Roman,
Congratulations.
1) drive the car a for a few days, then adjust valves, timing and
carbs, initially going by the settings in the book. That should cure the
fast idle. Later, you can adjust timing to get somewhat better
performance.
2) Those holes may be the holes made during manufacturing. Check Moss
catalogue and see if they are the ones that should be filled with little
plastic plugs.
3) Is fuel gauge correct? It might be. Unlikely, but it might be.
Tank senders are notoriously weak. You get used to setting the trip
odometer to 000 every time you fill with gasoline. It's possible to
change the sender, fortunately, and in the workshop manual is procedure
to check if the fault is the sender or the gauge.
4) Wipers run 1 mph. Are you sure they really do go that fast? You
might have the special competition wipers. For a nation that has the
reputation of much rain, English wipers seem to be, well, English. Get a
bottle of RainX, which makes it possible for you to enjoy the car, then
plan on removing wiper motor and the push-pull cable to clean and
lubricate them. This is in the workshop manual. Stiff grease 30 years
old could be part of the problem, though the wipers never were great. Oh,
these are two-speed wipers on the 1972 cars.
5) the 1972 cars were fitted originally with two batteries. Most owners
switch to modern 12v batteries because they do the job, cost less than
two 6v batteries, and the unused battery box can be used for storage.
You will see the ground through the opening; that's the way they were
built. You might also see a lot of rust on the battery boxes, something
you can repair.
6) The bottom hose of adsorbtion cannister should be a right-angle
hose that would drain gas from the cannister over the edge of the
firewall. You can adapt something to do that function, which I
recommend. It's not unknown for a float bowl needle valve to get stuck
and for gas to get into the cannister. Best to drain it someplace rather
than have it get into the cockpit.
7) Just drive the car. If the valves wear quickly you will find
yourself opening the rocker gaps when you adjust. This question has
turned out to be somewhat less severe than we thought it would be, for a
number of reasons. Basically, don't tear the engine (or yourself) apart
fretting about the problem, since you don't know if the hardened seats
have already been installed, and it's not a major challenge to do them
when, and if, it's necessary.
Best of luck with this car. You will enjoy it.
Bob
'72 GT
On Thu, 13 Mar 2003 10:19:46 -0500 "Gudz, Roman (EM, PTL)"
<Roman.Gudz@penske.com> writes:
> Yesterday, I finally got my 1972 MGB that I bought on eBay (can't
> believe I did that).
>
> The odometer says 52K miles and does appear to work.
>
> Below are some initial findings, just looking for some direction:
>
> 1) Car starts fine and seems to run OK, although it seems to idle
> pretty
> fast (about 1300 RPM). Is that a problem?
>
> 2) There are a few quarter sized holes in the drivers floor pan,
> should I
> patch them or should it be replaced? The passenger's looks OK.
>
> 3) The fuel gauge always shows empty.
>
> 4) The wipers wipe at about 1 MPH.
>
> 5) The car has only one battery and I can see the driveway. Is that
> normal
> or should this area be enclosed?
>
> 6) The hose going to the bottom of the absorption cannister is
> missing, is
> this important?
>
> 7) I have no idea if any modifications were made for unleaded fuel.
> Is it
> OK to not worry about it and just put in premium gas? All I can
> find is 93
> octane.
>
> Thanks.
>
>
> Roman
>
> 72 MGB
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