MGB - carpeting (part 2)

This is a continuation of the previous post about installing the carpets into the MGB. At this point, I've mapped all of the various pieces of carpet to where they go in the car and I've traced and then cut thick or thin insulation to go under the carpet for the respective sections. Now, it's time to play with spray epoxy.

Back to the Directions

For the install, I followed the directions for the order which carpet first, second, etc. For each piece of carpet, I had something to go under it (except the transmission tunnel). For each piece which directed gluing straight to steel, I would test fit the insulation, then test fit with insulation and carpet. If necessary, I would trim the insulation a little bit so it wasn't visible. Then, I'd spray epoxy onto the insulation and install it, holding it in-place for a 30-count or longer. Then, I'd test fit the carpet on top of the glued-down insulation, then epoxy it into place by spraying epoxy onto the carpet underside. Remember to let the epoxy set-up a little bit before slapping the things together. Wet won't hold; it needs to tack-up a little bit: spray the underside well away from the car, let it set up for 15-30 seconds and then apply in-place. If you, the reader, are looking at this for guidance, take care with the transmission tunnel carpet. I realized after mine was in that a shifter cover plate hadn't been put back in, so I needed to cut a small line in my carpet in front of the shifter to enable that re-install. Since it will live under a console, it doesn't really matter, but I really don't like cutting when I don't need to. Honestly, it is really hard to tell that the carpet was cut there now even without the console.

No Glue, But No Snaps
The carpets that sit on the floor under the persons in the car and the piece on the back deck are not glued in. Instead, they were held in place with snaps from the factory. Since I replaced my floors, many of the old snaps were gone. I had a decision to make: install the snaps or try something else. Knowing that the snaps had to be in exactly the right place for them to align with the snaps in the carpets, or there would be lumps in my brand new carpet, I decided to not install snaps. But, I needed something to hold the floor mat especially under the driver's feet. Otherwise, it could slide around under the pedals making for a dangerous driving condition. I found Velcro at Ace Hardware that was designed for wet conditions and it could hold up to 30 pounds. Since we just need to hold carpet, this felt like a good way to go. I cut sections out of the insulation, glued the Velcro to the underside of the carpet and corresponding spot on the floor. Now, the carpet holds in place, and retains it's original ability to be removed for cleaning and access to drain plugs. And no lumps.

Cutting Holes
In order to re-install seat belts and the seats, this brand new carpet needs to have holes cut into it. I found this a little hard to embrace at first. Since I was putting insulation under all of the various pieces, though, I could figure out exactly where the hole was supposed to go with something that wasn't carpet and then transfer that spot onto the carpet. This worked well for the sill carpets (that section from the ledge along the bottom of the door to the main floor) where the lower seat belt mount hole is, but greatly complicated an already difficult wheel arch. Fortunately, the transmission tunnel carpet had the holes pre-punched. This made aligning the carpet easier in that respect, but made the overall install of that carpet much more harrowing because everything had to line up perfectly.... with epoxy sprayed on it. Move quickly.

The last holes to put into the carpets are the holes for the bolts to hold the seat rails. In the MG, each seat is held in with 4 7/16" bolts. The carpets do not ship with the holes pre-punched, so you need to locate them yourself. Not all of these holes pop out the bottom; in fact, only one does. The front 2 pass into a cross-member and one of the rear ones does too, leaving just the one. I started with just the insulation down, and pushed a finish nail up through the one hole. This removed front-back and left-right sliding of the insulation while I located the other holes. These, I found in a more traditional way of folding back the insulation until I could locate the hole, and guestimated where it passed through the insulation. While some holes took more than one try, I located the holes with finish nails, leaving them in the insulation for transfer to the carpet. Taking the insulation to a table, I set the carpet on top of the insulation and pushed the finish nail through the carpet, marking the hole, and then put blue tape on top of the nail to hold the mark. With an exacto-blade, I cut a small "X" at each nail, testing the size with the seat-rail bolt so the hole was only as large as needed to be. With the bolts pushed through the holes in both the carpet and insulation, I could set the carpet in place and then put in the seats.

Seats In

Once the carpets were in, I put the seats back in. The seats were originally installed with a wood slat running under the steel rail to lift it up off the carpet a little bit. Not surprisingly, these wood slats were rotted away. Instead, I boosted the seat up off the carpet by putting a slightly over-sized nut under the seat rail where each of the bolts passed through to the floor: one per bolt. These 4 nuts created little stands for the seat rail so it sits just above the carpet. I expected this to be a challenge, between the low ceiling created by the convertible top, the small holes, getting a nut under the rail, juggling an old seat, etc, but it really wasn't. The blue tape gave me clear targets for the holes in the seat rails so I could get the seat in the right spot without the carpet moving. Then, one corner at a time, I lifted the rail, slid a nut under the rail and the the bolt through the rail, then the bolt and finally into the hole in the floor. I would lightly thread the bolt and then move on. I tightened the bolts snug as pair: front then rear.

Finishing
I finished out the rough-in by making a small cut in the transmission tunnel carpet and installing the shift plate. I followed my now-usual pattern of soaking the old plate in vinegar for a few days to get the rust off; then, cleaned primed and painted it. The install of the plate was simple: re-use the 3 Phillips screws at the front. I re-used the original shift boot after cleaning it up with some Meguiar's vinyl cleaner just to get the shifter together and looking fairly good. I'll be switching out the shifter boot with the rest of the interior panels and seat covers later. The boot is held down with a new black ring and chrome bolts. The ring and bolts were less than $10US, but that change greatly improved the finished look.

I installed new door rubber seals and the stamped-steel transoms (with new screws) to complete the effort. The ends of rubber seals are held in place with small chrome bits, and otherwise just press onto the lip which runs along the edge of the carpeted sills. The stamped-steel transoms are held on with 6 small screws, and after some polishing, look fairly decent for original pieces.

Now, it looks and sounds like a "real" car. When the doors are shut and windows up, the car purrs. When I stomp on the fast pedal, it has a little roar to it. I still need to put the center console in (for climate control) and it could use a radio, but the little car is about ready to be a daily driver.

Thanks, as always, for following along.

Snap Ring Pliers review

I don't usually review tools.  Usually, I research a bunch and then pick whatever the interweb tells me to buy.  I wasn't able to get a good direction from the web for Snap Ring Pliers, so I bought a couple pairs and experimented.  Today's brief post summarizes those experiments.

Why Bother?

In my previous post, I talked about solving a leaking oil seal.  Some of my research on that issue pointed me to believe that the input shaft was loose and needed to be removed and re-installed.  To do that, a circlip needs to be backed off so a thick lock-ring can be pulled back (see picture to the right. The input shaft rises from the center of the picture to the left).  Then, the input shaft can be threaded off the reverse gear.  First step in that process requires a pair of Snap Ring Pliers.

Size
Some things about the old Volksies are very well documented on the web.  Arguably, some are over documented.  If you want to know what kind of oil to run, for example, you can go through literally hundreds of opinions.  Tires are equally well-opinion'd.  Getting something as simple as the size of the tip needed to remove the circlip on the input shaft, however, can sometimes prove impossible.  Hours of searching netted no useful information.  The size is 0.07 (US), by the way.  This is the largest size available in the standard multi-tip Snap Ring Pliers sets, and individual pliers with fixed-size tips can be found.

NAPA

boink! tip fail.

Off to the friendly local auto parts store (FLAPS), I went to find a pair that would work.  Since I'm only really doing this once, I didn't want a spendy pair, just some that would do the job.  So, I tried the tip-adjustable set available at NAPA.  Using the largest tip (0.07), I was unable to open the circlip wide enough to get the circlip out of its seating channel without the tip failing.  The tips are held on with small Phillips head bolts pressing a removable plate against the plier arm.  The removable plate is slightly bent, presumably to best fit the tip on, but the engineering is flawed such that the final bit of torque needed to hold the tip is robbed from you by the curve of the plate.  Neat.  I tried to undermine that torque-robbery by jamming a finish nail under the plate on the opposite side of the bolt, increasing the torque on the tip.  That didn't work either.

mod no worky

Net-result: not good for this job.  Maybe, if the circlip you need to remove requires less than 10 foot-pounds of torque it would suffice, but for real automotive situations, its junk.

Husky
After setting the NAPA pliers aside, I hit Home Depot looking for a pair of Husky one-size-only 0.07 Snap Ring Pliers.  While their web site showed that they were in stock at the store (for $13), neither I nor the clerk could find them.  I'd love to review them, but instead I offer just a head-shaking at Home Depot.  Either offer the product or don't; don't post it on your web site if you don't have it.  Boo.

Channel Lock

Channel Lock works!

Home Depot did have Channel Lock 927 Snap Ring Pliers (for, like $23).  These are multi-tip pliers like the NAPA ones, but are clearly better made.  They are much heavier.  They have a flip-switch to set inner or outer ring direction.  Oh, they're made in the US, so somewhere my countryman benefited from my buying them, so that's nice.  But do they work for this?  Why, yes, they do.  Unlike the NAPA pair, the ring easily opened up enough to slip out of the channel and out of the way.  Like the NAPA, Channel Lock 927's are sold with a collection of smaller tips, and are delivered with the largest (0.07) already installed.  This made the test easy, removing the possibility of me putting the tips in wrong.  I didn't bother removing and re-installing to see how bad it was, but the engineering is very different.  Unlike the NAPA which has a plate screwed on, leveraging the friction created to hold the tip in place, the Channel Lock has a hole in the plier arm to slide the tip into.  The securing bolt simply prevents the tip from falling out, so the arms need to be able to support far less torque.  The arms are much thicker too, implying that they can handle far more pressure than the NAPA tool could.

In the end, I didn't need to remove and re-install my input shaft.  After I installed the oil slinger and input shaft seal (see: Transaxle Re-Assembled), I re-tested the wiggle in the input shaft.  It barely moved.  I concluded that the input shaft was appropriately loose, and some additional digging into theSamba verified that conclusion.  I'm keeping the Channel Lock's with the car tools, and returning the NAPA's.

That's it for today.  I'm working on a post summarizing the engine-trans re-mating as well as the adventure of raising the engine-tranny unit back into the bus.