid. The only real body work will be the right rear quarter panel and hopefully it will be taken care of in the next week or two. Other than getting beaned right on the forehead by a rock that has apparently been up there since the factory paint job as it was covered in the original red paint pretty easy job dropping the tank and bumper.

 

[Stewart]

Re: Last week of the B

Other than the steering wheel the only other shiny bit at the moment.

 

[Ed Sweeney]

Re: Last week of the B

Your a man on a mission

Impressive progress

 

[jerryrosa]

Re: Last week of the B

Hiya Stewart!

Sorry, I just saw this thread.

Congrats, and good luck! /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif

It's quite a project, but will be done before you know it!

Love the color you've picked!

Please keep us updated with the progress /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif

Jerry /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/cool.gif

 

[Nunyas]

Re: Last week of the B

is that.... a metal fill neck I see in the trunk? Is that stock for your 'B?

I have a rubber fill neck for my fuel tank on my '76 B, and the area around it is dented in most likely from previous owners pushing too hard on the pump nozzle when putting gas in. I can sort of see how it would be easy to damage the car in the way mine is, especially in California where all our gas pump nozzles have a crazy spring loaded forskin... some of those dang things have way too strong of a spring inside them.. /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/frown.gif If there's a possibility of swapping out the rubber fill pipe for a metal one I think I'd jump on that faster than flies on ... well you know.

 

[Stewart]

Re: Last week of the B

Its the original filler neck. Mines a federal car so no cat. converter or obstructions in the filler neck as it did run on leaded gas. I'm sure you can find one off an earlier B. You may have to swap it out if they check for the unleaded restrictor in the neck for the smog test.

I was finally able to remove the cam from the motor after letting a struck screw that holds a plate to keep the distributor gear in block soak over the weekend in wd40. 2 lobes were gone and it looks like signs of burning on one of them. Measured everything else and there's very little wear on the rest of the engine. After getting the original rubber flooring up there was absolutly no signs of any rust at all on the floor pans. Just a little bit of clean up to do and a coat of POR to keep it that way and it should be good to go hopefully for a long long time. One thing I did find distrubing was the insulation under the rubber was rather moist even after sitting in a 100 degree garage the last 5 days. Just a little more deconstruction to go and then the fun really begins. I hope to have the parts for the engine ordered here in the next day or two and hopefully by the weekend after next have it back together.


More progress for today

 

[John Moore]

Re: Last week of the B

Looks like your making good progress! Keep at it!

 

[Nunyas]

Re: Last week of the B

Waaait, wait, wait, wait... Are you saying your RubberBumper 'B came from out of state so the emissions testing doesn't apply? Or do you just have different standards that you need to meet due to the age of the car and it being from "out of state"?

 

[Stewart]

Re: Last week of the B

Mine was originally sold new in New Mexico and only had to comply with the federal emission standards for that year as New Mexico didn't have stricter ones in place at the time.

As we all know California has its own laws for emissions and MG's were built specifically for the stricter California standards. I believe it was the addition of the catalytic converter a different distributor and possible a different needle in the ZS carburetor and more than likely a different filler neck so people couldn't use the leaded gas and other small changes. I don't know if they added a sticker under the hood or know by the vin number.

Fortunately California hasn't mandated yet that you must modify your car to meet the stricter California standards for emission equipment when you import your car into the state but for the required smog check you are required to have all the original smog equipment in place and functioning. Thank god mine's now exempt from smog checks at least for a little bit but something tells me at some point the laws going to change again.

 

[Stewart]

Re: Last week of the B

A little more progress today. Ordered up the majority of the engine parts I will need. All new bearings new rings oil pump seals and gaskets. Decided to go with a performance cam with more torque on the lower end and a Webber outlaw 38 DGES and intake and to get rid of the gasses a Pico header. I'm glad I ended up tearing the engine down. As it turned out it did need a good overhaul with the worn cam bad oil pump and some wear on the bearings though all the other surfaces and cylinders are in excellent shape.

Progress for today was not to bad. Finished off gutting the interior and cleaning it up. Removed the windshield which was not hard at all and started to clean up engine parts. The block and head will be hot tanked on Thursday and hopefully the weekend after next the engine will be back together.

One nice and cleaned up piston

and one very trashed oil pump.