I'll try and keep "MGB Engine Rebuild" in the subject line of these
messages, so that uninterested parties can easily kill them.
Thanks to everyone who responded to my first message. I won't respond
to each of those messages here (I have been responding via e-mail) since
that would probably clog this list unnecessarily. And even if I don't
respond, I am appreciative of all the support.
The rebuild may be delayed for a few weeks. I'm on jury duty for 10+
days starting this Monday. The timing isn't bad, actually, since I'd
prefer for the current cold weather to end before starting the rebuild
anyway.
The discussion concerning labelling, organizing and cleaning parts during
disassembly has been enlightening. I'd been planning on making liberal
use of a Polaroid and labelling all hoses, etc., with tags, but I hadn't
thought about thread chasers. That's a good idea; now I have to get some.
Concerning replacing nuts and bolts: Sounds great, but where do I get the
replacements? I'm not keen on ordering individual bolts at fifty cents
each from Victoria British et al., and I'm even less keen on using parts
from a JC Whitney grab bag on my engine. Is there someplace I can order
a grab bag of high-quality nuts and bolts in the sizes typical on the
MGB engine? (Metric and standard I guess.)
Concerning manuals: I have Porter's A-Series book and the Hayne's manual.
They seem to be in general agreement on most steps of the rebuild, though
Porter recommends pulling the radiator before engine removal. (My
radiator happens to be fairly new and working fine - I probably won't
bother to take it to a radiator shop for a check.)
Concerning the older camshaft/timing chains: The consensus seems to be
that the older camshaft is a straight swap, but Roger says it really
wants the older distributor to go with. I'll probably call the TRF
technical line to ask about the timing chain swap and to see whether
the old timing chain cover is required. I'm a little leery about this
swapping because I'm worried about my ability to get the timing set
correctly on re-assembly. Both the older timing chain set up and the
older distributor have different initial settings from the later gear.
(I'm the kind of person who likes to change one thing at a time, so
if there's a problem I know where to look.)
I'm saving up another set of questions and making a list of parts I
think I'll need. I'll be posting that shortly for comments. Thanks
again for all the help.
-- Scott Turner
|