Driving season around here is pretty much over, any warm days would be a real long shot. So I took the mg over to Kurts Garage. They’re going to redo the body and pull the engine. There’s a few things I want to do this time around. I’ve gotten a lot smarter, want to incorporate some ideas I’ve had.
It needs new motor mounts.
Headers could use replacing – they’re not shot, but close to it. I think this time I’m going to wrap them, I think this is the best shot at getting some heat out of there. I’ve heard stories that it will make them rust quicker and the like, but I’m thinking it’s a problem I don’t have to worry about – it may mean they last 10 years instead of 15. I don’t know, we’ll see. I’ve seen many cars around here with the wrap and the wrapping is older than 10 years and bigger, hotter running engines than mine.
I was thinking of getting a different transmission but I’m pretty used to this one now. There’s some noise on two of the gears that I think share the same shaft. And it means not having to change or adjust the drive shaft and other mounting parts.
Need to mount the new aluminum radiator better.
Clean the oil mess out of the engine compartment and bottom of the car – that’s from the leaking rear main seal of the other engine from about 4 years ago – never did clean it properly.
Want to paint and clean everything in the engine compartment and make it look better, it’s kind of ratty now.
Dan refuses to put the hood with hole back on so I”ll put the hood on that Doug gave me.
Want to rewire the front lights and put a master 12v feed line to the front with control relays. May look into brighter head lights.
Have to replace the wire running from the rear tail lights up to the fuse box – it sort of melted it’s insulation and some of the others near it a couple years ago when something was put in the trunk and the wire got pinched. Came about that close to having the car burn up with that one.
Want to hook up the emergency brake this time.
Going to do something with the cracked dash.
Add a temp gauge to the bottom radiator hose so I can read the temp going into the engine. That compared the stock unit (which because of it’s placement is the temp of the output of the engine coolant) will give me some radiator efficiency measurement.
Need to better mount the ignition coil in a place that will keep it’s temp down. Where I ended up with this year, in front of the radiator mount plates seems to work rather well.
Fix some oil seeping from the valve covers – right now it thinks it’s an British engine.
One of the exhaust manifold bolts is touchy, meaning lose.
At Watkins Glen this year I blew out a spark plug. Was on our way back to Seneca Lodge, came around the corner and “Blam, blam, blam, blam” – the number 6 plug blew right out. Went over to Napa and got a over thread kit and was able to fix it.
Each year when I put it on the road in the spring I have to put brake fluid in it, then it’s fine for the rest of the year. Ned suggested it was going into the power brake unit cause I don’t see a puddle under the car. Or it’s leaking very slow and evaporating before it hits the ground, but why would it loose almost the complete resevoir over the winter but almost none through the summer ?
Think I’ll install wiring so I can do megasquirt or carburator or holley tbi without chopping wires up.
Put insulation in and round the passenger compartment and keep some of the heat out of there as well as maybe get some noise out.
Need to go back to the original stiff clutch. Last time we had it out I asked them for weaker springs to it would be a bit easier to use but it will slip a bit under heavy take offs. That was really the wrong way to go – I need to adjust the size of the master cylinder – the ratio of it to the McLoyd is off.
Mount the gauges in a better way.
That’s enough for now, I’ll post how I’m doing as I go along.
Later …
Recent Comments