MGB - floor pans (Part 1)

Today's post is the first of a series dedicated to the removal and replacement of the floor pans in my MGB. This process would be the same for any car whose floors are not a critical part of the structure. I believe most cars fit that description, but I'm sure there are some unibody cars out there which have particular demands on the floors requiring a little more expertise. On that note, let's be very clear: I have zero prior welding experience. Nada. Zip. I've tried to play with a stick welder and was unable to strike a spark without getting the stick stuck to the target material. After a few hours of that frustration, I gave up, put the welder under my workbench and moved on. Until now.

The Patient

right side floor - before

I have posted quite a bit about the journey with this little British car since I acquired it late last Summer. After a spirited drive home with no seatbelts, no brake lights and little understanding of how it operated, I've made many improvements:

• brakes (link)
• fuse box (link)
• master cylinder / pedal box removal (link)
• engine mounts (link)
• rebuilt the front suspension (link 1, 2, 3, 4) including front wheel bearings, etc
• new seat belts, rear suspension rebound straps, fixed the brake lights (no links)

While working on the front suspension, I had a volunteer in K2 ask if he could help out. I wasn't in a spot where unskilled hands were really a help, so I asked him to start removing the interior. The carpets smelled bad and were pretty worn, so I'd intended on at least getting the smelly stuff out and putting in a temporary solution until I had the cash to do the interior well. That is where this story begins.

Discoveries

left side floor - before

With a 1/2" spanner and a small ratchet, K2 was able to remove the 4 bolts which hold in the passenger seat and pop them into a ziplock baggie. We pulled the seat, and set it on the floor. I left K2 to the carpet and I returned to the suspension. K2 did a great job pulling the carpet free from the floor, and the transmission tunnel. The floor looked fair, with surface rust, but half of it was covered by the original sound deadener. We split the task of hammering that out with a chisel so we could evaluate what lay beneath. There were some rusty spots as you can see in the upper picture, but only pin-holes through.
Prognosis: fair, but will require some work to have them sealed up. Replacement suggested.

With the limited space in the garage, K2 had to perform some gymnastics to get after the bolts holding the driver seat in, but once removed, he made quick work of the carpet and we cleared the sound deadener much faster as well. Unfortunately, as "okay-ish" as the passenger floor was, the driver floor was pretty bad. There were multiple small holes and the sound deadener came out so easily because of the heavy rust underneath it. Upon further examination, the floor around one of the nuts for the seat had cracks in it.
Prognosis: This floor was toast. Replacement required.

Decision made: we'll replace both pans, one at a time, and hopefully have the MG road-able before the next rainy season starts.

Pans

aftermarket pan

When it comes to the floor, there are OEM and aftermarket floor pans. The OEM cost about twice as much, but they have all of the little things that make them easier to work with. They have the nuts for the seat-bolts already installed, and the reinforcements to the floor around them. There are various little threaded studs on the underside that are on the OEM pans. Last, of course, they are heavy British steel. The aftermarket pans do not have most of the fasteners attached, are made with thinner (not British) steel and they reportedly have an extra lip around the edge that needs to be cut off. Based on the pictures, it looks like the aftermarket pans also lack the drains. neat. I chose the OEM pans, and ordered a set through my local MG specialty shop: British Auto Works in North Plains.

Weld or Glue

OEM pan

There is a whole religious war about using a structural glue to attach floors, or other "non-structural" panels. The glue argument goes "modern cars are glued together, and the new glues are far better than anything they had back then so the manufacturers would have used them if they'd had them". Sounds reasonable. The weld counter-argument goes "modern cars are CAD designed with things like cost of materials and time/effort factored into the engineering so the glue is part of the engineering work, the crash testing, etc so gluing anything that isn't purely cosmetic on a non-glue car is a bad idea". This also sounds reasonable. I decided that I'd err on the side of caution and learn how to MIG weld on these floors. I have always wanted to learn how and while floors may not be structural, my seat is bolted to it, so it feels a little more important than, say, a rear spoiler. With this in mind, I reached out to my wife's sister's boyfriend to borrow a welder, and some welding instruction. But, before we get too far down that path, we need to remove the old. We'll get to that next time.

That's it for today's appetizer of a post. More to come on this topic for sure. Thanks for following along.

Almost Frog Lake (Part 2)

Today's post is a continuation of Part 1, but this time I actually get to the ill-fated trip up Mount Hood, vagabonding, and Boo's saving the day. In the last post, I had packed the bus mid-week for our weekend camping trip. We usually do this the evening before, but one of my old friends was getting married that Thursday, so we went a different route. In summary, we had a yard sale over the weekend, then the purchasing / flush fill of the coolant on Monday/Tuesday, packing Wednesday and a wedding on Thursday leading up to the departure on Friday. Timing was tight. Now, on to the adventure-

Up Hill, Up Temps

We hit the road for what was to be a weekend of camping lake-side in the Oregon Cascades. With visions of hiking and floating in a paddle-boat driving us on, we headed west out of Beaverton shortly after 6. We knew we had at least 3 hours before darkness hit, so we drove at a relatively easy pace over the Sellwood Bridge, over OR224 to OR212 to US26. We came upon another bus on the OR224: a nice blue and white 2-tone which the driver had just purchased. He had a flat, and AAA on the way to help, so after exchanging pleasantries, he waved us on. Along the way, the bus temps were staying around 185*, the point where the thermostat opens. But, as we climbed more hills, the temps started rising. We stopped at the Subway for a quick dinner in Sandy and to let the bus cool off before returning to US26. By the time we hit ZigZag, I was genuinely concerned, pulling over periodically to let things cool off. As we passed through Rhododendron our temp was approaching critical, so I pulled into the breakdown / chain-up lane between forest service roads (FR) 24 and 26. With the engine idling, the fans blowing, heat fans on, the temp kept climbing. We passed 206* for the first time, and before I could kill the engine, steam started venting out through the overflow bottle. I turned off the key, the engine stopped and steam eventually stopped venting, but not before a large puddle had appeared under the passenger side rear-end of the bus. We were stuck: never add coolant to a hot motor; the engine needs to cool to ambient temperature or you could crack your block.

Vagabonding

WildWood Recreation Area

I was in a form of shock, self-loathing for not doing the job "right", maybe using the wrong coolant or not getting the coolant-to-water concentration right.... but Boo leaped into action. The sun was dropping, and we needed to get off the road or deal with authorities. She scouted FR26, about 100 feet ahead of us, and spotted a clearing just off the road. With an apology to Hapy, I started him up and crept to the turn-out and nosed him into the clearing. While off the road, we were still very visible, so Boo started off down FR26, and returned with a big smile on her face. She found a driveway off to the left, leading to a private property which had been triple padlocked with a barrier, but the barrier was 20 feet off the road into the forest. The entryway was flat, and the locks were well-rusted, telling us that not only was no one home, no one was probably coming tonight either. We moved Hapy, noting an "if you see suspicious activity call the sheriff at..." sign, and while darkness closed in, we put up our curtains... only to discover that when we let K2 use the bus as a tent the night before the yardsale, he had left the cabin lights on, draining the auxiliary battery dead. The day had cratered. Boo, though, was incredible. She pulled out a couple of camping chairs, a couple of beers from the cooler and our leftover Subway sandwiches and served a picnic in the dark. Day saved. No sooner did we put everything away than we saw headlights on FR26.

Solving and Slipping Out

WildWood Recreation Area

Fortunately, the headlights turned to the right and went to a different cabin. We chose to settle down and get as much sleep as we could, expecting to hear a tap-tap-tap of a Sheriff's flashlight on the side of the bus to awaken us before dawn. That didn't happen. In fact, we slept for 9 hours and awoke to birds chirping at a post-dawn sun. I peeked out the window and saw a man walking his dog, and he had a "what's that?" look on his face. Recognizing the man would probably call the Sheriff, we started moving rather quickly. I had a full liter of 100% G12 under the bed, so I pushed the bedding out of the way of my self-cut engine hatch and poured it into the overflow bottle. Luck was on our side as the coolant filled the overflow bottle to the "full" mark, telling me also that we didn't lose that much coolant in the prior evenings debacle. With the bottle full, we packed up for travel and fired Hapy's engine. He started without delay and hummed like nothing ever happened. Recognizing that were were still literally in the woods, we quickly checked that the space looked as we found it and drove to US26. As soon as we were on the public road, we headed for the chain-up area about 100' downhill. With Boo's foot on the brake, I went around back and checked everything. The coolant level had dropped a little bit, but it was still closer to full than fill.

ZigZag and WildWood

Rather than continue to drive away from civilization up to Frog Lake, we chose, instead to lollygag our way back out of the mountains, stopping first at the ZigZag Cafe. Boo and I had driven past the ZigZag Cafe for years before first stopping in a couple of years ago. Since then, we try to include a meal there when we're up at the mountain. It is a mom and pop place where the owners cook and serve some great food. You just need to wait for it. We whiled away our morning, sipping coffee, watching the trickle of the ZigZag River out the window and enjoying an easy brunch. Deciding that we still didn't have great confidence in the cooling system, we continued downhill. Just west of Welches, there is another spot we've driven past for years, but never visited: WildWood Recreation Area. Wildwood sits on the Sandy river with many riverside picnic areas, a group shelter and, apparently, very few visitors.

We turned a weekend camp into a day at the river, selecting food, drinks, and materials for a riverside hang out. We sat in the river and talked, snacked, and relaxed. We encountered only the camp hosts, a young family (who also had a VW bus in their yard) and a tourist from Singapore. The tourist was looking for natural sights so we talked about some of the wonders of Oregon, encouraged a visit to the coast and learned about Singapore. All in, we visited for about 20 minutes, but it really resonated for us.

Homebound

We had decided that driving up to the camp site was probably a lost cause; someone else probably found the reserved, but unclaimed spot and nabbed it. Besides, we still weren't 100% sure our cooling issues were behind us. So, as the afternoon shifted to evening, we packed up into the bus and nosed towards home. Now, the drive "down" from Mount Hood isn't all downhill. Most of it is, but there is a stretch between Brightwood and Sandy just past the Ivy Bear Restaurant where there is a long uphill pull. That was our first real test. By the time we got there, we were running at 185* (our Normal Operating Temp with the thermostat we have). As we started climbing the hill, the temp didn't really move, so I pushed the speed a little bit, trying to stress the system. That did it. A little bit. The temp rose into the low 190's, but stabilized at 194 the rest of the way up. Once we crested the hill and leveled off, the temp dropped right back down to 185 and then 183 (thermostat closed). Hazah!

There are 2 more meaningful hill-climbs on the way home after that one. The first is leaving Boring heading west towards Clackamas and the other is on I-205 between Oregon City and West Linn. The first, we took from a dead stop at the intersection across the street from the Timber Pub and Grub. We stayed in the slower-traffic lane, but held at speed the whole way and didn't see our temp get above the new high-point of 194*. For the second, we were at highway speed (60mph in the bus) and would have maintained speed except for a slow moving heavily-laden semi-truck in the right lane. Regardless, our temp wasn't a factor, and it appears that our cooling issue has been solved.

Since this ill-fated trip, the bus hasn't seen much action. I have been focused on getting the little convertible MGB into road-ready shape before the nice weather ends. My next few posts will probably be focused on that work. I hope to isolate another weekend day for a day at a park with the family in Hapy. We have plenty of water-side parks here, so it's just a matter of circling the day on the calendar and doing it.

That's it for today. Thanks again for following along-

Almost Frog Lake (Part 1)

Today's post is about our ill-fated trip up Mount Hood, vagabonding, and Boo's saving the day. This post got pretty long, so I'm going to cut it up into pieces. This one covers my efforts to resolve the coolant issue we encountered on the way home from 4Peaks.

The Set-Up
After 4Peaks, we had a hectic week of preparing for a huge yard sale. Last Spring, Boo and I moved one house over (See Move Again), and in so doing, reduced our living space by 20%. We didn't reduce our stuff, so after a year of consolidating, shifting and GoodWill'ing, we still had a major purge. The week after 4Peaks was the final lead-up to that purge with the yard sale acting as the culmination. The yard sale was very successful, but it was held on 2 of the hottest days of our Summer: 105*F both days (Fri and Sat June 23/24). We were cooked and after having had a hot and dry end to the festival, we wanted a cool, relaxing camping experience.

The Fourth
The following weekend, however, was US Independence Day weekend. Finding a camping spot that weekend is nearly impossible, but I found one on the east face of Mt Hood at a place called Frog Lake. Based on the pictures, it looked amazing. It's called Frog Lake because you can hear the frogs at night. Neat. I was able to secure us two nights, Friday June 30th and Saturday, July 1st. I just needed to solve the cooling issue in Hapy before we left.

Coolant

G12 compatible coolants

Recall from the 4Peaks Road Report (link here) I had cooling issues on our way home. I concluded that I committed the cardinal coolant sin of mixing my coolants types. Bad bus owner. When you mix coolant types, a few different bad things can happen. The nasty brown color is your first tip that things have gone awry. In terms of real impacts, it could be something as simple as the coolants bond to one another. Under a microscope, the coolant will bead-up, rendering it useless. I've read that it can leave salt residues as well. That really sounds bad.

Or, one or both of the two coolants can bond to various parts of your cooling system, basically putting a coating on things, reducing the remaining coolant's ability to pull heat out of the engine or to set it free through the radiator. If it is bad enough, you may need to tear your engine apart to clean out the badness. Before anything gets that drastic, though, try this first: smack yourself in the forehead for not buying the right (and probably only a few bucks more) coolant. This is best performed with an open hand, but if you're really feeling stupid, a 13mm spanner will wake you right up. After the next paragraph, and the adventure in the second half of this story, I clearly need to use the spanner.

Ok, seriously, to remedy, you need to drain the system, flush it with water and then run a flush chemical through to get any bad buildup off the insides of your cooling system as well as to trap and wash away any funky coolant. Then, follow your manufacturer's instruction for what kind of coolant to use. In the TDI, this should be G12. Or is it "used to be before G12 was superceded by G12+ and then G12++"? In my confusion, I sat on the floor at the local parts store, digging through internet sites and posts looking for a safe coolant. Turns out, G40 is the most current super-coolant for german engines. The jug clearly listed VW and the typical internet boards agree that G40 is compatible with G12, G12+ and G12++. The picture here is from one of those boards (thanks TDIClub, you're an amazing resource!). I got a gallon of Zerex G40 50/50, some Prestone flush and headed home. In the interests of transparency, my VW-specific parts place is only open during business hours during the week, and I don't have any time-off from my new job yet. So, before you ask... "no, I couldn't get the right G12 pink coolant".

The Doing

After work, I pulled out the large catch-pan, slid it under the radiator and loosened one of the radiator input hoses. I drained out the yucky-brown, and then disconnected a few other hoses and bleeders to get as much of the old stuff out as I could. I then re-connected everything, poured in the chem-flush and topped with water. The instructions say to then run the engine with the heater wide open until it has been at Normal Operating Temperature (NOT) for 15 minutes. This posed a problem.

The TDI wouldn't get to NOT just idling in the driveway, and I wasn't comfortable driving around so I arrived at a different idea: If the NOT direction is simply so the thermostat opens, why not remove the thermostat instead? Sure, the chemical might work a little better at 190* versus 170*, but is it really that much better? I'm sure some chemical engineer could explain. I plowed ahead and removed the thermostat housing, removed the thermostat and re-installed the housing. Now, flush/water would pass through the radiator, effectively cleansing the whole system. After running the engine for 20 minutes, I repeated my draining efforts. I also ran water into the various openings from a garden hose, forcing the flush and any remaining yucky out. Once the dripping stopped, I re-connected everything (including returning the thermostat to the housing) and reached for the G40. I poured in as much as the system would take. It seemed like less than I expected, but I wasn't really sure how much it would take, since my coolant lines aren't exactly stock. With a shrug, I buttoned everything up, and packed for camping. In the back of my mind, I wasn't really sure the problem was fully solved, but I was out of time and considered that I would just drive easy and watch the temp gauge.

That's it for today.