MGB - Side Draft Carb fun

Today, I return to the little British car: our 1978 MGB, Oliver. Oliver has sat unused for too long. I had been having considerable and increasing trouble just getting him to start and run. So, earlier this year, I removed his carburetor for dis-assembly, cleaning and re-assembly. I did the removal and tear down what feels like months ago, and just completed the re-assembly. So, while this post may feel like a couple of consecutive weeks of fun, it's really a little from March, a little from June and a little from last weekend.

Removal and Tear Down

re-assembled

As is the case with most things on a small car, removing parts requires some flexibility not needed for larger cars of this vintage. Still, removing a carb is not complicated, but I encourage you to take pictures. If your life is anything like mine, you may intend to be back to this in a few days, but days can become months really fast. Anyway, remove the air cleaner. Remove the fuel line (pinch it off first and then plug it). Disconnect the throttle and choke cables. Then remove the carb from the intake. With the side-draft weber (DCOE) and this SK Racing/OER carb, it is held to the intake with 4 nuts threaded onto studs emerging from the intake. The DCOE and SKRacing carbs use the same intake, by the way. Once removed, I stuffed rags into the intake to prevent critters from climbing into my engine, closed the hood and re-covered him. I took the carb over to a bench in the back of the little garage attached to the farmhouse.

At the work table, I started with the most obvious things and worked my way inward. First, the inspection cover and top half of the carb was separated from the main body. I removed every slotted bolt and whatever lay beneath, taking pictures as I went. Last from the top were the air correction jets and then I removed the set screws that held the venturi to the main body. The main body was effectively disassembled, so I shifted to the top half, removing the float, the fuel inlet bits and the choke bits. Last, I pulled the little cover or plate that faces the intake when installed. I am sure someone who does this often would have done it faster, but I needed to chronicle it so I could re-assemble later.

Carb Cleaning

remove from car day

I started like most folks probably do: shooting the carb with rattle can carb cleaner and gently scrubbing it with a toothbrush. I focused mostly on the exterior with the brush and let the carb cleaner do it's magic on the little holes without brushing. Satisfied that I got the worst of it, I pulled out a razor blade and removed all of the gasket bits and rubber seals. Then, put together a ultrasonic cleaner soaking tank with solution designed for carbs. I had read online that some folks will use Simple Green or other things, but I figured the correct solution was far less expensive than a replacement carb in the event those advisers were wrong.

The cleaners, well, the one that I got, but from what I read, many of them have a setting to warm up the solution while doing the ultrasonic. From what I read, there was some level of concern about how well they actually maintain temperature and that sometimes they can run the solution too hot. Since the solution is concentrated (read: need to add water), I decided to use boiling water and when poured into a room temperature solution, the overall temperature would be sufficient. I ran the carb body and all of it's pieces in the ultrasonic cleaner for multiple 20 minute cycles. Once I was satisfied that the carb was as clean as it was going to be, I moved it and the parts into a bucket and rinsed them with water. I then set everything out in the sun to dry.

Rebuild Kit

great kit

Unlike a Weber DCOE, the SK Racing/OER carb is not exactly common in the US. It is not generally sold here; it is much more popular in Japan. So, finding a rebuild kit for an obscure, foreign and old (time is relative) car part was time consuming on it's own. I was able to find a single supplier of a kit, a person in Japan with a storefront on eBay (Bprojects Japan). While I have a healthy skepticism of eBay sellers, deals and parts, I really had no other choice. The kit I received was incredibly well set. It included the major gaskets, replacement air correction jets and springs, new crush seals for the pump jets, a pair of ball bearings for the "pump non-return", a pair of copper crush seals for the fuel inlet and a big collection of rubber o-rings. It really had everything except a manifest indicating what part number each bit was for and the gasket for the jet inspection cover was missing. At this point I realized that I took pictures of the disassembly, but failed to take pictures of the rubber seals as I cut them off.

Re-Assembly

view from firewall

With my laptop open to the SK Racing carb manual, and my phone open to both the pictures I took and a blurry exploded view drawing of the carb, I started putting it back together. I started with the last picture I took and worked by way backwards through them. The only step I took that I had to undo and do again was the placement of the gasket between the top half and the main body. I had assembled the float, but the gasket needs to set above the float, which had I thought about that for a second, it would have been obvious. The float did not fit in the opening in the gasket, nor does it ever need to along its travel path. Also confusing was where the pair of ball bearings and small rectangular rods went. Process of elimination worked well here, choosing to do other things until it was apparent what hole those dropped into.

I used liquid gasket-maker for the jet inspection cover. That stuff makes a dark sticky mess. The instructions on the bottle say to let it dry "for a few minutes" before putting the 2 pieces together which need a gasket in between. I let that sit for well past the recommended few minutes and it was still very wet.. and even after letting it sit in the sun the stuff didn't dry very much. So, I did everything else install-wise and add the inspection cover dead last.

While I had the carb in hand, I decided to add a heat shield to the underside. The header that I installed has a thermo-barrier powder coating on it, but I know from having the hood open after driving it that a ton of heat is still getting into the engine bay. I suspect the source is the header (or the radiator), and the best thing I could do for the carb is to help prevent heat from getting to it. So, I got a DCOE carb heat shield from Pierce Manifolds. The mounting bolt pattern is designed for a Weber DCOE, but the SK Racing/OER is exactly the same in this area. The venturi maintenance holes line up, the cut-outs for the intakes, etc. it all just lines up. The heat shield is heavier and thicker than I expected, but I expect it will do exactly what it is intended to do: block and route-away heat rising from the exhaust.

Install

re-install day

As easy as the carb was to remove, installs always take longer. This bugger was no different. First, the carb mates to the intake with these thin (maybe 6mm thick?) plastic isolator bits between the carb and intake. On each side of the isolator resides a rubber O-ring that is set inside a groove. So, you are managing a carb, 2 isolators and 4 O-rings at one time. That required some dexterity.

I discovered that the heat shield has a small tab on the intake side that would hit the center header pipe. Recall, the MGB has a Siamese head, so the middle 2 cylinders share an exhaust. The PO had a home made exhaust manifold with a center pipe effectively pointed straight down. The header has a more typical curve. So, the heat shield came off and I adjusted that tab to point angled upwards so it did not hit the header pipe, but actually will shield the top-most end of it. Then, I realized that I could not address the lower mounting studs with heat shield installed so I removed it again, re-installing after the carb was nutted down into the intake.

From there, the install was about what you would expect, complete with a dropped bolt under the car. I had to reverse the spring-return arm on the carb as well as flip the fuel inlet. Still, it was relatively smooth, hooking up the fuel line, control cables and air filter.

No Test Fire

By this time, I had sweated my way through most of a summer afternoon and cleaned liquid gasket maker off my hands more times than I'd like to count. As much as I wanted to enjoy the sound of the engine running, I chose instead to take the limited win: Oliver was in one piece. Boo and I went to the county fair instead of test-firing Oliver's engine. Now, Oliver is covered back up, again waiting for me to have a few hours to test fire his engine and fiddle with settings. I sincerely hope the tear down / deep cleaning was what he needed. I'll post an update when I have one.

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That's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Nemo Rides Again

Returning to the Nemo work, today we button everything back up and test things. In the first of these 3 posts (See Sadist Engineering), we diagnosed and removed the head. In the second (See Nemo Head Install), we took the head to a shop, had it tested and decked and then installed it back onto the engine. So, we start with the head and engine back together again, and torqued down.

Intake and Turbo

With the head on, next came connecting the turbo: slip a new gasket between, then slide the other 2 bolts through. I held the turbo from below and got those 2 bolts to thread in by hand. Once I was able to get them tightening down with a spanner, I could get the bolt closest to the head through to the turbo and finger-thread in. Tighten to spec. The intake was a bear to remove, but it was actually kind of easy to install (with a new gasket). I did not need to replace that one bolt, either. In fact, upon inspection, I couldn't easily distinguish it from the others. I was able to get them all snugged down tight. Torque spec was lower than I expected (like 20 pounds or something), so these were on too tight when I removed them.

Timing Belt
The last big/hard piece was the timing belt. Luke had really cleaned the head, so there weren't any paint-markings on the gear on the cam sprocket when I got it back. So, getting the belt in the exact same spot threatened to not be the simple case I had expected. I did know, though, that the engine hadn't moved and the head was at TDC, so I just needed to get the belt perfect-tight on the left side (front-is-front) and make sure I did not shift the engine timing when the belt was tightened. It turned out that I was smarter than I thought, and had put the head cam mark on the belt where the timing dimple appears on the gear. So, the alignment was actually a snap. That's one to grow on: mark the belt based on the timing mark and the shop can't erase them on you. I was able to re-use the belt tensioner (belt was replaced less than 20K ago) by slowly re-compressing it in a vice and sliding a paperclip into the hole to hold it compressed during install. Put on the tensioner roller, put on the tensioner verify everything is right and pull the pin. There are much better instructions with the belt kit than I could provide in this space. Regardless, once the belt is on, it is recommended to rotate the engine one full rotation by the crank and then verify that the timing marks are still spot-on. I apologize for not taking any pictures along the way, here. I got going and kinda forgot to.

Accessory Belts
After the timing belt is on, the lower timing belt cover is added and then the lower crank pulley. At this point, I put on the accessory belts, and the belt tensioner for the longer serpentine belt.

Hoses
With the timing belt and corresponding covers on, the hoses were next. Since I did not swap any hoses, and I removed as few ends as I possibly could, the hoses flopped back to where they were, and it was rather simple to plug hoses onto nipples. Getting the evil outlet flange on, though, was it's typical challenge. I used 10mm bolts instead of the Allen-keyed bolts and found them much easier to start and torque. I consider this an upgrade. Before I switched from cooling stuff, I mounted the overflow bottle.

Vacuum
Once everything else was in place, the vacuum lines just flopped into place. I didn't expect that, but I had only disconnected a few of them. I needed to find one that simply disappeared: the line from the intake manifold to the fuel pressure release. This is only about 4 inches long, and I had thought that maybe it wasn't on there when I started tearing things down. Turned out, I simply dropped it and found it on the tarmac after we moved the car. By then, I had put on a fresh hose.

Electrical
Re-installing the spark plugs was next for me. I could have done this earlier, but I got to it now, when I needed something that didn't require me to be bent over because my back was starting to flare up. So, I gap'd the plugs (.028) and installed them. Then, I plugged in the coil packs, bolted down the related grounds and verified everything I could reach was plugged in. I noted a few that could only be solved once the front end was re-attached, but that was becoming a very short list.

Front End Assembly

test ready

And just like that, I was ready to put the front cowl / radiator support back on. This would have been much easier with a helper, but I started with the passenger side, getting one of the upper bolts by the fender loosely threaded in. Then, I repeated the driver side. Now, I could arrange the large steel bar which runs behind / below the radiator and the lower mounting points of the cowl. Held in place with my knee, I set first the passenger side, then the driver side bumper supports with a single bolt. Bouncing from one side to the other, I threaded in the other bolts, and then tightened them down.

With the front end mounted, I could complete the hose connections to the radiator and confirm the route of the charged air. I swung the A/C condenser around and mounted it to the radiator and then added the large front inter-cooler. I plumbed the large pipes for the inter-cooler, and then checked for missing connections and not-plugged-in things. I plugged in the horns. I mounted the headlights and plugged them in. I found and plugged in a small green plug below the radiator and the sensor just above the lower radiator outlet. Or is it an inlet?

Test
I had run out of time and daylight to do anything else, but I knew the next step was to fill the system with water and test fire it. I wanted full daylight for that, and a night to sleep on it so I could come back and inspect with fresh eyes. The next morning, it passed visual tests and T dropped by for the test start. I filled the system with plain water.. yes, I know that's not a good thing to do long-term. This was simply to see if it started. I figured if it didn't I would be draining the system to fix it and didn't want to waste good coolant for that. We hooked up the battery and turned the key. Vroom-vroom.

We let the car sit and idle while the temperature came up. There were no drips so I ran my gloved fingers around the various coolant components. The gloves came back without moisture, so we took it for a spin. We drove for 15 or 20 minutes and watched the engine temperature rise and fall as we pushed it and let off. When we returned, we backed Nemo back into the service parking spot and let it idle again. No drips, no coolant loss. And, the temperature sat still.

Road Ready
We turned off the engine and did our little happy dance. The next day, I drained the coolant system and filled it 50/50 with G40 coolant and water. Once the system was burped of air bubbles, it was ready for T to take back home.

So, that's pretty much it for Nemo. I replaced a couple of fuses for the tail-lights, and the registration has expired, but otherwise, the car is ready. T collected the car, drove home to Eugene without incident and has driven it on errands and fun-runs multiple times since. We'll call that a win. Thanks, as always, for following along-

Nemo Head Install

Recall my prior post about Nemo, T's 1997 Audi A4 (See Sadist Engineering), I had exhausted all alternatives and had taken the plunge to remove the head to replace the head gasket. Today's post covers the re-install.

Head Shop

No, not that kind of shop, though I am in Oregon.... This head shop does work on the heads and block of your car. I looked around and found a small one-man operation 15 blocks from my house: Wilson Cylinder Heads and Machine. I figured that if he did good work (like according to the reviews), it would be really great to have a machinist so close. Keeping the money in the neighborhood is very important to me too, as you've probably noticed. Anyway, I dropped off the head and we talked a little bit about it. Since the car had not been misfiring nor throwing codes, he was not angling towards a rebuild. We turned it over and he could see that the center 2 cylinders had suffered coolant leaks, and figured that was caused by a head gasket failure. Remembering that the head bolts were none-too-tight, I was starting to think that the head was redone at some point by the PO and it was not torqued down properly. Recall, the PO did upgrade the suspension and the turbo, so maybe the head was redone at the same time? Anyway, Luke (the owner-machinist) went through the head, looking at the cam shafts and valves etc while he did the pressure tests and tests for cracks and other failures. The head came back clean. So, with a complete gasket kit in hand, but only a small subset really needed, I picked up the head and set to re-installing it.

Exhaust to Head

After the troubled removal, I decided that I would install the exhaust manifold (with a new gasket from that kit) to the head before putting the head into the car. While the head was at the shop, I scrubbed the manifold with sandpaper, freeing it of rust and then shot it with flat black header paint. It looks much better now. Before mating the manifold to the head, I put the turbo bolt which sits closest to the head through the manifold. It won't go through after it is attached. I installed all of the fasteners (random so they may be) and torqued them to spec. Once attached, the head is heavier, which is saying something because a fully loaded head is already pretty heavy already. I verified that the head was still in TDC position by setting the valve cover on, and checking the dimple on the gear aligned with the dimple on the cover.

Prep Engine
None of the online advice I have seen specifies the use of any liquid sealant for the replacement of a head gasket. It appears that this was popular in the past, but gaskets have gotten much better and tolerances have gotten much tighter, so if you are doing this and think you need a sealant applied to one side or the other (or both), double-check with the manufacturer of the gasket. It didn't look like the old gasket had any goop on it (not that you could really 100% tell), and the head and block surfaces were totally clean when separated, so I concluded that no sealant was used before. So, I also did not use any.


I did, however, need to clean the block mating surface. Using a razor-blade, I scraped off every tiny anomaly. I verified that the surface was clean by running a new blade around the surface, holding it completely perpendicular to the surface. Any resistance or even a change in the sound lead me to something that needed to be removed. This takes a long time. You can't rush quality, and spending the time here will pay dividends later.

Head Meet Engine
With a heavy head in hand, I thought about how to get the head to line up without damaging the head gasket. I tried putting a chop-stick into one of the head bolt holes in the block, but that only sort of helped. It did help me get my bearings, but, ultimately, I pulled the stick out before the real attempt. I found that random hoses or other things kept getting in the way, so I had to remove a couple of things I had not removed for the head removal in order for me to get the head to set. Most memorable was the removal of another coolant hose and pipe that wrapped around the rear side from the driver side to the front passenger side.

With the impediments removed, I could ease the head onto the gasket/block. I set it down gently and wiggled it lightly to make sure it set squarely on the 2 pegs on the exhaust side. I checked 2 of the head bolt holes with a chopstick, and confirmed that the stick set all the way through to the block. Knowing the head was aligned, I set new bolts through the head-holes. I finger-tightened them, then torqued to 30 pounds, 40 pounds and finally 44 pounds. With my breaker bar, I did 2 1/4-turns (spec says 1/2 turn past 44 pounds). I put a little dribble of oil on the cam lobes and a little dribble into each spark plug hole. I replaced the vale cover gasket and installed the valve cover.

This post got super long, and the content creation has taken most of the last few months. Why? Well, remember how I'm slow? Yeah, someone says it will take 2-1/2 hours. For me, we double their number and increase it a measure, so 2-1/2 hours means 5 days for me. That's 5 full days, like 40 hours. If you spread that out across weekend days, it takes a long time. I know that sounds like hyperbole, but have you read this blog? Anyway, I'll post back on this soon.

Thanks, as always, for following along-

Sadist Engineering

I'm taking a quick break from the TDI install retrospectives for a rant, and an update on the A4 efforts. We'll be back to our regular posts next week.

With modern cars, the effort to wedge more features and power into a steadily shrinking engine compartment makes maintenance increasingly difficult. Back when we had the Saturn (Dude), we learned that in order to change the light bulb in the speedometer, the dashboard needed to be removed. What? Yep, that's right; we didn't bother. There are plenty of examples of this, but today's post comes from the efforts to get to the head gasket on a 1997 Audi A4 1.8 Turbo.

1.8 Turbo Head Job
Once I ruled out all other possible causes for the coolant losses in T's Audi A4 1.8 Turbo, I started trying to find someone else to do the work. After 4 months of attempts, and numerous rejections, I finally got a quote from someone: $1250US. Since we paid less than that for the car, I couldn't do that, but we are unable to use or sell the car in it's current shape either. So... into the darkness we go. We start with the usual internet searches for steps and find very lengthy descriptions. Unfortunately, many how-to's neglect to mention key points in a timely manner (I'm sure I'm guilty of this too). For example, the best step-by-step I found did not mention that you needed to disconnect the fuel pump relay and run the engine to depressurize the fuel rail. So, once you got through 15 or so steps and you were told to dismantle the fuel rail... you couldn't. There's 100psi of fuel in there, and no way to safely depressurize it now because the timing belt is no longer on the engine, and the front end has been completely removed.. Sweet. So, rather than follow bad directions, or release fuel all over the engine bay and shop space, we get to go our own way where the fuel rail is not disturbed.

This is when we discover just how sadistic the German auto engineers really are... or were in 1997.

1.8 Turbo Intake
The intake manifold is held on with 10 fasteners: 2 10mm nuts, 2 10mm bolts and 6 5mm Allen bolts. The 10mm nuts and bolts are on the ends and the Allens are between the intake runners. Of course, they are also mostly obstructed by the fuel injectors, so, again, if you want to remove the intake, it is best to dismantle the fuel rail. Grr.. With a wobble-head attachment on my 3/8" ratchet, I was able to crack all of the bolts except one. That one bolt eventually broke free after throwing various bits at it. I will need to replace at least that one bolt for re-install.

1.8 Turbo Exhaust
With the timing belt off, the evil coolant flange removed and the intake separated from the head (with shop towels covering up all openings), we shift to the exhaust side. The exhaust manifold is held on with 2 13mm nuts, 2 12mm nuts (yes, that's right. we've got both kinds of nuts) and, on this car, 3 6mm Allen bolts and 3 13mm bolts. I say that because someone swapped out some of the 6mm Allen bolts and replaced them with hex bolts. Now, the car is usually equipped with a heat shield which is held on with Allen and hex bolts. This car did not have the heat shield but all of the bolt holes were occupied with hex bolts which were in place nice and super-tight. Ugh. Love PO's. Regardless, the nuts are on studs at either end of the head, making them hard to get to, driving you to using old-skool spanners especially near the firewall. Once removed, I shifted focus onto the Allen bolts, and things got interesting. The exhaust manifold is very short, wrapping into a turbo that sits almost directly in front of the lower mounting bolts. So, from above, you need to thread a long Allen key between everything and torque the bolts free. Penetrating oil and long-stemmed Allen sockets recommended. Even then, you can't reasonably get to all of the Allen bolts under the exhaust manifold.

The best solution is to remove the turbo from the exhaust manifold and pull the head with the manifold still attached. Then, you can get after those Allen bolts. The turbo is held to the manifold with 3 17mm bolts. These bolts point straight up and have a slight recess around them in the manifold. Water likes to build there when the car is parked outdoors, so what do you get when you leave water standing on iron? That's right. Rust. Enter the penetrating oil again while you think about how you're gonna get a socket onto those bolts. Realizing you can't, again, you go old-skool with a spanner. I was very grateful for my penetrating oil comparison (See Hammered Rims Part 1) when I discovered the Kroil. After a few days of spray-and-wait, those bolts came off with very little extra coaxing.

Head Out
With the intake off, all the other little bits remove, the outlet flange off and now the turbo released from the exhaust, there was nothing more in the way. Except the valve cover and the 10 mystery head bolts hidden within. The valve cover is held on with a bunch of 10mm nuts and bolts. Once removed, the cover should just lift off, but nah. I applied some convincing with a rubber mallet and then with a pry bar on each corner. With the pry bar, I made sure to apply very light pressure so I didn't crack anything. With the valve cover off, we could see what king of fastener held on the head. After the swap-about on the exhaust, I couldn't just assume based on make-model-year. Turned out the bolts were the 10mm RIBE-style, so they could have been original. Regardless, these are typically sold as part of head gasket kits. With a bit in hand, I made to remove them and this was my first indication that the head had been removed at some point. I put my torque wrench on, and they required very little effort to loosen. By "very little effort" I mean I put my torque wrench on there and gave it a good bump with my hip and they broke free. I should have needed a breaker bar.

With the bolts all loose, I was able to wiggle the head. So, I put fingers into the coolant outlet, and my other hand around the belt tensioner and pulled straight up. It came free, and dropped the head gasket out as the head lifted out. What I saw was very interesting. The coolant passages rising up from the engine block met the gasket, but the hole in the gasket wasn't the same size as the hole in the block. The gasket has a little pin hole and the block was a decent-sized triangle. While I thought this was the application of the wrong gasket, according to Fel-Pro, it isn't. This is by design to correctly meter the coolant through the engine.

I will be taking the head to a shop to get pressure tested, decked and otherwise refreshed while I clean up the block face. The coolant passages look like some build up occurred behind the gasket, so I'll clean that up with a pick and a shopvac (so no bits fall deeper into the engine). I'll return to this effort blog-post-wise once I have the head back and the install is happening.

Thanks for following along. More next time-

MGB Exhaust Re-Do (Part 2)

Picking up where I left off, we have the MGB front end on jack-stands and the old exhaust sitting in a heap in the driveway. Today's post will be about getting the new exhaust installed. Recall, it is a ceramic-coated stainless steel Bell system. I left the packing plastic bags on the pipes as I handled them to protect the finish, removing the plastic as I installed them.

Setting The Scene

exhaust hammer example
from streettechmag.com

With break time over, we set to trying to install the new exhaust. The Bell system has 5 pieces: the header, a straight-ish pipe, the center resonator, another straight-ish pipe with a support bracket attached and then the tail muffler. They go on in that order. The hardest part, like with any car, is getting the header to fit around all of the various other things in the engine bay. I watch car shows on Velocity and some of those installs require hammering on the pipes to get them to fit. That would really suck. Spend all that money for a "bolt on" set of pipes and then have to dent the snot out of them to fit an otherwise stock engine and compartment. Doesn't seem right, but does explain the custom fabrications they do on some of those Velocity shows. Even then, it's usually because they're slamming a huge non-stock engine into a classic-ish car. For a built-for-stock engine, hammering dents into the pipes shouldn't be necessary. Anyway...

From Below?
For the MGB, this saga starts with getting the front end way up in the air. We had a good 18" of clearance and still couldn't feed the header up from below. Some internet posts I've read indicate this is super easy, but I suspect anyone who installed that way had a lift or a pit. We have neither so we switched to going in from above. That meant removing the bonnet.

From Above

attached for fitting the rest
of the pipes

The bonnet is held to the hinges with 2 bolts per side, but remove the hood prop first. Once the prop is off, one person holds the hood still from the front while another person (K2 in this case) loosens all the bolts, and removes one from each side. At this point, it would be wise to put a shop towel or something soft under each rear corner of the hood. Then, remove a final bolt from one hinge. Balance the hood on your shoulder and let it slide down onto the towel. Repeat with the other side and then each person grabs a side of the hood and walk it off the front. For fun, we set it (on pads) on top of the 280ZX hood. The MGB hood looks like a toy hood compared to the Zed hood. The MGB hood is at least 6 inches smaller all the way around.

center-mount bracket

With the hood removed, you next loosen the driver side engine mount. The two nuts which hold the engine to the mount are the easiest to get to, and present the least necessary to separate the engine from the frame rail. With nuts safely stowed, place a wood block on a floor jack and slide it under the driver-side of the oil pan / engine block. Carefully lift the engine from below (setting the block of wood so the oil pan and other parts are not damaged) an inch or so. Once you feel considerable resistance to the lift, stop lifting. Now, have your helper fit a pry bar between the engine mount and the engine and then apply pressure to shift the engine slightly towards the passenger side. The engine will more roll anti-clockwise than slide left-to-right, but this creates enough space. Hold the header vertically, with the head-tips pointing across the top of the engine. Slide the header as far down into the largest space you can go before rotating the header so the head-tips point up and away from the firewall. On this particular header, there are pinch-welds along the sides of the collector. These pinch welds wanted to hang up on pretty much everything on the way down. With some gentle and some not-to-gentle persuasion, the header pushed past the space between the block, the steering column and the frame allowing us to wiggle it into the right spot near the head. At this point, the pry-bar leverage can be released and the floor jack released, letting engine rest back on the mount. We had to wrestle it a little bit, but it settled. Our header ended up with a couple minor scuffs, but no scratches.

To get everything else to align, K2 bolted the header onto the head. K2 was done for the day at this point, and the rest of the install was not going to be as straightforward, so I cut him loose.

Body Brackets

header from below

While K2 attached the header to the head for fitment / alignment, my focus was on the 2 mounting brackets. The center mount reuses the original body mount holes with a new steel and rubber mount that simply threaded in with new bolts (in the kit). The rear mount also reuses the original body mount holes. If yours are still in great condition, you could reuse them. With the body brackets on, I could start lining up the pipes, and get a feel for what went where.

The fourth pipe (second straight-ish) had a bracket that was a simple flat bar wrapped around the underside of the pipe with a round hole at each end. The center-mount kit provided a bolt, 4 large flat washers, 2 plastic sleeves, a bit of metal flashing with holes and some small nuts and bolts. There were no instructions, but you could tell that the bolt went through the holes in the flat bar. A flat washer went between the flat bar and anything else that touched it. Between the ends of the flat bar, on the bolt, went the plastic sleeves and the nut went on the end. Neat. With some careful bending of the flat bar with my channel-lock pliers, I was able to get the operation together. The bit of metal flashing was to wrap around the plastic sleeves and then bolt to the center-mount bracket I had just attached to the car.

second straight-ish pipe mounted

To get the fourth pipe and centermount to align and fit, all of the pipes between that mount and the header need to be in place. Start with getting the pipes in the rough spot you expect them to be. A straight-ish pipe (one that has a gentle bend or two) has those bends for a reason. Align them with the path of the original pipes. Once set in the right location, fit a pipe clamp between the pipes and then slide them together, wiggling the fit so they stay together and are in the right alignment. With careful use of a rubber mallet, I was then able to drive the various pipes together. Remember to set a pipe clamp at each junction before you start pounding things together or you won't have a way of clamping things together.

Rear Muffler

The final hurdle was figuring out the rear muffler mount. The old mount was a real hack job where a prior owner had taken a u-bolt that roughly fit the original body mount and threaded a nut on each end. So bad, but I really shouldn't judge. The original mount was almost German in it's over engineered solution. To the bracket is attached 2 rubber mounts pointing away from the exhaust pipe. To these rubber mounts, a hexagon bracket (with one leg removed) is attached, with the missing leg on the bottom. The missing leg has a pair of holes, one at each end, for attaching a pair of semi-circular clamps. These clamps hold the pipe in place. Unfortunately, they are sized such that if you put them on without any spacers (not included) they will either pinch the exhaust pipe because you tightened them too much or the lower clamp will fall off because you didn't tighten them enough... because you didn't want to pinch the pipe. To remedy, I found a pair of oversized nuts that would slip on, acting as spacers, so I could tighten everything down without pinching the pipe.

Header to Head

see the gap?

Once I had it all assembled front to back, I moved from back to front, tightening the mounts and pipe clamps. Once snug, I shifted to the very front to consider the mating of the manifolds to the head. The MGB came with a few types of exhaust, with 2 particular versions for the models before emissions standards became so tight (in 77) that the exhaust manifold needed to be redesigned. These 2 types have a different thickness of the material through which you send bolts to attach it to the head. The older one (#12H709) is thicker than the newer one (#12H3911). This is important because the intake and exhaust share studs and corresponding nuts. If the thickness of one manifold is not a match for the other, there is not a uniform amount of torque on the various manifolds, creating leaks. This applies to pretty much any combination of intake and exhaust, unless you stay completely original stock. Since the prior owner had replaced the dual carbs on my MGB with a side-draft Mikoni carb, and hacked together a home-grown exhaust, I was going to have to deal with this regardless.

When the header was attached for fitting the other pipes, I didn't look very closely. It didn't matter. With a closer look, you can see the washers were not sitting flush. Adding insult, only two of the thickness differences for the 4 shared studs were the same. To remedy, I grabbed some fender washers of varying thickness, and cut them in half (across the hole) to use as spacers. To hold the spacer in place during install, I used a very thin smear of the copper gasket maker I used on the header gasket. This plan worked great. In about 30 minutes I had spacers in place, and the header torqued down with washers sitting flush.

gap gone

Testing
All of this, nearly 2 full days of effort, lead up to the test fire. Of course, I had to re-assemble the air cleaner, and the hood is still off, but after verifying everything was back together, it was ready. I had been trickle-charging the battery, too, so I was pretty confident it was going to start right up. Fortunately, it did. It sounds great. It has a nice deep tone without being too loud. The biggest difference, I think, is that all of the growl sound comes from the rear of the car now. It must have had leaks before. With all of the rust, that's not a surprise. I wound the engine up to 3000RPM to get a sense of how it will sound on a power pull and it sounds pretty awesome. With the top down, the garage doors open and the rev counter around 3k, I still hit 90+ dB. So, it is no quieter... in the garage with the doors open. On the road, it is quieter in the seat, but I don't have dB numbers to prove it. Just my ears.

That's it for today. I had started reading about how to do automotive interiors (trimming) in preparation for doing the seats and cards on the MGB. I have parts on-order to complete the trunk and woofer box as well. Once those are complete "major operations" will have completed and I will be shifting focus onto the Zed... and then back to Hapy. Thanks, as always, for following along-

MGB exhausting

After cobbling together a quieter exhaust to reduce attention at the DEQ, today's post covers the effort to remove the pop-pop-pop from the exhaust that could also attract attention. So, more on the MGB exhaust...

Leak Finding
Again, remember that I hadn't made it through DEQ yet when I did this. With the muffler replaced, I shifted back to concerns which might interest the DEQ: the backfire. To find the exhaust leak, I simply started the engine with the hood up in my garage and listened. Nothing interesting... so I started feathering the throttle cable at the carb. With just a little rev, it was clear that the leak was coming from where the exhaust manifold meets the head closest to the firewall (#4).

Free Your Head
This is a pretty easy fix, even with the weird head on the MGB. I got a replacement gasket from NAPA, with a tube of the copper exhaust gasket sealant. After removing the gasket from the cardboard, I set the cardboard down next to it so I could align the fasteners to the relative position from where they came. This was so I could track which ones came from where when it came time to put everything back together again. I started with the nuts which held the intake manifold on. One at a time, I would remove the nut and washer, and then set them down relative to where they belonged on the cardboard. Once the nuts holding the intake were off, I slid the intake off the studs, put a latex/rubber glove over each intake to keep foreign debris out and then gently set the intake against the inner wheel well.

With the intake off, I shifted to the exhaust nuts, following the same pattern of one-at-a-a-time and setting it in its relative location. Once the nuts and washers were off, the exhaust manifold slid off and it could be lowered out of the way. Now, the old manifold gasket was exposed.

Scrape Your Face
Most of the old gasket came off in one piece, but some bits held on, and needed to be scraped off. Once the main gasket was off, I took a razor blade and scraped the entire area clean. I followed that with 150-grit sandpaper to make sure the head surface was completely clean. I checked the manifolds for residue, but scraped and sanded to be absolutely sure I had clean, flat surfaces. With the surfaces on both the head and the manifolds shiny clean we were ready for reassembly.

Copper Permatex
There are so many kinds of sealants and gasket makers on the market, going simply by color can be a dangerous thing. When it comes to Permatex, the genuine article, the colors match what you think they would be. Still, read the package before you use any. For helping the exhaust and intake manifolds on a MGB to mate to the head, you want to use the copper. It has thermal qualities which assist in keeping the temperature between the head and manifolds consistent while holding the seal at very high temperatures. I put a thin bead on both the head-side and the manifold side, not knowing which side needed is more. Following the instructions, I attached the manifolds finger-tight, waited an hour and then torqued them down.

Testing
The following day, the car was ready for another test drive. This time, I took T with me and we laughed as we tore around the neighborhood. The brakes felt good, the gears shifted tight. Most importantly, the exhaust wasn't popping incessantly and the overall din wasn't too bad... under 30mph. The next day, T took the car out, picked up his brother and ran it through DEQ. I posted on that earlier.

Next
Since the car made it through DEQ, I can focus resources on a good exhaust versus the strung-together with bailing wire and soup-cans exhaust that's in there now. I looked high and low for a Peco, but they aren't manufactured any longer. The few that are on the market are the leftover stock, and they are priced accordingly. I considered the Tourist Trophy, but the sound samples I've heard didn't grab me like the Peco did. Part of that could have been the tinny-ness of the stainless steel, but I have heard that as the stainless ages, the tinny-ness fades away. Then, I learned from the fine folks at EnglishParts.com that the stainless steel Bell systems are built with the same design (and tooling) as the mild-steel Peco ones were. So, given time, the stainless Bell system would age into a sound just like the Peco... in theory. Food for thought.

That's it for today. Thanks, as always, for following along-

MGB leaking leaking leaking

While solving the missing emission control issues (See eMission Control We Have a Problem), I took a few test drives to shake out each change. Today's quick post covers 2 things I discovered on that first test drive.

Leaking Fuel
The MGB had been stuck in the garage behind the donorZed all winter. I didn't have much cash to do a lot of work, so in some ways the winter was kind of lost to the donorZed. Still, with it finally gone, I was able to restart the MGB efforts. So, for my first test drive, after getting it unburied from being stuck behind the donorZed, was to get some gas. The drive there was similar to my last drive last Fall: loud with squishy brakes. Lovely. Still, I was almost completely out of petrol, so I stayed the course. This time, though, all of the signals worked, the brake lights functioned, the temp gauge worked, and the fan came on when I flipped the switch, so things were looking up.... until I started filling the tank.

Here in Oregon, we're not allowed to fill our own gas (but diesel is okay), so while the attendant started gassing, I washed the windscreen. Within a minute, the gas attendant started freaking out about gas dumping out under the car. Neat. I looked under and could see that the fuel level float was leaking. Not one to test drive without a trunk full of tools, I grabbed a slotted screwdriver and pushed it the rest of the way, stopping the leak. The gas man was too freaked out, so we called it "full enough" and I drove home. It didn't leak again, and a quick shot with carb cleaner got the gas off the underside of the tank.

The fuel level gauge wasn't working 100% reliably, and I concluded that the sender was not getting a good enough ground. So, I ran a short wire from the side of the float to one of the bolts holding the tank in-place. Whether that was a factor or not, the level looks much better now, showing over 1/2 a tank.

Leaking Coolant
When I got home, I saw that the thermostat housing was leaking again. Grr... so much for a fun drive about. Instead, I removed the housing, applied more gasket sealer and actually followed the directions: apply liberally, hand tighten and let sit for an hour, torque down to spec and then, most importantly, no liquids or back-into-service for 24 hours. I'm pretty sure I did the first 2 steps and then forgot about the torquing the last time. Duh. The following day, I topped of the cooling system and took a test drive. No leaking at the thermostat. Sweetness.

Unfortunately, a few days later, after another test drive, I noticed leaking coming from the block drain. Apparently, this drain is the source of one of two common troubles: either it is completely clogged with cooling system gunk (rust particles, and general sludge) or it is a leak source. I'm in the second camp, but my leak is special. Usually, the leak is from the spigot not sealing because of a design flaw. No, mine is leaking from around the edge. So, rather than get a replacement drain, I'm just going to remove it, wrap the threads in plumbers tape slobber on some blue gasket-maker and thread it back in. Of course this time, I'll follow the gasket-maker instructions right the first time.

Leaking Voltage
It turned out that the battery that came with the car was 7 years old. After many cycles of short drives, I found that I needed to put the battery on the trickle charger more and more often until finally it just stopped accepting a charge. I went out and got a "gold" battery and new ground cable at Advance Auto Parts. We get most of our batteries from Les Schwab, but their hours are just not well suited to people who have day jobs, so Advance got the business.

Now, the little car fires right up, the gauges all work, the lights and fans come right on... its almost like a "real" car.  The brakes are still spongy, and it is still really loud. I got after those next and I'll post about what I did.... next time. Thanks, as always for following along.

MGB - coolant pump replacement (Part 2)

Today's post continues the efforts around replacing all of the smaller pieces of the cooling system. It started with just swapping out the coolant pump, but the hoses were old, the hose clamps rusted on, some parts desperately needing paint, etc. So, today's post covers the second phase. In the last post, we identified parts and tore everything down. Today we clean it up and start putting it back together. But first: Hapy Halloween.

Clean Up
There were a few original pieces that needed to be cleaned up and painted before they were re-installed. I reused the pulley cap, the accessory pulley, the pipe that connects the heater to the system and the overflow bottle mounting strap. Using 80-grit sandpaper, I took down the rust and then followed with steel wool to prep for paint. I then shot them with high-gloss black Rustoleum. When I sanded on the overflow bottle, I discovered it was brass, so I spent a bunch of extra time cleaning and polishing it instead. It will probably be the shiniest thing under the hood.

bottle while cleaning

bottle as removed

While the parts dried and cured, I decided I would de-scale / de-rust the inside of the radiator. I knew this was my opportunity to get after it, especially if I didn't want to open the cooling system again. The radiator is held on with 4 bolts, accepting a 1/2" socket. Once removed, the radiator lifts straight up. If you don't lift straight up, some otherwise not drained coolant will come out. I drained the rest into a disposal bottle and then ran water through it using a garden hose. I kept sending water through until the water coming out was clear. the discharge went mostly into a disposal bottle with some spilling on my driveway. Between the rain and a post-cleaning hose-off, I think the local animals are safe. I then poured 2 quarts of vinegar into the radiator and topped it off with distilled water.

harness pull-back

Something very similar to the radiator treatment I did to the heater unit. I attached old hoses to either end and flushed with tap water until it ran clear. Then, I added vinegar to the heater by filling from the lower bib until it started to bubble out the top. Through raising and lowering the hoses, I was able to get the heater core completely filled with vinegar.

I left the radiator and the heater with their de-rusting solutions in place for a week. Then, I drained them into a disposal bottle. Vinegar is an acid that will leave the remaining metal prone to rusting if left alone. To neutralize, mix one cup of baking soda with a gallon of water. I poured this mixture into the radiator and heater units and left them alone overnight. The internet says it only needs 10 minutes, but I was out of time that day anyway. Once the neutralizer is drained, flush again with water. Once they were both running clear, scent-free water, I taped off the radiator fins and shot the rest with very high temperature (VHT) flat-black paint. The same paint I used on the brake calipers. While the radiator shouldn't get anywhere near the heat that brakes or exhaust get, I figured better use that than Rustoleum which may not be able to handle 200*.

heater flush

While everything was broken down, I had an unexpected garage visit from my now-19 year old son T. He wanted to jump in and help. So, we pulled the main harness off the passenger inner wheel arch and taped it off for paint. After he left, I pulled back the engine seal, and masked off the outer wheel arch (fender / wing). I tossed a moving blanket over the engine, cleaned the inner wheel arch and shot it with the same orange I used on the driver inner wheel arch. Similar to that paint job, orange paint dust settled on lots of parts, but I'll hit that with the shop vac after the rest of the bits are assembled.

Re-Assembly
I started with setting the gasket on the coolant pump and threading the bolts through. The bolts will help hold the gasket still. The internet doesn't agree on whether a layer of goop on the gasket is necessary or not. I did not put any on, believing that if it leaks, I can always tear things apart and add it. It leaked after all, so I tore it down and re-did this part using Permatex blue gasket maker. This stuff is designed for something like this. Simply peanut-butter both sides of the gasket with a thin (about as thick as a sheet of notebook paper) layer of the Permatex. Carefully set the gasket onto the pump and then the pump onto the head taking care not to get goop into the head. I did this by pushing the bolts through and using them to line things up. The 4 bolts which hold the coolant pump to the engine are different lengths. Since they are threading into the engine, make sure you use the right bolts in the right spots. Too long, and too much torque could create a crack.

rad flush

Once in place, the manufacturer and the interweb says that the coolant pump gasket needs to be heat-set. One way is to assemble everything and then run the engine (without coolant!) for 30 seconds or so to generate the heat necessary to make the seal happen. I found that alarming, and chose to go with option 2: using a drill. This was really kinda weird. Either way you need to put the pulley on the pump. With option 2, you put the accessory belt around the underside of the pulley, and the other end around the chuck on my drill which I held near the thermostat housing. I created tension by pulling upwards on my drill and then fired the trigger. Once I got it running consistently, without running off either end of the chuck, I let it spin for 2-3 minutes... or the length of one old Black Sabbath song on the radio. War Pigs, I think. When I did all that, it leaked. So, I re-did it with the Permatex like I described above, and didn't heat-set the gasket, and it's holding fine. Use the goop.

With the pump ready, I re-installed the radiator. 4 1/2" bolt/nut combinations later, the radiator was in. This was super-easy and with the new paint it looks much better too. Then, I put in the thermostat housing.. without the thermostat. There's a reason for this: the thermostat sits closed so coolant can't pass, but the coolant filler is above the thermostat, so you need to wait while coolant trickles in. Who has that kind of time? Instead, once the hoses are on, you fill without the thermostat in until you're full just below the lip of the head. Then, drop the thermostat in.

Next, hook-up the hoses, starting with the lowest radiator hose to the coolant pump followed by the upper radiator hose to the thermostat housing. In each case, I considered where the screwdriver would need to be in order to loosen/tighten the hose clamp before putting on the hose. Taking a few seconds to consider that, and even popping the clamp on there loosely, but in the right position, saved me a headache later.

Connect the lower radiator hose to the narrow pipe that leads back to the heater, and then the heater hoses. If you have or used to have a coolant-based choke, you have the small hoses that lead from the rear of the head to the narrow pipe, though the carb. My carb had been swapped out, so there was a hose connecting these two. I will form a more formal blank for both ends, but knitted things together for now. And then there's the hose from the radiator to the overflow bottle. And installing that overflow bottle. That's easy. The bottle is held by a steel strap which is held in place with 2 1/2" nuts addressed through the passenger front wheel well.

Fill as much as you can with the thermostat out, and then remove the thermostat housing, and install the thermostat. The new cork gasket held very well, not requiring any Permatex. Add more coolant, burping the system by squeezing the lower radiator hose until you can't reasonably get coolant into the filler hole. But then what do you do? The MGB cooling system is simple, but the routing of the hoses and location of various components creates many opportunities for air bubbles. For example, the heater core is at the system high-point, but there is no facility to bleed air. I used the little hose bib sticking out of the back of the head to fill once the coolant filler at the front of the engine was full. I continued to burp the system until I heard coolant start to appear in the overflow bottle. The interweb advice is to have the bottle at 1/2 full, so I continued filling from the back of the head, holding the hose above the heater until the overflow bottle was 1/2 full.

Sigh..
That's it for today. All that remains is a test start and then a test drive. At some point, the seemingly endless rain will pause long enough for me to take this roadster out to verify the clutch hydraulics...  brake hydraulics... coolant re-do... steering... front suspension.... fuel system revitalization and, of course, the floors. It has been a year since the little British car drove around, so I'll be dedicating a post to that... once it happens.

Thanks, as always, for following along.