The MGA With An Attitude
Friday October 16, 2015
Come to a stopping place on the 1800S, I dusted off the Alpine for a closer look. Put a battery charger on it (not that I expect it to do any good). Under the bonnet I found dusty rust in the brake booster breather filter and blew that out with an air gun. 
Oil in the engine, no fluid in the brake master cylinder (bummer). Carburetor linkage was stiff, but loosened up some with a bit of manipulation. Contemplating how to feed it some fresh fuel. Time to break for the day. 
 Did I mention that Thane has several motorcycles in his collection? Mostly Hondas with a couple Moto Guzzi, and this odd three wheeler thing I haven't figured out yet. Thursday October 22, 2015 The Alpine looks better today with some of the dust removed. I was amazed that the battery took a charge and the engine would crank over. Needing to remove stale fuel, but the dual saddle tanks have no obvious drain. So I put one of my spare Airtex electric fuel pumps to work. In a few minutes the stale fuel was out, hard lines reconnected to pump, fresh fuel in the tank, and some engine cranking brought fuel to the carburetors. A bit of PB Blaster loosened up the carb linkages. Good cranking, but no start. Test light shows points doing the right thing (blinking when cranking), but having a very weak spark. Installed a new condenser and Rotor, and replaced the the (resistor) wire from the coil, but still weak spark. Borrowed ignition coil from the indoor MG Midget (ah-ha, MG content), and that got better spark. A shot of fuel down the carb throats got it running, and the original mechanical fuel pump finally kept it going. Yee-haa, we win again, another happy engine. 
 Topped up the master cylinders. Depress clutch, and it shifts okay. Clutch up wants to stall the engine, brakes are stuck (maybe from being parked with hand brake engaged). A little more vigor with throttle and clutch, and the rear brakes finally pop loose with a gentle thump. Itching for a test drive, but no brake pressure (need to bleed the air out). Will have to wait for another day, out of time now. Time for a late lunch before moving on to the next patient.  Then there was the Range Rover (finally got the picture), in need of a clutch slave cylinder. Aside from cramped space, changing the slave was straight forward knuckle scratching grunt work (but could crawl under without jacking it up). Topped up with brake fluid, several pumps gushed fluid out the bleed nipple. Closed the bleeder, pumped again, but no joy. Will have to wait for another live body (helper) for clutch bleeding. Friday October 23, 2015 What's wrong here? Too wide tires. Let the air out to squeeze it between fender and brake drum, use a wheel spacer, and it's still too close inboard. Bummer. Should have smaller tires, as letting air out of the spare to change a flat could be a problem. To use these it needs a thicker wheel spacer and longer studs. Time will tell. 
 
 Back to the Alpine. Charge battery, purge stale fuel, add gas, prime carbs, and fire it up. Loosen up stuck brakes, bleed clutch and brakes, and take it for a test drive. Yee-Haa! Big grin. 
What's wrong here? All four splined hubs and spinner nuts on wrong side of car, will be self-loosening rather than self-tightening. Major bummer. More grunt work required to switch all the hubs. Saturday October 24, 2015 Midnight (early morning) run 30 miles for a banking stop, and finally washed the racing numbers off the car. Small hours of the morning doing monthly report for Chicago club newsletter. 6-am WiFI session to upload data and check email. Grab four hours sleep before noon. Waiting for parts, so, .... laundry day (among other things). Night time WiFi session, and the day is gone. Typical "day off". Sleep a bit earlier tonight. Sunday October 25, 2015 Up early enough for breakfast WiFi session, then catch up a few more hours of sleep. Stir crazy I suppose, seems odd doing nothing (like watching paint dry). So let's do something this afternoon.  Finished bleeding the Land Rover clutch. Open bleed nipple and pump pedal until the reservoir is mostly empty. New trigger pump oil can and a bit of 1/4" hose, pumping fluid into the bleed nipple, watch air bubble up through the reservoir keep pumping until the reservoir is full, and its done. Small adjustment for clutch pedal top limit stop, and it was time for a test drive. We took a little run around 20 acres of the back pasture, up to 4-foot tall swamp grass and weeds, bumps and hills and chuck holes and ditches, jolly good fun. The 4-banger diesel engine seems a bit shy on torque at low speed, goes much better higher off of idle, might be a bit late on fuel injection timing, but not my area of expertise (yet). Would like to play a little longer, but other things are calling. 
 
Needing to swap splined hubs left to right on the Alpine. Start with the rear, as it may be more challenging. Jack up, wheels off, loosen the big nut securing the splined hub and pry for all your worth with every large crow bar handy, but it didn't come apart. No shop manual handy, not sure about the interface between hub and halfshaft, so disconnected brake pipe and cable and removed everything that came along with the wheel bearing and halfshaft. After inspection, one phone call and a trip to O'Reilly's to borrow/rent a large 3-jaw puller. Big boy wrenches, long brace bars, two guys holding it down on the floor applying lots of torque. The puller was rated for 7-tons, and I suppose we used about 8-tons worth of it. I told Thane when it goes off like a shotgun shell with a big bag, you win. About 5 five seconds later it went BANG, Thane jumped a foot or so, and various disassembled pieces fell on the floor. We won. The interface is a low angle taper with a big woodruff key. Dinner time, so we will take this up again tomorrow. 
 Monday October 26, 2015 With a certain amount of grunt work, the splined hubs on the Alpine have all been switched to opposite sides, brakes refitted and bled, and ready to drive. In the process I found on the right front what is seen in the third picture below, proof positive that the RF wheel had once come off of the car in motion (and the damaged rotor was not replaced). The KO nuts were all hammered on so tight that the trailing side of the ears were all beat to crap, and they needed a tremendous amount of pounding to be removed. 
 
Going to replace rear wheel cylinders on the 1800S. Removing the wheel reveals one broken wheel stud. Grunt work followed by the now familiar big bang remove the LR brake drum (using a different loaner tool). Loose friction linings indicate sever overheating of the brakes. 
Removing the wheel on RR immediately revealed catastrophic damage to the brake drum. After grunt and bang and removal of the broken drum, there was no lining at all on the right side brake shoes or inside the drum. This explains the observation of the last person who drove the car, "There was a loud BANG followed by a red hot piece of something falling out behind the car". That would have been a broken piece of the red hot brake drum. I presume the rear brakes were dragging badly and overheating accordingly. Not sure if someone drove it with the parking brake on, or perhaps the rear brake hose was clogged. This also explains why the RR wheel cylinder puked its guts and dumped brake fluid on the floor (over travel). The local O'Reilly's does not have brake parts or wheel studs for this car. I tried very diligently to remove a wheel stud from the broken brake drum (and hub), deep socket backing resting on concrete, lug nut flush with end of stud, steel plate resting squarely on the nut and stud, and multiple energetic strokes with a hammer, but no joy. I have no idea how much press force might be required to remove these studs. 
One brake drum broken and the other one having a broken stud that might not be removable (badly overheated anyway). Time to attack one of the parts cars to see if there may be serviceable drums there. Start on the left side (just because it's handy). This is a 3/4-inch drive T-bar with a pipe extension, and a tractor draw bar being used as a reaction arm. I was standing on the pipe with vigor (me over 200-lbs mass) applying great torque to the robust little puller tool, but this time in spite of all the grunt, no bang. Time to knock off for the night, so we left it there with torque applied. With some wishful thinking it might be magically disassembled for next visit. (Yeah, sure). Tuesday October 27, 2015 
 Looked at the parts car and stepped on the breaker bar a couple more times, but no-go on the brake drum removal. So back to work on hydraulics on the running 1800S. Removed two burned up rear wheel cylinders and installed new ones. Also installed three new brake hoses and a new master cylinder. Then back to the parts car, it will either come loose or break something. Stepped on the breaker bar a few more times, broke the puller tool screw just below the hex head. Bummer. Start the phone calls looking for an acetylene torch, and order another puller tool. Wednesday October 28, 2015 
 Bring out the big boys "blue wrench". Leave the highly tensioned (broken) puller in place, and heat the center hub of the brake drum. It only took a minute, and with a big bang the brake drum (with puller still attached) flew a few feet and smacked a hoist. Just keep repeating to yourself, "Failure is not an option".  Install one of the bad brake drums from the running car and the wheel to set the parts car down. Kill a few hours (on WiFI) waiting for the new puller to arrive. Then on to the right side. Loosen lug nuts, jack up, remove wheel, remove hub nut, apply the puller tool, and crank up the tension. Tight enough, no need to over do it, get the blue wrench. A minute later, bang, and the drum with puller tool flew a foot and dropped on the floor. Life is easier when you have the right tools. 
Then considering if we can salvage more brake parts from the parts car, but no go here. The running car is 1965 with manual adjuster brakes, but the parts car is 1967 with automatic adjusting brakes, so most of the internal parts are different. Too bad. At least the brake drums are same and good to use. Install the other bad drum and wheel to set the parts car down to retrieve the floor jack. Rest of the day off, as we need to find internal rear brake parts (and hub seals) Thursday October 29, 2015 Playing around a bit with the '57 Chevy with Ford rear axle. Tires nearly rubbing inside sidewall. Two 5/16-in wheel spacers gives 3/4-in inside clearance. but studs are too short. Knocked out one stud for reference, and spent some time shopping for longer studs and thicker spacers, but so far struck out. 
 Friday October 30, 2015 Waiting for parts, and things were a little slow. I've had my eye on that Austin Cooper S (Mini) for a week and a half. Low suspension on the right side bugged me, so time to check it out. The Mini has Hydrolastic suspension using rubber fluid displacers filled with antifreeze solution. Front and rear units on same side of car are connected with a pipe. It had obviously lost some of the fluid on the right side. Thane and I spent a couple hours running around town to find the required bits. The primary tools are a gallon of pre-mix ethylene-glycol antifreeze, a hand pump grease gun connecting with a flexible hose and a 1/8-27 NPT pipe coupling and a (metal) tire valve extension with a pipe thread cut onto it. The Schrader valve connection is on the rear subframe just forward of the rear valance panel. 
 Jack it up a bit for access and find the connector. Fill the grease gun with antifreeze, burp the air out of it, screw it onto the suspension connector, and pump until your arms are numb. 250 to 300 strokes moves about 22 ounces of fluid. Joy by golly, the suspension was rising some. Refill the gun, reconnect it, and pump some more. Just when I thought it was about finished after the second load was delivered, it leaked half the fluid on the floor (close to a floor drain), fairly rapidly actually. Bummer. Jack it up some more and take the wheel off for better viewing underneath. Hey, I'm impressed. Those are real Mini Light wheels, and I think they may be magnesium, very light. Refill the gun and deliver a third full load. Not hard pumping, but 800-900 strokes gives sore arms. 
 Tough to get good pictures of the fluid suspension parts, as they are hiding inside the subframe. As it turns out, the leak is in the interconnecting pipe running from back to front. This pipe passes above the rear subframe, then follows the underbody forward. Not an expensive part, just large bore tubing with flare nuts at both ends. But it looks like at least a full day's work to drop the exhaust system, R&R the rear subframe, and hand form a replacement pipe. Time to set it aside for more consideration. Saturday October 31, 2015 
 Spent a lot of time (more than half the day) continuing work on a drawing of the MGA 1600 LHD dipper switch bracket. Its a tricky little bugger. About 95% done, just needing final dimensions for hole locations. Spent rest of day BEGINNING posting CMGC newsletter on line. http://chicagolandmgclub.com/driveline10/1115 |
