I bought a 73 B GT just a few months ago for $1000 and it runs very
well. I have just taken it to my MG mechanic (he is VERY VERY GOOD)
for a tune up as I wanted to go on a 2000 mile road trip this weekend.
He has just called me and said the following:
1) Oil cooler is NOT standard and looks like the tranmission cooler
from a yankycar. Plus the hoses are of smaller diameter than they should
be. Cooler has 4 rows!!
Definitely not an MG unit, which should have 10 rows at minimum. You
can get coolers with up to 19 rows.
2) Shocks plus Kigpins are shot
Have him look at (or do it yourself) the bolts through the bottom of the
kingpins. I'll bet you a pint of your favorite brew that the head of
the bolt isn't centered in the kingpin. Shocks aren't hard to do
when the budget permits. A tube-shock conversion for Bs is usually a
little cheaper than the stock levers and is even easier to install
than stock shocks, and it works very nicely. Figure $100 for the kingpin
major assembly (each side) and about four hours of work to R & R each
side if you do it yourself. Get the V8 bushings for the inner ends
of the A-arms, the price is about the same and they last ten times as
long and work ten times as well.
With both shocks and kingpins, there is no easily imaginable sudden
dramatic failure mode (that is, they won't suddenly catch fire and
shoot pieces of molten shrapnel through your naughty bits at high
speed or anything like that). They degrade gradually, clunking and
adding to steering slop. Replacing either makes a DRAMATIC improvement
in the car's feel.
3) cam is flat
Oh, right, it's a '73. Yes, the cams and cranks on the 18V engines
were made of cheaper material. This is a long-term fix that shouldn't
give you any sudden breakdowns but it is costing you performance and
economy. Remember when you replace the cam that you need to replace
the lifters as well; I'll bet they're pitted like the ones in the '72
engine I used as the core for the race car.
4) Clutch disengages close to the floor (I knew this!!) he said it
could be "crappy" rebuilt clutch as it suposed to have been replaced
less than 20K ago.
It could also be low or old fluid. I'd try bleeding the clutch first;
if that doesn't help, install a rebuild kit in the slave and master
cylinders (clean them thoroughly first, use Brakleen to get the crud
out) and try again. If that doesn't work, you've only spent $19 or
so for the rebuild kits plus $5 or so for the LMA plus a couple of
evenings getting rust in your eyes under the car, and all the work
will make a new clutch (if you need it) work that much better. If
it's just the disengaging close to the floor, it could easily be just
the hydraulics or it could be a worn throwout (aka throwup) bearing.
5) a brake line is cracked alittle but not leaking.
A metal line or a rubber hose going to the wheel cylinder? If the
former, replace it before the car comes home from the shop. If the
latter, well, the '73 has the dual-circuit brakes. See how bad the
crack is; I've got some rubber pieces missing from my own brake lines.
Yeah, I know, and I've got stainless braided hoses at home ready to
install. I just need to find my liter of LMA and borrow a floor jack...
What should I do?
Should I take the car on the road trip (from Oregon down to California)??
Yup. Drive it down to Palo Alto and I'll take it off your hands for fifty
bucks... :-)
Will the oil cooler cause the oil to run too hot??
Not this time of year, unless the rest of the engine is running too hot.
So change the oil on your way down.
Note that the B Series engine *has* to have some kind of external hose
from the back of the block to the oil filter housing; it's a case study
of Stupid Corporate Politics to understand why. Originally the B series
was going to have a part-flow oil filter, but when Upper Management
decided to use the B Series in some of their sports cars, they decided
that it needed a full-flow system. But they decided this too late to
get it into the casting, so they drilled a hole in the oil gallery at
the back of the block and ran an external pipe to the filter housing.
The benefit of this, of course, is that it makes it a piece of cake to
install a cooler (or a second filter if you're a real lunatic).
Will the cooler break under the pressure??
If it was going to break, it would have already, I'd bet. It's probably
just not doing much for you. You can probably pick up a used cooler and
the hoses to go with it for not much money. Hmmm, I might have the used
hoses lying around my garage, at least one of them... If nothing else I
have the factory hoses to allow you to skip the oil cooler altogether (a
common practice on MGBs that have no room for a cooler; they were optional
some of the later years).
How hard is it to replace the cam? (My manual is in the car at the shop!!)
In theory you can do it with the engine in the car, except that the cam
bearings won't get changed and that's not good. The Bentley manual shows
a factory tool for installing the cam bearings, which might make it
possible to do it in the car, but you're still looking at $90 or so
for the cam (should include bearings) and $35 or so for the new tappets,
plus $20 or so for the bottom-end gasket kit, but that's if you can find
the factory tool. Otherwise, if you pull the engine, you'd better check
the crank (it's made from the same EN16B alloy as the cam, instead of
EN19B on the 18G series engines) at the same time. If the car runs very
well, I'd say leave the cam in until it's time for (that is, until the
bankroll permits) a complete rebuild.
Okay, you twisted my arm, if it makes it down here I'll give you $75 for
it. :-)
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