Well, it was 55 F here yesterday and will be over 60 F today and my car
still sits two wheels short of a full load.
I got the top felt bearing into the steering column. I sanded the felt to
about 2/3 its original thickness and it still wouldn't fit in. Since the
frustration level was fairly high at this point, following Lawrie's
suggestion to bludgeon the offending felt into submission felt real good!
The looked terrible by the time I was done but it fit great. Time will
tell if it holds up over time.
To align the steering column, I took the U-joint apart. I bought two 10-24
by 3 inch screws with nuts and eight faucet washers- four 3/4 inch diameter
and four 7/8 inch diameter. The faucet washers centered the screws in the
yoke. I then marked the center or the screws in the U-joint yokes with red
paint. I loosened the bottom column bracket and used a screwdriver to
lever the bracket until the marks lined up. I didn't get them perfect but
they are fairly close- within 1/8 inch in any direction.
When replacing the fan belt, I found out that the bolt on the bottom of the
generator is not unified standard. It had been semi-rounded by a PO but I
was able to loosen it with a 14mm socket. It was then that I realized that
the adjustment was done at the inner connection, not the outer. I took the
generator out and I am contemplating retapping the hole to 5/16-18 and
putting a normal bolt in there. We'll see how I feel about it when I get
home.
I was looking at the workshop manual and noticed that they showed the upper
trunnions reversed from the orientation that I had installed them. Sure
enough, if I put the wheels on now, I would have significant positive
camber- not the answer for handling but it would look kind of cool.
Luckily, I can reverse the upper trunnions by removing one bolt per side.
If I had screwed up the lower trunnions I would have to pull the hubs
again.
I am replacing all of the water hoses. I bought new wire type clamps from
VB. They don't hold real tight so we'll see how it goes. I kept the worm
clamps that came with the car. The bottom worm clamp wouldn't come apart
and after 20 minutes of careful finessing I once again had to call in my
old friend brute force. Really big screwdrivers are great tools.
Last but not least, if anyone is curious about what my car looked like when
I bought it and it had four - count 'em- four wheels, check out the
pictures at:
http://www.british-cars.org.uk/kimber/MGA/mgapics.html
Thanks to Kelvin and Mike for giving me a small piece of the Web.
Regards
Bill Eastman
61 MGA getting used to jackstands missing all the good weather.
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