MGB Roadmaster

[BlownMGB-V8]

It's time to start thinking about how we are going to set up the rotation schedule.

As a prelude however, at present it appears likely we will have a driveable car at the meet. If we have time to make it safe and street legal I will try to put tags on it. This presumes insurance coverage and we do not have the funds for insurance. So, I am going to try to contact McKeel Hagerty and see if he can work out a special deal for us. If that is successful and the car can be registered (title is already transferred) then we will be able to take it on the street, provided everything checks out properly.

This will take us into the next phase of the project, namely testing. Ted suggested that we test for a year prior to tear down for paint and wiring. That seems reasonable to me. The question then becomes, "Who is going to do the testing?" Initially I will do that for obvious reasons but I would not expect to have to spend more than, oh say something like 3 months to get all the bugs worked out, after which it can go to the next member and make the rounds until it is time to tear down.

So what factors do we use to determine who takes the car when? Obviously the individual has to be willing to do so, but do we go by largest contributions first? Geographic location? And then there's the issue of pre-paint vs. Post-paint. Do we start the rotation over after paint for instance? This means the members who weren't able to contribute as much will have to wait longer to have the car but it also seems appropriate for the big contributors to get it after it's freshly painted.

I know we're a congenial enough group to sort all these details out without anyone feeling mistreated, but if you would, please give us your thoughts on the matter. What seems right to you?

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

More progress, the brake lines on the IRS are plumbed and ready to connect, and I cut the wheelwells.

Now not everyone is going to like what I've done, but before you complain I'd just like to point out that you weren't here and that everyone had plenty of notice and more than a fair chance to come on over and do the job to your own satisfaction. You left it to me. Also bear in mind that the last time I did this job I did it with a cutting torch and this time it's much neater. I got a little better job of it on the passenger's side, practice y'know. Bill, you'll notice I used hard lines instead of the braided ones, there just wasn't room for them, but they might really help in making the connection to the car. So now everything is in readiness for final installation of the IRS, and without further ado, here are the photos.

Jim

[Citron]

Jim,
Everything looks really good.  Can't wait to see it in person.

Steve

[mowog1]

Cash donations for the British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society can now be made via PayPal to:

mowog1@aol.com

Please indicate "BADASS Donation" in the subject line of your correspondence.

All proceeds go to the building and maintenance of this big-block Buick powered MGB/GT. HAve you got $10, $20, $50, $100 to spare to help get this project on the road? Your donation ***could*** also be tax deductable.

This low-budget, group effort of British-American engineering of a high performance sportscar by unpaid professionals and amatuers could use a financial shot in the arm...and YOU can help!

If you are not familiar with this project, you can follow its process here:

http://forum.britishv8.org/read.php?2,166,page=1

Thanks in advance for your assistance....

rick ingram
Chairman - Ways and Means

[mowog1]

I wonder if we should consider starting a photo-journal separate from this log? We could then send the hyper-link to any individual interested in its photo-history.

I've had a couple of requests to see pictures...and folks are hesitant to wade through 33 pages of dialog to catch all of the photos.

We may be able to get more donations this way as well...by giving the car some photo credibility.

Just a thought.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Rick, if you can mine this thread for the photos, or use the embedded links in this thread then I'd say it is worthwhile. You could then place regularly spaced links back to the whole story for those interested in the entire history. I just checked and you can bring up the photos' properties along with the link location and should be able to copy and paste the jpg's as well. The file numbers are not sequential, indicating that they are not segregated by thread so it would appear there is no quick and easy way to grab them all at once though. I do have most of them in a couple of folders but there are also photos I didn't use for one reason or another and some that I never copied over to the folder. But there must be literally hundreds of photos by now.

Anyway, it seems like a reasonably good idea if you want to go ahead with it. Let me know if I can do anything to help, but please remember I'm trying to get the car done, first and foremost.

And, having said that, the IRS is now back under the car and partially bolted in. I should be able to get the rest of the bolts in tomorrow and then I'm going to fit some tires to it and play with the spring settings, and maybe even hook up the brake line and look at the e-brake cable.

Jim

[Bill Young]

Jim, the brake lines look good, no problem with  me there! Use what works and if the lines I sent you don't work then use them on your car or do whatever you want with them, I have plenty and they didn't cost me a dime. Rick, the photo journal sounds like a good idea. I've already mined a few that I included in the Power Point presentation I was working on. I'll send you an e-mail with the link to them when I get them posted.

[BlownMGB-V8]

OK, got more photos:



Here is what it looks like with the Corvette wheels and tires at full suspension compression. Good clearance all around but it needs 1/2-3/4" less backspacing as inside clearance is inadequate and it hits in a couple places. This wheel has 7-1/4" backspacing so 6-1/2" would be the correct amount to use, pushing the tire out another 3/4". This tire is a 315/35-17 on about an 11 or 11-1/2" wide rim. It wouldn't take a whole lot of flare to cover these but here again, they would stick out another 3/4".





This is with the Jaguar 215/whatever-15" tires and 4-1/2" backspacing. These work on the back OK and don't stick out too bad at all. The matching wheels on the front hit the Dodge brake calipers though. With a 5/16" spacer they would clear (I stacked washers to check) but the lug nuts we have give only 1 thread of engagement, really only adequate for checking and not even enough to put the weight of the car on it. Jaguar used some lug nuts that had a shoulder that extended down into the wheel and if we had those we might get by with these wheels temporarily. It looks like 16" wheels will clear fine in both the front and the back and 17's give a nice safety margin.



In the above photo the suspension is set too low and I raised it to the proper height for the IRS. I don't have a photo of that, maybe I left it in the camera. What is considered the normal height of the chrome strip? We're at just a little over 27" at the bottom.

The suspension feels good and it's going to give a noticeably more comfortable ride but we will probably need a sway bar back there as well as in the front.

Jim

[Citron]

Jim,
I have a set of Jag lug nuts, but they will not fit the studs on the front of the car.
We would have to find some with the right thread.

Steve

[BlownMGB-V8]

Yeah, I remember there being something a little weird about that but it doesn't make sense to me. Both the front and the rear use a 1/2" stud and the rear hubs are stock jaguar. So I don't know what is up with that. That would be a goofy fix anyway and we don't have the spacers. I sent Tom the new info on the wheels, maybe he'll get lucky and find something off a GM car that will work. Who knows? Cadillac maybe?

I bought the water pump (Thank you Bill) and I'm getting ready to order pan and valve cover gaskets. I think it will be a good idea to enlarge the oil pump pick-up passage as this has universally been recognized as a problem area. I can enlarge that passage in the block without contaminating anything, but the 5/8" pickup tube is expensive at $69. Still it's a lot cheaper than wiped out bearings and now is the time to do that. This and the other oiling mods should guarantee a good supply of oil to the bearings. Regrettably we do not have enough money to cover the cost of the gaskets and the pickup tube. That old song is getting real familiar.

Jim

[Citron]

I have heard from Dale and will picking up the heads this Wednesday.
We have only six, count them six, t-shirts ordered so far.
I plan to place the order with the company the first of May.  If you want something bigger than x-large, let me know.

Steve

[mowog1]

I sent you another check this morning, Steve.

[MGBV8]

XL works for me.

[mowog1]

XL works for me as well....BTW Curtis.....please ignore the "report this thread" notice you just got....I'm used to hitting a "reply to this message" button.  Oops.   rki

[BlownMGB-V8]

Apologies for not posting an update on the weekend sooner.

First off: Steve, Dave VanWyck would like 2 extra large shirts. I'll take 2 XL and 2 XXL as we discussed. Guys this shirt will be a unique design. It is different from last year's and will be different from next. So it's a one time deal and if you have extras a couple years down the road they will be valued, so buy an extra one and don't be saying, "I wish..."

Roadmaster Weekend went well but not without a hitch or three. Steve and I are now perhaps the only people in America who have ever rebuilt an MGB lower steering column bearing. Turns out that despite the cheap construction it actually is a pretty good bearing, if more than a little weird. Uses 29 balls and a convoluted process to get them in place. The steering feel is now quite good.

We weighed the engine using a beam balance of my own design with a 10:1 ratio and a 50 lb electronic fish scale. The reading of 44lbs 9 oz (or 44-1/2 lbs) gives an engine weight of 445 lbs. This is with aluminum heads intake and water pump, mini starter, damper, stock distributor and engine mount brackets, but without the flywheel, carb, alternator, pulleys or brackets. Let's see, 100 lbs for an extra 345 cubic inches.... hmmmm. Yeah, I think I'll take that trade.

We massaged the gas tank and also the skirt behind it, whatever that panel is called, so that we could get the tank to go in with the IRS in place, and cut a new hole in the floor so we could center it. Plus we finished assembling the engine. It will need a custom set of pushrods, figure about $65 cost. Once we got to adding the tranny we hit the third great challenge of the weekend. Our dimensions did not stack up as we had hoped. We have a 11" diaphragm type pressure plate, Corvette application, common as dirt. But, as luck would have it the short GM throwout bearing that came with it has only a little more than the required end play when assembled. The Howe HTOB is almost a half inch longer and is 1/4" too long according to our measurements. With no ready solution, we punted. We assembled the car without the HTOB and sent it to Dave on Sunday. That problem will have to be solved when it comes back. In the meantime, one of my reference books shows 3 different length GM TOB's and states that the intermediate length one is used with a Borg & Beck pressure plate. A ready solution may have presented itself, if the B&B TOB is at least 1/4" longer. Keeping the fingers crossed on that one. On the down side, the PP will not be balanced to the engine. Another compromise I'm prepared to accept. If someone has a good 11" B&B PP they can trade we would be happy to exchange the new 11" diaphragm style one for it.

Jim

[BlownMGB-V8]

I talked to Dave yesterday and he's made pretty good progress on the exhaust. He sent me some photos last night. These photos should give a pretty good idea of what we will have when he is finished. It will be a log manifold system and will give good clearances pretty much everywhere we need it. The system will run just inboard of the jack attachments (which will very likely go away), come back outboard of the front brace for the IRS and then loop over the half-shafts in the space formerly occupied by the axle bump stops. I believe he is running 2-1/4" tube and some or all of it may be stainless. Some people will say that is small for a big block but I think it will compliment our install by offsetting the lower rpm torque loss of the cam we're using. According to Jim Weise  an acknowledged expert in the field, we should expect to see 450-475 hp with a 5000 rpm redline and torque that is greater than stock (500 ft lbs) in the cam's operating range, roughly anywhere over 3000 rpm, and slightly less than stock below that. The exhaust will enhance the lower end of that range and shouldn't hurt the upper end much at all if we stay with that redline. So it should end up being a pretty tractable package.









Dave also has a GT with fiberglass fenders which he would like to convert back to steel and he'd be interested in trading them to us. That might take a few pounds off the front end and sounds like a good idea to me, the only problem being that our fenders are mismatched and the right one has a splice. The ones on the green car are also spliced and kinda rusty. But if we can come up with a fair trade I'd like to go ahead with that. I'll be taking a closer look today.

As far as getting the engine running and making the car operational, there is still a lot to do, and only 34 days left to get it done. Part of that time I'll be gone. Longer pushrods need to be ordered. We need to resolve the pressure plate issue. Question: Is a Borg and Beck at least 1/4" shorter than a diaphragm PP? Someone here should know that answer. The driveshaft has to be made, radiator mounted and plumbed, front drive built and installed, oil pump installed, distributor rebuilt and installed, carb installed and set up, fuel pump, throttle linkage, air cleaner drilled, tapped, assembled and installed, hood cutout, wiring sorted, dash installed, seats installed, brake master cylinder installed, front brakes sorted out, brakes bled, and maybe then, if nothing critical has been overlooked the engine can be fired for the initial break-in run. Realistically, I can't see it happening at this point. The car won't be back here for another week, and even if it was sitting here now I'd have my doubts. 2 or 3 weeks just isn't enough time to get all of that done and I've been having a little back trouble which doesn't help matters. So, I will concentrate on just making the engine run and if that is achieved will consider it a victory.

But since I've mentioned my back, I'm now going to ask if there is anybody who can help me get this car to the meet this year? I am obligated to make a trip up into Iowa the last week of this month, about 900 miles each way, and between that drive and the one to Durham I'm expecting trouble. I know everyone is taking their own cars to the meet, but if there was a way I could avoid doing all the driving because of towing the car it would really help a lot. I don't know if there's any help for it, but I though it wouldn't hurt to ask.

Jim

[mowog1]

Exhaust looks good, Jim!

I'm guessing that there will be very little engine torsional twist?

[BlownMGB-V8]

I'd expect that to be correct Rick, based on our front engine mounts. Here are some new shots of the headers:









Dave is hoping to be able to finish the exhaust system in the next few days. I'd say it's a pretty elegant design for a compact tubing manifold and should flow quite well.

Jim

[Bill Young]

Nicely done. Those will be just fine for the Roadmaster. Glad we got the aluminum heads, gave us enough room for the headers without hacking up the fenderwells to much and saved a lot of weight.

[BlownMGB-V8]

Here's a quote from Dave that I thought y'all might like:

"I wish I had a video cam in the workshop to record the dropped chins of the folks that have seen the BBB. Tonight, a friend stopped by to pick up an adapter set I made to space out the wheels on his old John Deere. He looked under the GT (up on the hoist) and stated "I didn't know that MGs ever had IRS." I told him to go look at the front end and his eyes just bugged out.  It's been fun!"   Dave

We should have the car back down here Tuesday or Wednesday.

Jim

[mowog1]

VBG....wait til they hear it/see it run!

[BlownMGB-V8]

Photos:

[BlownMGB-V8]

More photos:

[Bill Young]

Wow, that's pretty. Nice work Dave. It's getting closer Jim. You guys have done an amazing amount of work to get this far. I'm really looking forward to seeing it in NC running or not. We're going to have to get a recording of the sound that big block makes when the time comes so everyone can hear that rumble.

[mowog1]

Is there anything needed that we can physically do to the Brute when it is at the V8 meet with the limited resources that will be available?