Joe, Have fun!!
Seriously, I am not saying it is hard, I am saying that it can be very
pleasurable and rewarding to work on your MG. Every so often you run across
something a little counter-intuitive, but that is what this bunch is for. A
good friend of mine likes to express his philosophy of LBCs as "You give an
Englishman a piece of metal and within five minutes he will have done something
fooolish with it." No offence, Paul, David, and others of the great English
race responsible for these LBCs. ;-}
One word of advice that you will need is to look at
http://www.chicagolandmgclub.com/techtips/536.html
This is the way to put the circlips back onto the rear brake cylinders. You do
NOT slide them back on or you will break them like I did :-). Also, please
remember the cardinal rule of drum brakes: NEVER disassemble both sides at the
same time!!! It looks simple and obvious, and it will be simple and obvious
just as long as you leave the other side intact for reference.
Also, both VB and MM have brake kits with virtually all of the parts to
completely overhaul the brakes on a given axle (at least they do for Midgets,
so I assume they do for the B as well). These represent a significant savings
over buying all of the parts separately as well as a great time savings when
you are halfway through and realize you need another piece.
Amazon and others carry the Haynes MGB manual and the Bentley MGB manual. Both
are helpful. Moss Motors and Victoria British and Triumph Roadster Factory all
carry parts for your new friend. You can call VB at 1-800-255-0088 and request
a free catalog. You can call MM at 800-667-7872 for a free catalog (they also
send out a free magazine subcription to their in-house publication which is
quite nice) or you can download it in Acrobat format from www.mossmotors.com
These catalogs also make great reference works.
Generally your best bet is to buy from a Moss Distributor. He gets parts from
Moss at wholesale and will generally resell them cheaper than Moss. Look at
www.theBPC.com and www.BRGParts.com for two examples of excellent people who
have helped me out in the past and who have corrected typos and wrong part
numbers for me. It really helps that they know their stuff on the cars well
enough to tell me that I spec-ed the wrong part and I should really be ordering
something else. I know that there are others doing this as well, but I know
that these two have served me well. YMMV IMHO FWIW etc.
David Lieb
1974 MGB -- lurking in garage
1974 Midget -- running!
1973 Midget -- waiting patiently
David Lieb
dbl@vniles.com
847.588.8016
!
|