New Exhaust

New Exhaust  Whoes

Before going on the trip around the country in Sept 2022 I put on new hugger exhaust headers from D&D Fabrication. I had the old exhaust pipes that I’ve used for over 20 years. Worked good till Michigan – we hit a section of terrible roads – like a washboard. That’s when the drivers side exhaust fell off. We found a shop that was a great help in fixing it. I had them put strapping material around it to hold it up – lasted the whole trip.

Once we got back I went out the The Muffler Shop in Fairport NY and had a new exhaust system from the headers back installed. Stainless steel, welded seams, new mufflers and flex pipes. Noticed that the afr is now much steadier on both sides.

BUT – after a few weeks of driving it the driver side header cracked just below the collector where it makes the trun down to the first pipe and flex piece. Took it to Fabweld and they welded it back together with a bit of bracing. I thought that maybe the during the trip – because the pipes were so low and there were times when it rubbed that it had a crack in it and thats why it broke off.

Took it back to the Muffler shop and they hooked the pipe up. When the MS put the exhaust in they used pretty solid anchors so it could be as high as possible. The car is lowered and there is very little clearence – less thatn 4.5″ – I know because I couldn’t take the Airtrain on the way back from Florida last year – they test the clearence of the cars because there’s a hump on the ramp used for loading the cars on the train.

Two weeks after having the driver side fixed the passenger side broke – same place. Did the same procedure – welded and reattached. When it was at MS for the first fix they noted that when you punch the gas pedal the engine rocked quite a bit. They thought an engine mount must be broken.

I put new mounts on before the trip and when I got home checked and they were not broken. But the tourque does make it rock a bit. So I made a chain stablizer that limits how far the engine can move. The idea is the chain is slightly lose when there’s no torque so you don’t get the engine vibration into the car but when torque is applied it will tighten the chain and only go so far. 

I thought I was home free. Then we left in Sept 23 for our trip up to New Brunswick and on the way back the passenger side broke. We got earplugs and drove it home. Just too many life things going on to get to it yet.

I’ve done a lot of thinking about it. I have the flex pieces in there, 8″ and they allow it the pipe beyond the flex to move up and down and side to side. But flex weave pipe doesn’t rotate. I think that has something to do with it. New motor mounts, the chain coupler – it doesn’t move very much but something is putting pressure on that joint. OR – the wrapping on the headers is keepikng too much heat in there and the headers I now have arn’t as robust as the original ones I had and it’s just a very weak spot. 

I think my next step is to remove the wrap and change that from mount from the solid one that’s there to a more flexible old style mount and see if that works.

Arrgggg.

The Trip – September 2022 – 11,500 miles in 41 days

So as Mike and Susan Goodwin where leaving our house one night after dinner Susan says “Mike’s always wanted to drive the MG across the country.” And Barbara then says “Leon’s always wanted to do that also.” Then someone says “You need to do it before you get old.” That’s when I said “I’m already old so we should do it damn soon.”

And that’s why I’m writing this – about our trip across the country in our MGs. We left September 6th, got on the road about 10 am in the rain.

We took the thruway to the Queenston – Lewiston bridge into Canada. We stopped at the 1018 Coffee Bar in London, Ontario. Barbara and I split a grilled Ham Sandwich. And I broke a tooth off on the toast. It was the end tooth on my temporary implant. Only problem was it left a sharp point that cut into my cheek. Wasn’t much I could do about at the time so onward we went.

We went to our motel in Saginaw, MI. and had dinner at the Bavarian Inn Restaurant in Frankenmuth, MI. Really good food, friendly service.

At breakfast in the motel we saw a lady with a jacket that had what looked like a race track outline and it said NBRA Racing – Barbara started a conversation with her thinking she was into racing like we are. But NBRA stand for National Barrel Racing Association – she races horses around barrels at rodeos. She’s been doing barrel racing since she was 10 – she was our age. Her granddaughter does it now also – very interesting conversation.

From Saginaw we headed up toward Marquette MI. The roads were like washboards. In talking with some of the locals they agreed unless you’re on a highway they are really bad.

We were in this area because Mike and Susan hike and are hiking all the high points of each state. They hadn’t done MI yet so they were going out in the morning to do the high point and we would meet them in DuLuth. We stayed the night at the Cedar Inn and as we’re leaving the driveway the driver side exhaust pipe fell off, I pulled over to the side of the road. I had one of the nylon hold down straps in the trunk so I get that and drop it down the side of the engine, around the exhaust pipe and then back up the side of the engine. I knew the heat from the exhaust would melt the nylon so I looked around and found one of the steaks they use to put markers up during construction. I was wood about 3′ long, 1 1/5″ wide and 3/8″ thick. I broke it into 8″ pieces and took four of them and made a cradle between the pipe and the strap – it worked.

There was a Midas shop across the street. I went over there and the counter guy says they could help me out but had nothing open til the 21st of the month. That obviously wouldn’t work. Asked him to recommend a place and across the highway from them was Pepp Motors – no relation to Pep Boys they pointed out. It was just what I needed – a regular garage with guys that think on their feet. They put it on the lift and could see the problem. I asked if they could spot weld the pipe to the header and they said “OK” and did it. Up on the lift I took a look and it looked pretty good. Go it down and we went about our day. But – it didn’t take much of a bump for the car to scrape – sounding quite terrible.

I looked under the car and we had about 2″ of clarence between the one exhaust pipe and ground. That wouldn’t work – the roads where real bad around here and we scraped way too many times. We went back to the shop and I asked if they could take another look and see what we could do about it. They said it would have to wait until morning because two of the guys had left for the day. I didn’t have many choices so morning it was.

I went down the next morning and they put it on the lift. They could see that it was angled wrong. Their guy, Jamie, removed yesterdays weld, put a jack stand under it, raised it up and rewelded it. Looked much better – was up where the other side was. Thinking about it I was worried it was too much pressure on the headers so I asked if he had any strapping we could use to put in as a backup. The garage was also a U-Haul rental place so he went next door and came back with some heavy metal strapping. We put it around the pipe and then through the cross member for the tail of the transmission. Did both sides:    

Also decided to put a hot dog on the top:

uh oh! Deja Vu all over again –

About 12 years ago I put up a page about how a spark plug blew out – https://leonsmgb.com/blown-spark-plug-2/

Well I’m pulling out of a parking lot yesterday and POW – and a then very loud what sounded like exhaust noise – but familiar. Another spark plug popped out. Threads on the plug were fine (Oh – and the car is running beautiful according to the burn on the plug). I tried to put it back in thinking that I must not have tightened it enough – of course I put the plugs in over 9,000 miles ago so you would think if it was going to go it would have done so by now.

;We have to leave to meet the Amtrak Car Train in Sanford FL tomorrow so I needed to get something done quick. Remembering the last time it happened I went over to O’Riely’s and bought a Save-A-Thread kit – a heli coil.

I did the same as last time – because it worked the last time – made sure the piston was all the way bottomed, loaded the tap with grease, cut the thread, cleaned it up, put the plug back in with the heli coil on it. Put the wire back on and it fired right up, no problem.

About 7 years ago I had the engine freshened up by Jim at Drakes and there were no signs of anything unusual with the first heli coil I put in on the road so I’m not too worried about this one. Interesting we did find that these heads had a couple other heli coils. One of them came off in April when I pulled the engine to clean things up. I couldn’t get the coil off the plug so I took it to Jim and he removed it for me and suggested I put it back in with a little titelock. He also noted that he coild was the style that hasn’t been used for over 40 years – which means these heads have a habit of doing this or it’s coincidence.

Now I have to wonder if I should pull the engine this winter and put coils in the other 4 cylinders – before they blow out on the road.

Some Pics from the Around The Country Trip 2022

August 2022

Well what was going to be just a few weeks turned into a few months. But, with the help of Al and Mike from the car club I’m back on the road again and running well. Found a crack in the headers. I tried to weld them but they’re relitively on the thin side. I weled them but they warped out of shape enough so when I put them back on there were leaks around the ports. In hindsight I should have made a piece of metal plate that would hold them in place while I welded them but like I said – hindsight.

I called around and nobody had hugger headers for the buick that they could deliver right away – back ordered 6-9 weeks. I called Mark at D&D and he said the same thing – BUT – called me back a few minutes later and said he talked with his supplier and they agreed to get me a set within 2 weeks. Perfect – cause we’re leaving for a trip in 4 weeks. A week and a half later the new headers showed up! Thanks again to Mark at D&D Fabrications – https://aluminumv8.com. I put new wrap on the headers – temp in the engine compartment is way down.

While the engine was out I decided to clean up the wiring, move some things around. I added an overflow tank – it worked out real good – I found a spot for it – on the front of the engine mounted with the alternator bracket – see the pic below. New motor mounts, new transmission mount, new radiator hoses, new heater hoses and a new set of gauges.

Found a new fan that is the largest that would fit on my radiator. And it’s now controlled by the EZ Sniper control unit. I’ve set the fan to come on at 195 and go off at 188. Driving it in the over 80’s temp the past two weeks has shown that it controls the heat now with out a problem. With the new gauges came a temp gauge. The Sniper has one built in – I connected the Sniper to the temp sensor near the radiator cap so I put the dash gauge in the host going to the bottom of the radiator. It’s interesting to see the temp coming out of the engine and the temp coming out of the radiator. If the outside temp is under 75 and I’m going down the highway the engine temp is around 175-178, the temp coming out of the radiator is around 160. Obviously the radiator is working well and I’m running a 30/70 mix of anti-freeze to water along with VR Water Wetter. Hit some construction the other day – it was 86 outside but the car temp stayed between the 197 – 185 range and cycles there over and over.  

Pictures from the MG Car Club Motor Challange