My MGB GT She's a runner now...

All that was left to do was reassemble the entire car, from every single component. And quickly, too. Summer had arrived long ago, and I would soon be leaving for University, leaving the car at home of course. I did very much want to get her done, and use her for a bit, after all this work. The YGC road trip had taken place, which I should have been on, and I had to catch a lift to Fairport Convention’s Cropredy festival with Richard and Meg, due to not quite having the car done on time. I was working flat out though, all day and every day, I had been working at weekends up until now to fund the project but now needed time more than ever. So it was out in the garage until the early hours (and sometimes not so early, working until 3am many nights) to get her back in one piece.

Sadly, there was no time even to photograph the reassembly. I have a few photos of bits and bobs, then my photos jump straight to the car on the road and done. A bit of a shame. BUT- there isn’t much point in writing a lot about the reassembly. The bodywork was the unusual and interesting part of this restoration, anyone can strip and reassemble an MGB, it isn’t exactly difficult. So I will only give brief details, and note where things were done differently from usual.
The first stage was to get everything in place so the engine could be fired up. Then, if the engine worked, the next stage would be making the car ready for an MOT. Then at least it could be run in and tested, while everything else was put back on. Onwards!

The clutch master cylinder was bolted to the pedal box, then the new brake master cylinder. This was an old stock metal reservoir Lockheed job. I eventually managed to find a good one, after buying several and finding the bores corroded in all of them. This one was in the original packaging, and still had the original protective oil in the bore, which once removed was absolutely perfect. There are very, very few metal master cylinders left in good nick, so I was glad to have found one. The plastic bodied cylinders are hideous. Don’t you hate pathetic legislation. I wish someone would get the metal type back in production, claiming they are an alternative high capacity clutch master cylinder or such. Then everyone could fit them in their braking system, and the retailers would make a small fortune selling them, even at a reasonable price.

Anyway I had my brake master cylinder, which got new seals, along with the clutch master cylinder. I was going to try out silicon brake fluid, seeing as almost the entire brake and clutch hydraulics had been replaced. The higher boiling point, no damage to paintwork and no need for frequent replacement was a bonus, the main reason to use silicon was for its non-hygroscopic nature. Having found one of the last good brake master cylinders with a nice bore, hopefully the silicon fluid will prevent it from corroding. The pedal box was then bolted to the bulkhead which I had built from scratch in that area, it fitted beautifully. The banjo unions which connect to the back of the cylinders would be bolted up from behind, through the hole in the bulkhead. Why the Haynes resto manual states this cannot be done is beyond me. Did they really fail to realise that the huge rubber plug you remove from the hole behind the master cylinders is to allow you to tighten the unions easily from inside the car? Duhh!

The wiring loom was next. I had sorted this out during the summer evenings back in the paint stripping days. The rear loom was a bodged mess or random wires and a conduit box, so this was binned. The main loom was thoroughly cleaned, checked over and any areas of loom tape that were chaffed or damaged were repaired. Heatshrink tubing and more layers of tape were added over the vulnerable areas of the loom where it passed through or rubbed against metal. All the connections were thoroughly cleaned, and I went through and soldered every single connector on the loom. I do not trust crimped connections on a car. They are a major cause of electrical faults and failures. Soldering is the only way to make a lasting joint, in a harsh environment with strain and vibration. All spade connectors were tightened slightly with pliers, so they would grip the male connector more firmly, and a dab of Vaseline added to keep the dirt and moisture out. All the double connectors for bullet terminals were treated in the same way. All terminals on switches, gauges etc were thoroughly cleaned for good contact. So it was put into place, and retained where necessary. All wiring loom P-clips, brake, clutch and fuel line and hose clips were of the rubber-lined sort, to ensure there was no metal-on-metal contact.

A new rear wiring loom was around £45, I decided to make my own because it would be slightly cheaper, and also because I wanted to. Borrowing the one of Nigel’s car to use as a template, I ordered the correct gauge wire from Autosparks, along with the correct terminals, heat shrink tubing, insulation tape and proper non-adhesive vinyl loom tape. I used tent pegs in the lawn as a former, and made a copy of Nigel’s loom, which ended up looking identical. Later I planned to make an auxiliary loom, to run the extra rallying electrics, relays, instruments, switches and lamps.

The dashboard was due to be fitted, and it was in a bit of a state. The old crackle-black paint was removed, and the reverse side painted gloss black. I decided to have a go at repainting the front in crackle black, despite the issues many people have had. The key is heat. Thankfully it happened to be a very hot, sunny day, so the dash was left in the sun to warm up. A heat gun was borrowed, and played over the dash to try and bring the heat up evenly. Once hot enough, doing about half the dash at a time, the wrinkle finish paint was sprayed on, the heat was continually played over it. The head causes just the right depth and type of wrinkles, but it is a difficult balance. The whole area has to kept hot evenly, and at the right temperature too. It is a narrow band, too cold and the wrinkles will not form, too hot and they will become huge, and the paint will bubble and burn. Overall it worked, I was relatively happy with it and to do a better job I think a temperature-controlled furnace would be required, which I don’t really have.
With the dashboard in place, the steering column was added, and aligned accurately with the steering rack, to take the loads of the bearings in the rack. The resultant steering movement was light and easy, no problems there.

The dash looked very bare, so it was decorated with the new crash rail I had bought, as the vinyl was torn and the wood had rotted in the old one. The dash top vinyl was removed from the decayed biscuit board, and glued over some suitable thin board. Instrument and switch time, the switches had all been serviced and cleaned, and were plugged into the loom and put into the dashboard. The instruments were added, and I made up new retaining plates for the speedometer, as the only place which seemed to sell them, that daft parts company called Moss, wanted the usual extortionate price of £9 for two bent pieces of steel. Rear light clusters were added, the heater was plugged in and so was the wiper motor.

People who have known this car for a while will remember the dodgy 12v battery installation under the boot floor. Having a single 12v to my mind is a good plan, the modern 6v batteries cost a lot and last a couple of years at the most. Just not worth wasting the money. I decided to put the battery in the offside battery cage, to free up boot space. It would also leave room in the nearside cage for a box to be made to store spares. I just about managed to get the battery into the cage, it is an 075 which is enormous. Once you have the hang of it though, it can be got in and out without getting any scars. It’s a very tight fit but worth it. The cranking power and duration from this size of battery is incredible, very handy when you are young. If you decide you want to stay overnight at a lasses house, you just need to kick out the wire to the fuel pump, then sit there on her drive cranking the engine over and over for minutes at a time. Sorry, car’s obviously broken, can’t get home and it’s freezing cold. Ha ha.

I wired in various ingenious electrical systems to help prevent little pikeys thieving the car. The battery was restrained in its cage, and the positive and negative cables run to the correct places. Ignition on…. Wa-hey! No smoke. And all the things that were plugged in worked! Heater, wipers, rear lights… we’re getting somewhere now.

Time to dress up the engine with all its ancillaries. The new water pump went on, the correct rocker cover, the new uprated alternator, the pushrod cover and crankcase breather and the starter motor.

Late evening sun on the engine bay.... coming together nicely now, with old parts and new. The piece of paper on the manifold side engine mount was there to remind me to connect up the earth strap before attempting to turn the engine over, to prevent fried accelerator and choke cables!

And from the other side, note the earth strap has now been bolted on! The polished and laquered inlet manifold with its core plug brackets is fitted, along with the exhaust manifold and downpipe. The heat reistant silver looks a bit daft, but will disappear in a few months anyway.

My garage is a strange, surreal place, like my mind. You have to expect the unexpected, like a hedgehog coming in then getting stuck under the fridge.

Awww! The hedgehog, after extracting it from under the fridge. It also got into the offside floorpan, daft thing.

Next came the fitting up of the exhaust. Not just any exhaust. The other defining feature! Along with those peaked rear wings…. The prototype cherrybomb exhaust system.

I was told that the particular exhaust system under Valleri was the first ever to use a cherrybomb centre box, developed to give more ground clearance to the car and the prototype to the MGOC club sports exhausts, and it was thought to be made in the 1980s. It certainly is different to any other exhaust system I have seen, and could well be the predecessor to the modern centre cherrybomb system, rather than using a smaller rear box to enhance the sound, this was welded in place of the standard centrebox to avoid grounding out on speed bumps. The system is the standard bore, with a cherrybomb in the middle which is barely wider than the rest of the pipework. The pipe bends upwards before joining to the hefty straight through rear box, protecting it from damage by rocks or other projections. The tailpipe is standard bore and fairly long, going almost to the rearmost point of the rear over riders.

And Holy Mong does it sound good. Not like anything else, not even remotely like modern cherrybomb centre systems. The idle is hollow and rough sounding, much like a vintage tractor, in fact this is one of the things which drew me to the car in the first place. Accelerating she growls, and I mean a real growl, not a crappy monotonous droning like fuel injection gives, not even the usual sweet MGB growl, but far more aggressive and tuneful, amplifying the full beauty of the exhaust note carburettors give. Then when you get to 1950 revs up to about 2100rpm, it becomes a snarl. I’ve never heard any other car sound quite like it, people have likened it to a Chieftain tank, and a radial engined aircraft pulling out of a dive. Utterly fantastic, trust me. The finer details of the snarl vary with temperature and humidity, it varies slightly in volume, pitch and hollowness, and one occasion the sound waves actually flapped my clothing. It is rather loud through that rev band, and can clearly be heard from over 3 miles away on a still night. Over 2100 revs it goes back to a growl and becomes progressively quieter, to the point that in Overdrive at 60mph there is nothing but a little bit of wind noise, and quiet conversation is easy, even without any soundproofing whatsoever.What more could you ask for?

A piece of history, this exhaust system! Sounds unbelieveable too.

The radiator was carefully flushed, repainted and put into place with new hoses, and the cooling side of things were done. I then rebuilt the distributor, it was found that although the centrifugal advance plates were fine, the weights were worn, so a scrap distributor from a Series III Land Rover wielded new parts to keep the timing happy. No crappy electronic ignition here, of the sort favoured by old people. A well maintained distributor (And I mean well maintained, you can’t have a piece of tosh and then call it a piece of tosh, or maintain it badly then call it unreliable) is far superior to a computer thing under your bonnet. What do you do when that fails for no apparent reason, like they do? You’re stuck at the side of the road. If you do not have the time and skill to look after a set of points, why have a classic car? What can go wrong with a mechanical distributor… the points can fail, and the condensor can fail, both of which can be replaced at the roadside in five minutes, and cost a few pounds each at most. Having said that, at Beaulieu I bought another distributor for £1, rebuilt that too, fitted new points, condensor, cap and leads, replaced the earthing wires inside and timed it to the car before pinching up the locking plate. Now, if there is any ignition problem whatsoever, I can remove the whole thing at the roadside with two bolts, and put the spare ignition system on. It cost less than £10 too.

Fuel time, and the copper pipe was run from the tank to the boot, and the other pipe from the boot to the bulkhead. Finally I could pit the grommets and straps along the underside of the car to retain the wiring loom, positive cable, fuel line and brake line. Then one of the double ended SU pumps was fitted into the boot, wired then plumbed in. The intake manifold was fitted with metal angle brackets, bolted into place by the large threaded plugs at either end of the manifold. The angle down and rest against the core plugs, which were Loctited in place and have a mechanical fixing too, ensuring they cannot come out which would obviously destroy the vacuum in the inlet manifold.

The lovely twin SU HS4s, which I had rebuilt on getting the car home after buying it, went back on. No braided fuel hose in sight though, the modern reproduction stuff is all that is available, and the rubber perishes very quickly, but of course you cannot tell due to the braiding. High quality black fuel tubing is far cheaper and safer, so that was used. The Filter King pressure regulator was mounted on the flat part of the bulkhead via a home made aluminium bracket.

Mmm all clean and fresh.. The inny manni core plug retaining brackets can be seen, and the newly sprayed rocker cover.

With the loud pedal and choke cable connected up, and the engine filled with oil, there were fewer and fewer excuses left. The fuel pump was filling the float chambers, everything was looking good. The coil was disconnected and the engine spun over on the starter and oil pressure built up. A bit of choke, I turned the key and the engine turned. It did not fire, so I tried again with a bit more choke and nothing happened. Getting out and shuffling sadly to the engine bay, I realised that the coil was still connected. Durrrrrr. She fired up instantly and settled down to her old rorty growl running fast with the choke out. As the temperature came up, she would then idle perfectly, just as before with that smooth unevenness only Valli has. The carburettors and not been adjusted since they were removed from the engine at the start of the restoration, and did not need adjusting. She was running, charging and would shortly be moving, once the brakes and clutch hydraulics were finished.

All well in the engine bay. I do like that engine, the emo red was perfect in the spray gun as well, so I sprayed the rocker cover. Look at those reflections!

Everything necessary to legally drive the car on the road was then fitted, so I could get her an MOT and start to run her in and iron out any problems while finishing her off. The front wings went on, then the doors, and here I learnt how to paint cars properly. Which, in future, will be done with the doors and wings already finished, so when fitting the doors I do not ruin the paint on them and the wings. I resprayed the damaged areas, sadly the paint was a slightly different colour, so I am going to have do another smaller respray in the near future to get everything right. It was unfortunate as the paint turned out rather well, a beautiful gloss, and I am going to have to do all that polishing again. Ah well, at least I know now.