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Simon's spaceMy MG Midget ,"Smidge" |
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April 12 Photos I've just remembered I keep forgetting to put any photos up, despite promising to. So here we go....      You can see how much better the car looks on silver and black number plates, than on the yellow or white reflective ones. I've also changed the gearknob, removed the radio and most of those switches just above it, and fitted a Moto-Lita steering wheel like I had on my much-lamented Jaguar. You can see the M-L steering wheel on the last photo. Highly charged atmosphere I've not updated the blog for ages. I got sidetracked and only remembered at totally inappropriate times, so as I've had a successful weekend I thought I'd bring things up to date. The MG has always tended to flatten the battery, and in fact flattened a brand new battery beyond even deep-charge rescue, so I decided I'd had enough of all the teasing, and would fix it. The ignition warning light wasn't working (blown bulb) so I replaced that first of all. Started the engine and the bulb glowed merrily... no charge, hence the flat batteries I'd been having, but I hadn't noticed because the warning light was dead. I took off the dynamo and stripped it down to see what was wrong. The carbon brushes were long past their best, but then I checked the commutator (brass bit the brushes run along) and that was worn and scored beyond rescue, too, so it was time for a new dynamo. The nice men at Moss provided a new one. I whipped the old pulley and fan off the old dynamo, cleaned them up, and after sanding them down, painted them in some old Halfords wheel-trim paint I had lying around. Whilst refitting the completed dynamo, I noticed one of the wires connecting to the back of it was cracked and almost completely broken through in two places. I cut the wire back and soldered a new connection on, but STILL the charging light came on! How many things could I fix and yet not solve the problem?  I took off the control box and cleaned up all the contacts, improving a few earthing connections as I went, and BINGO! The light went out. We took Smidge to Knutsford to celebrate, a lovely drive on a sunny afternoon. I feel all "Master of the Universe" now  , but I bet it doesn't last! Old cars have a habit of cutting your ego down to size. May 30 I AM INVINCIBLE! After some research on the internet, I found instructions on centring the carb jet. I gave it a go, but every time I tightened the big nut under the carb to lock the jet in place, just with the final turn the jet moved. Time and again I tried, but I could not make it work. I was in danger of losing my legendary self-control!  Despite having a piston that didn't float freely, I thought I'd have a go at balancing the carbs. I got the Gunsons Carbalancer which has been sold for donkeys' years. All it proved was what I could see with the naked eye; the left-hand piston floated up and down as the good Lord intended, and the right one didn't. It would lift eventually, but then wouldn't return properly, over-richening the mixture, hence the grey smoke earlier. Seems like the gurus weren't kidding when they said that centring the jet was the FIRST thing to do. This one was clearly binding in the jet, adding enough friction for the carb to stop working properly. Eventually the SU tools turned up from Moss. The jet-centring tool didn't actually fit in my carb piston the way it should, but by then I'd worked out that I could centre the jet fairly well by eye, if I looked down into the carb from above with the piston and dashpot removed. I gave it my best shot, but still as I turned the nut the final few flats, the jet would rotate and be nothing like centralised! It was so frustrating.... So I had a brew and had another look at the Moss parts manual. It showed a fibre washer between the nut and the carb, but I didn't have one. Here's a hint - if you need this washer (part number AUD2987), if you get it on its own, it's £3.15 but more importantly, nobody has stock. Get part number AUE810A; it contains that washer, plus a few other useful gaskets, Moss usually hold stock of it, and it's only £2.95. There you go - How To Save Money With Si, Volume One (collect the set!). I fitted this washer and suddenly the nut didn't spin the jet around - almost as if the SU boys had designed it like that! I balanced the carbs, which didn't take long, now that the piston could rise and fall freely. The tickover is still a tad high, around 1100 RPM, but I suspect that's down to a rich mixture. I'll sort that out with a Gunsons Colourtune when I have some more time. Anyway, I took the MG for a test drive and it behaved flawlessly, reminding me how much fun one of these things is to drive, especially on a warm summer's evening. I loved it... Ally had also fitted some wing buffers where the bonnet rests on the front wings, so now the bonnet doesn't shimmy when the car goes over bumps. A good use of a couple of quid. There's a lot of manky oil coming up from the crankcase breather, which makes me think the oil separator is probably clogged. You can't clean it out without stripping the engine, though, so for the moment I've disconnected it while I think of an alternative. It just goes against the grain to have a system that pours oil into those nice precisely-metered carburettors... not good. I've blanked off the breather stubs on the carbs (or you get a monster vacuum leak) and need to find something to attach to the oil separator. I got a chrome breather filter for it, like I'd used with success on previous Minis, but on the MG there's not enough clearance between the fan blades and they'd make mincemeat of it in seconds. I think I might resort to a Bugpack breather box, which I used to sell for air-cooled VWs at Limited Edition. It's a cast alloy box containing a foam and wire wool oil separator, into which you route your breather hoses from rocker covers, crankcase or wherever. It's cheap-ish and versatile, and would go nicely somewhere in the MG's engine bay. I will have a think about it. So anyway, now we're all set for the Tatton Park classic car show tomorrow. I won't be showing Smidge off, but you can't beat turning up at a classic car show in a classic car!  May 19 That "Forth Bridge" feeling.... Having reassembled it all,
it was finally time to try it out. The engine hadn't been turned in a
while, so I expected some reluctance to fire, but with the aid of the
jump leads and the sturdy Skoda, we had life again. It ran, and it ran
well... except as it came off choke, it started misfiring, pumping out
dark grey clouds and generally making a nuisance of itself. Being the
sensitive soul that I am, I twigged that all was not well, and shut the
engine down. The problem seemed to involve the rear carb, and it turned
out to be the jet that needed to be re-centred. It was fouling the
needle as the piston rose and fell, preventing it from closing again
and making the mixture really rich. It must have got disturbed while we
were doing the cylinder-head. Anyway, I did that as well as I could
without specialist tools (which I've now ordered from the nice men at
Moss) but as soon as it ran again, my joy was short-lived. Believe it
or not, there was (drum roll, please......) ANOTHER coolant leak! I know! Can you believe it? Another <expletive deleted> coolant leak! This was now really starting to get on my wick. I wiped down the engine and started it again, watching carefully. This time there was no mistake - a massive coolant leak was coming from the water pump. That just about did it for what remained of my good mood. Of course the water pump couldn't have given up the ghost WHILE THE CYLINDER-HEAD WAS OFF!!! Where would the fun have been there? So now it was going to be three times harder to do... The Haynes manual (a.k.a. "The Big Book Of Lies") was consulted. It said I'd need to take the fan off to get the water pump off, and I'd need to get the radiator off to get the fan off. "Bet I don't," I thought to myself, and dived right in. Some time (and several knuckles) later, I decided the Haynes manual might be right just this once, and took the radiator off. Well, to do that, the grille's got to come off too... the fun just keeps on coming with this car! Once I'd dismantled what seemed like everything forward of the driver's feet, the water pump played a final rebellious card and snapped off one of its mounting bolts, the one near the dynamo mounting. The others came off OK, and in the end I used a pair of (small) crowbars to lever the water pump off the engine, being sure not to mark the mounting face on the cylinder block. Good old "Detroit Wonder Metal"... (cast iron, for the uninitiated). The water pump was a bit the worse for wear, but the face of the block was fine. I still haven't got the old stub of bolt out of the block, but the lads are coming round on Thursday and between drinking beer and cooking barbecue, we'll give it a go. Surely it can't resist for ever? The new water pump is the type fitted to later models of Mini and Metro, without a fitting for the dreaded bypass hose. So after all the faffing around with the hose block-off, I now won't be using it! The MG has a few touches that can annoy, much like my old Beetle did. It irritates me that so many manufacturers make cars with so little thought to how the mechanic will work on it afterwards. Special tools are all well and good, but the owner can't be expected to buy them all, and all that happens is that the jobs don't get done. If it ever WERE a plan to get owners to keep bringing the cars to the authorised dealer, it backfired badly in the case of every car I've ever owned. After the first owner, all subsequent owners seem to have thought "Oh, sod it - how important can it be?" and just not bothered. One thing I like about the MG is that it needs very few specialist tools, and those it does benefit from (strobe light, carb balancing gear) are general stuff and can be reused on any other classic you may own. Talking of which, once we've got the MG running again, I'm going to re-torque the head (the car's, not my own, although if this stress continues, I may reconsider!) and next chance I get, I'm going to give the carbs a full going over. I'll centre the jets, balance the airflow, and do all those little jobs that never seem to get done, but that make the car so much more pleasant. I have a Morgan carb-balancer already. It's designed for motorbikes (and has four channels, how cool is that?) but providing I can work out some adaptors for the MG's carbs, I can't see why it wouldn't work on Smidge. I've emailed the manufacturer to see if they know any reason it won't work, but haven't heard back as yet. Anyway, we will have to wait and see til Thursday to see if the lads can get this bolt out and the new water pump installed in time for the Spridget 50th birthday party at the weekend. I missed the Mini's birthday parties when I had a Mini, and I'd like to make it to the Spridget's party. April 08 Progress... I stripped the head down and had a good look. I can heartily recommend using oven-cleaner to bring oily and coked-up cast iron back to "as new" condition. I wouldn't like to see what it does to alloy castings though! Anyway, I had a good look at the head. I wanted to be sure it was an unleaded head; it definitely is, I can see the valve seat inserts. We got it fitted to the car ("we" being self, Ally, Phil and Ollie (my older nephew) and Mark). Ollie got his introduction into the oily world of car engines! I got him lapping the valves, which he enjoyed. Did a good job, too. So the head's on and torqued down. For some reason, the Metro's rocker studs seemed to be made of cheese. We had to replace all but one with the studs off the MG head, as the Metro ones kept shearing. And, of course, we couldn't finish the job because we were still waiting for this CAM4126 part, the hose block-off. But we did get 99% of the work done, between rain showers, hail and even snow at one point! The CAM 4126 arrived today, so after work I popped it on. It's fiddly, but it is possible with the head bolted on. It's no worse than doing a bypass hose, I s'pose. Anyway, the clip that I'd bought for it is clearly far too small, so on Friday I'll get a jubilee clip and finish it all off. I was going to put some photos up, but Photoshop got excited and had to go for a lie down, so maybe I'll do them later. Public folders
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