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.

Little British Car (part 2)

In my last post, I started the tale of how I acquired a new project car. I'll complete the story today. I left off having just arrived at the PO's house, in the outskirts of Molalla Oregon.

Well... there it is
As we pulled up, the property and car owner walked out. We started talking about the brief history of the car since his son picked it up. Since the real info about the car was buried in the head of someone living in Arizona, I had no alternative but to take what he said at face value. Meaning... it might be true... The convertable top was gone, leaving only the metal frame. The interior smelled like animal, and the carpet was trash. The seatbelts didn't retract anymore and the radio didn't work. Did I mention the top was just a frame? And, it had a 10 foot paint job (meaning that it looked good from at least 10 feet away). Long as the list appears, that really seemed to be the end of the bad news. The body didn't have rust on the panels, rockers or wheel wells. The interior and engine bay seemed to have handled the weather worse than the body, making me think that the car sat outside under a tarp rather than in a barn. Or, it sat next to an open window. Later, once I got a better look at it, I think it was the barn window theory since the driver side interior and engine compartment were in worse shape, leading me to believe the car was parked with the driver side next to the window. Oddly enough, the accessories (brake master cylinder, alternator, water pump, etc) on the top of the engine had more dust-rust than the underside. Perhaps an oil leak / grease was protecting the lower half of the engine? Regardless, the rust wasn't cancerous, so we kept going.

Test Drive
The owner's father and I jumped in and fired it up. The engine sounded good, but it had been running earlier that day when he drove it out of the barn so, again, face value. I revved the engine and when pulled my foot off the gas I could hear pop-pop-pop noises. That's an exhaust leak. Otherwise, it ran well. No weird noises. So, we took a spin down the drive and out onto the country road. I hadn't had much experience driving a tiny sports car like this, so I didn't have a whole lot to compare it to. I knew it was fun, and for the price it was probably worth it. It held corners, responded to the gas pedal well, and shifted firmly. Most of the accessories worked (fan, wipers) as did the lights. The dash lit up correctly with the idiot lights flashing before starting, so I had reason to believe it was a pretty good little car.

Which Way Is Out?
We settled on a price, we signed the relevant papers and the Little British Car was mine (cue the Bottlerockets "Thousand Dollar Car"). T agreed to follow me to make sure there weren't any mechanical failures on the way home. It was about this point that I started asking the now previous owner if he thought it could make it an hour away and whether the gas gauge worked. We put a couple of gallons of petrol from a red can into the tank and the seller started to give directions for finding a gas station. The directions were an instant classic containing such favorites as "take the second or third right after the big bend" and "you're gonna cross the river a couple times before..". Of course it had a couple landmarks too, like "the house without a porch" and "the place with really good pie". I'm sure if I could have understood the directions, they would have delivered us to a gas station. Instead, we ran some math, and figured that with 2 gallons of fuel we'd be most, if not all, the way home before we were in trouble.

Truckin'

Roadster in the Rain

As ominous as that sounded, the MG handled fine. As we passed through Molalla, T waved me over to let me know the brake lights weren't working any more. Neat. This was when I also discovered that the windscreen washer didn't work either. Note to self (you can use it too): check all the systems and write down your findings. Driving into a setting sun with a filthy windscreen wasn't how I wanted to start this relationship, so I dumped my water bottle onto windshield and rubbed it clean-ish with a towel we found in the Subbie. It sufficed. With T following, we put the little car through more paces, testing it's acceleration, braking and steering. The brakes grew soft, indicating an issue there, and the steering held well, but it felt like there could be more precision. The car's get up and go, however, had no problems. Once we hit the Interstate, the little car was able to cruise at 70mph and dip/dodge in traffic. T stayed right behind me, acting as my brake lights until we were in our neighborhood. We completely forgot to get fuel. We didn't need it anyway.

That's about it for today. I've since done some work on the MG and I'll post about that in the future. In the meantime, thanks as always for following along-

Now seating

Today's post continues on the theme from the last few: getting the bus re-assembled in time for the Hoot. We have the glass in. We have the lights and bumpers working. Next, it's seating, seat belts, carpeting and the shifter.

Front Seats

Scat shifter, seats in

During the demo, I removed the seat pedestal carpet. I wanted to see how bad the rust had gotten in the hidden places. I'm glad I did. There was lots of surface rust starting both directly under the carpet as well as in the dry well between the seat pedestal and the top of the wheel wells. This rust has been hard to address, and I mostly left the dry well alone other than some cleaning. I didn't paint it, and I didn't recover it with carpet. I'll come back around as time and the mood strikes. Getting a small grinding wheel in there is virtually impossible, so attacking that rust may need to be a combination of muscle power and chem.

The actual seat install is very simple. The passenger seat locks in at the rear first. Fold the seat and push the back rail into the 'C'-shaped brackets. Keeping the front edge raised, set the hook on the rear of the seat into the bracket on the mid-wall. Easy. The driver seat slides in from the front. Once on the rails, It slides back by lifting the lever and pushing with your feet (when you're sitting in it). I've toyed with the idea of applying lithium grease to the rails, but decided it would just increase the gunk longer term.

Seat Belts
I dug through all of my old posts, but it doesn't look like I ever posted when I changed my seat belts. way back when I bought the '74 seats, I also got some old retractable seat belts from the rear of an old Mercedes. These were the only non-VW parts on the bus besides some random non-metric fasteners. Well, on one of our multiple road trips, the driver's belt simply stopped locking into the clicky thing. So, I was effectively driving without a belt. In other countries, that's not a big deal, but here in the United Police-States of America, that's a ticketing offense. Add in the profiling standard of a VW bus, and that's some measurable risk. So, I ordered this pair from CIP1 that have chrome clicky things. They bolt right in with 16mm and 17mm sockets, look great and don't cost $200 for the pair (more like $140).

Pedestal Carpet

fancy CIP1 belts, no carpet

I decided to not re-install carpet over the front seat pedestals. Instead, I chose to leave the rust access, and consider what I could do with the dry wells. I could cut one of the supports, weld in a cross-bar along the top and create a little hidey-hole for books or something. Maybe a place to put CD's? I dunno. Either way, I left the dry well exposed and the pedestal uncovered. I was unable to discern a notable difference in the noise during my recent drives, so I'm not inclined to rush to changing it.

Shifty
Finally, I got the shifter and cab carpet in. The cab carpet is really easy... once the shifter is in. So, I'm not going to go into that. The shifter, though, can be tricky. On the bottom, there's a ball with a little spring'd shaft on it. The ball fits through the floor into a cup that connects back to the tranny. In the front of the cup is a cut-away for the spring'd shaft. The spring, though, wants the shaft to go the other way. This makes for one of those spots where you need more hands than you have and eyes that can see through steel to make it work. Assuming your equipment isn't so old that it just stopped acting properly. After 4 hours of wrestling with that shifter, I gave up and grabbed the old chrome short-shifter I bought shortly after buying the bus. Much to my surprise, I was able to get that chrome shifter in with very little effort.

Like any shifter, set the ball into the cup and tighten the 2 13mm bolts until the shifter doesn't move around when you move it. The tranny should have been in 2nd gear when you started, but in case it wasn't, get it into 2nd now. Without the engine running, test moving from gear to gear. Any 2 harder to get to than the others? If 1&3 are harder, the shifter (or adjust plate if you're going stock shifter) needs to slide forwards. tap with a rubber mallet and re-try. If 1&2 are harder than 3&4, it needs to move left. Tap with a rubber mallet. For moving the stock plate, you'll need to get a bladed screw-driver against the plate so you only tap it and not the whole operation. You'll need to test it out with the engine running as well, and possibly repeat the adjustment process. When I did this, I didn't need to adjust the shifter again. I just torqued the bolts down.

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

So Starts Camping Season 2014

Hapy Memorial Day.  I just got back from a weekend of camping, music and relaxing.  Today's post covers that.

Starting Again

middle row seat = camp couch

It seems like every Spring-Summer, I troll back through this blog to see if I posted a list of stuff to bring camping.  Every year, I'm disappointed that I didn't create such a list.  I have one now... on paper, that I'll try to remember to post.  We knew that where we were going, once we were in, we couldn't leave, but our tickets and camping spot were paid for.  Also, we had almost no money and the only things we could buy while we were there would require cash.  So, with the added pressure, Boo and I set off to plan for a weekend with Hapy.  She's quite experienced with car-camping, so between us, we remembered just about everything.  In the end, we didn't want for anything, and we didn't spend a cent.  We did find that we were the only bay-window bus there, and we spotted 3 Vanagons, including one tin-top.  Hopefully, one of my fellow bus driver/readers will feel inspired to join us next year.

To and Fro

Horning's Hideout

The drive was incredibly easy.  I checked the fuel log and concluded that we didn't need fuel for our round trip.  So, we fired up Hapy and nosed West to Horning's Hideout (North Plains, OR).  He purred the whole way.  Between the spring dampeners, removing the window screens and all the equipment we were carrying, he made almost no noise.  The only racket came from the belly pan when we got near 60mph on the freeway.  The ride home was equally uneventful, enjoying the views out the window, and the music from an iPhone.  The driver's seat belt is becoming problematic.  I may have to break out the wallet and buy a new retractable set, replacing the recycled-from-a-Mercedes set I installed a few years ago.

Horning's Hideout
I hadn't been to Horning's Hideout in probably ten years.  The last time was for the McMenamin's company picnic where a band I was playing with had a spot on one of the smaller stages.  That stage wasn't even there anymore, and you couldn't really tell where it used to be.  I was able to find about where it was based on my memory of the view.  Horning's has had trouble keeping music because of neighbor complaints and unruly patrons.  We were especially grateful that they allowed this multi-band multi-day event take place.  The Hideout hosts a stocked fishing pond and multiple 18 hole disc golf courses.  Our focus was the main stage where 10 bands played over two days.  I'll review the bands in another post.  For now, I'll just focus on the event.

Hootenanny

view from main stage

The Horning's Hideout Hootenanny was the brain-child of Scott McKay over ten years ago.  It started as a birthday party for him, and it's gotten bigger every year.  As Boo and I were saying our "thank you" and "good-bye", he described this year's event as the fulfillment of that dream.  It has been so successful, he's not sure how to move forward.  To grow anymore will require infrastructure, and more staff, probably more rules, and greater restrictions.  Facing that future, he posed that if he didn't do it, 100 people would probably show up anyway.  With the highest turnout ever, I think it also resulted in Scott's least sleep ever and shortest amount of free time to see bands ever as well.  For such a giving guy, it's truly a shame that he wasn't really able to enjoy the beautiful scene he created.  There were craft vendors, multiple food options (including coffee/espresso and smoothies), and even a pot-luck supper on Saturday.  He had the 10 staged bands, but there were pick-up jams happening in the upper camp zone all the time.  There was a 2-day disc golf tournament with prizes down to 10th place in multiple divisions.

I hope Scottie chooses to host this again next year.  Boo and I suggested a few ways to make it work, and he already had a few ideas of his own.  I think we will start with volunteering to help out however we can.  If we can get each attendee to do just one hour of effort for the greater good over the course of the weekend, we can keep the load at a manageable level.  Maybe then, Scott can see some of the bands he booked and not have that 100-mile stare from no sleep and managing chaos all weekend.

Camping
This has already gotten long, but I wanted to touch on how the bus handled camping after a Winter of improvements.  The new deep-cycle battery and supporting electrical systems worked almost perfectly.  The dome light, kitchen lights, and the 12V outlet by the slider door were flawless.  We strung up a set of 12V lights around the awning/canopy for night-time lighting, creating a nice mellow vibe.  The awning hadn't been used in years, and I'd lost the old rain-gutter mounts.  Instead, I used 2 vice-grips to hold the bus-side edge to the top of the pop-top scissor supports.  It ended up higher, and better, than before.  At a stop at Goodwill last weekend, I got a 4' square indoor-outdoor rubber-backed rug for outside the bus door.  I also bought a bolt of 2-tone blue fabric at the same Goodwill stop.  Between bands, Boo cut the material into thirds, creating 3 rectangular strips that perfectly covered the jalousie windows, the front windows and the windscreen.  It was so dark, we slept until 10 on Sunday morning; unheard of in the bus.  Last, we nabbed a full-size bed memory-foam from home, and used that on top of the stock cushions on the rock-n-roll bed.  Sleep was amazing.

That's it for today.  As I mentioned above, I reviewed the bands separately; see these links for day One and Two.  It was a fantastic weekend. Hapy drove flawlessly, the company was spectacular and the energy of the whole event was deliciously mellow.  More next time-

What a treat: a $10 seat

With a big kitchen remodel project just starting on the house, and my current contract coming to a close, I guess I've left the blog a little thin lately. Sorry. I haven't been neglecting the bus as badly. Between interviews, lacrosse games (older son's team), piano lessons and trips to Home Depot or wherever looking at backsplashes, I scored a few new-to-me things for Hapy.

First, I found a pair of front seats on craigslist for $20. Sound cheap? Heck, yeah, but they are almost complete, they match, and they're from a '74. "So what?" you say, "what makes them so great?". Well, first, there's the price. I mean, come on, you can barely buy a pizza for $20. Then, there's the fact that they are actually more comfortable than the original ones. In 1972, VW still was installing the seats without headrests. Mr. Nader came along and helped change the law so we wouldn't all be walking around with those whiplash collars. So, by 1974, the seats had headrests, so for $20, we have more comfortable seats that will actually not be a pain in the neck if we crash. Great. Now, if there was only a way of protecting my knees in a crash.... I'll be re-stuffing and recovering the seats eventually, but its not necessary yet, so I'll wait on that. Oh, you noticed that big tear on that one seat. Yeah... about that. Hmm... Throw a towel on it and call it good until after camping season. We're not going to let a little thing like that get in the way. Have you seen my old seats? I'll put a picture up eventually. They were unsupportive and unpleasant.

After the seats, I found some of those retractable seat belts. Sure, by 1972 the inertia reel seatbelt was as fresh and new as the vacuum-tube, but VW hadn't quite caught up yet. Apparently, the VW Bus was termed a "truck" at import, so retractable seat belts weren't necessary. As I mentioned in other posts, VW would do whatever was necesasry to save a dime, and interia reel seatbelts apparently were expensive, or at least more expensive than those unforgiving stock belts. They can be expensive now, if you only shop in stores. Online, a pair of retractable seatbelts can run $200. That's alot of beer. Back to craigslist we go. In my searching, I learned that most German auto manufacturers would outsource their seatbelts to a handful of companies. So, if you want retractable seatbelts, you just need to find a suitable donor. Audi? sure. BMW, Porsche, Mercedes.. You get the point. I found a guy parting out a 1985 Mercedes Coupe that hadn't been in a wreck. That's the other important thing - seatbelts are basically a one-wreck only part. Once they've been activated in a crash, the webbing stretches and isn't safe for re-use. Remember that the next time you're fixing your sled. Anyway, $40 and a drive to Aloha and I have a full set (4 belts). I'll be installing the front belts once I get a spare moment. The only advice I can give beyond what I've already said is to take a picture of how the belts are originally oriented in the donor car so you can get the proper action on reinstallation.

That's about all that's happened bus-wise this past week. The kitchen has been demolished, so we're eating cold food off of paper plates, but I'm sure it will be worth it. We'll just pretend if its not. I'll walk through the seat belt install when I get it completed.
More next time...