Mrt1trd mgb gt RB life

[MRT1TRD]

[MRT1TRD]

So the off the shelf spray can was a little off and was terribly mixed as came out in stages but the plan is to paint it better when I don’t have my paint gear in different parts of the North Island.

Then I took a week to reassemble the rear with some minor tweaking if anyone could notice..

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1 hour ago, anglia4 said:

pffft, who needs an expensive long euro-plate to fill the gap.

The plate holder also looked silly and wonky with plenty of rust pitting, so weight reduction.

also shortened the exhaust a little 

but the main item I was after was the bumper iron.. it makes the chassis rail on a land cruiser seam wimpy 

found a suitable replacement at pick-a already removed with the correct curve just cut to length, weld on mounting bolts, drill holes for rivets, then fit to vehicle.

I could have gone lighter as others have just deleted the iron and trim down the rubber to have a tucked in bumper but I like to keep the original look and strength just not the weight 

scale pictures are with the rubber attached 

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11 hours ago, Sunbeam said:

5 stud MGB? FAKE NEWS!

So to tell a story to how I arrived here, the LH Armstrong shock was weeping a little from the shaft seal so I got some 2hd hand replacements (tho I think they are not good either) 

While removing the front suspension I removed the caliper I tested the w/brg which was noisy so at work the next day I was going through the bearing collection and noticed the bearing numbers were the same as the Trailer kits ( only seal different) 

So my thoughts went straight into Holdens which nz trailer brakes are based on and specifically VN V8 rotors quick search found they are cheap from SAS trade (closing down as part of Napa/repco)

So they are very close to being bolt on, even the heat shield could work tho very close. And all it needs is to machine the seat of the outer bearing cup 5mm deeper (plenty of material there to do so or I could use the original mgb spacer between bearings)

in saying this I could use any stud pattern I want with being common trailer hubs but one advantage of 5x120 is a lot cheaper wheels than fighting JDM wheel  collectors 

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Been shopping like a lottery winner over the last few weeks, tho nothing expensive yet (keep backing out of purchases from England (does anyone know how to get a Bluetooth electronic distributor that’s not $800+))

so plenty of things to keep this off the road and not driving while I mechanically restore this with a few mods 

brake upgrades I am not sure what route I wish to take, the Holden route or get some big rotors that fit to the original hubs, I do have some callipers from a Alfa mito at pick-a which are a little big for the 22mm Holden disks they were 28mm disks (how thick can I go)

anyone got smaller callipers to swap?

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Put the suspension and original brakes back together for now and took it to work, was following the road bumps badly so might have to give it a quick alignment before going home 

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So much work and it basically drives the same, tho the 20yo enduro gr2000s would spoil any gains 

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With a bit more driving I can confirm it drives better on actual winding roads, feels more confident to turn in. Just lacking the power to match it 

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Towards the end of a weekend trip I went over a depression and there was a loud bang, turns out the bump stop didn’t like being closer to the diff and jumped out of the car 

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I found that strut buddy bump stops fit perfectly over the mounting B plug

Mechanics have lots of these lying around in parts hoards

Pic of the original one that stayed around for reference 

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So from when I picked up the vehicle there’s been a lot of slack in the diff 

like if you jacked up one wheel there was about 30Deg of slack in rotating the wheel 

so after some research I found that this is a common issue with the spider gear thrust washers wear and in later versions BLMC upgraded the washers from copper to plastic for its better longevity (not cost savings)

first pic shows the single plastic washer that was left (one side was just steel and slightly worn) and the two slightly oversized replacements 

To do the job you just have to remove one axle and the rear cover and is quite a quick and cheap fix 

I removed the LH axle as the seal had a small leak bearing was still fine oil was not 

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Tested it today went good in the morning  so much more positive drive and a little quieter on the motorway 

then on my way home the fuel pump died 😥

One good thing is that I was planning to take it to Wānaka tomorrow afternoon and if it failed then it would have been terrible 

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If you reading this you can put some input on what the future holds for this on the discussion thread- Thanks 

I missed a pic of the idler gears thrust bearing wear - inserted

I spent last night researching wiring, wow so much money could be spent on just a rewire. So many cool options to empty bank account, PDMs galore, solid state battery disconnect with CAN communication etc etc

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The fitting of a wing back chair in this has proved a bit of a challenge to get it where I want it and my supervisor is not helpful 

I have moved the rails further back now but would like to space the front higher as I have maxed out the seat angle on the cheep seat brackets and still tending to lean back 

also does anyone know a engineer who could redrill and spline a boss kit that I have or know where to buy a quality boss kit to suit only one I have seen the casting looked poorly 

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After a little holiday I got home and spent a bit of time with the wiring and fuel pump 

Pump is a NZ made one and other company’s that sell it recommended a 1.5L/M not just 1 for a MGB which makes sense as I took it on the motorway in the morning so constant 3800rpm could overwork the pump trying to keep up.

I have emailed the company and will see if they come back with any information to support this 

I have tested some of the wiring and think I don’t need to replace the wiring just clean up the poor connections and get rid of the poor bypass wiring used to compensate the poor connections 

So more of a overreaction on how bad this was I will continue with this driveline and maybe consider a conversion in the future 

And my goal will be to enter into the https://classicmotorracingclub.nz/regularity-trial/

in February 

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So with a bit of time this morning I have removed some weight, cleaned up some connections, replaced one, and set up for when I find or buy some solder 

last fault to fix is the parking lights not always working when headlights are on 

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After sorting out so many little items to restrict reliably running like annoying things like no battery clamp so battery can move and loosen clamps, I took it for an 120km shakedown with no problems and changing the wheels improved the handling 

Plenty more to do just to make it reliable but getting there