Engine compartment/finally redone

I started at the end of December to refresh the engine compartment. The car had been hit in the front end,and the exterior sheet metal was replaced,the inner damage was hidden by lot's of bondo applied liberally . Instead of pulling out the damage,it was hammered out and all the body contours were lost from the rad support forward. I bought the sheet metal off of a parts car and we joined behind the rad support,and joined the sheet metal . I was very lucky to find a bodyman that did the welding,fitting & painting.I spent many hours stripping to bare metal & removing undercoating.I stripped the bottom as well to the fixed rear transmission crossmember.Next winter will start at the back & work forward. My second attempt at photobucket,so hopefully i get it right.
John


http://s806.photobucket.com/albums/yy347/jewar/MGB%20Engine%20Compartment/

John,

That was quite a project! I can't imagine the hours (not to mention the cost) of putting that all right. Great job.

Steve

I am amazed at what some of you are capable of doing. There is a great amount of talent out there. I wish I had a tenth of that talent, and time.

Great job! That's a great way you are approaching the task, with your welder/body guy. Not just dropping the car off and saying do it...but being involved all along the way.

Great photo post!

That looks Great now John!

Now the fun stuff.

looks greart, have to say that is a pretty brave colour choice, I think I like it , what colour is it

looks great!

Wayne;
It is as close to the original Blaze orange that i have been able to come up with.It is a very close match,to what is on most of the car .The car has had doglegs
and other repairs done on it,when they did they tried to match the blaze and came up with this orange,it is really close to the orange they came up with.Some of the exterior paint is original and the rest is repainted.paint job next year,i hope.
John

It looks even better in person, the photos do not do it justice.

Excellent looking job John!

Wow , great job John

Great job John!

You must be psyched.

Cheers,
Chris

John,

That was an incredible undertaking. Congratulations on an amazing example of what can be done to bring these great little cars back from some really bad condition and poor workmanship (workpersonship?)

After seeing what you went through, I'll never complain about the transmission cross member again!

Your photos were much appreciated. Good work on the PhotoBucket too. This clearly makes you a double inspiration.

Thanks very much,

Joe

Chris:
Psyched versus pscho would be a understatement. For 2 months I progressed backwards,as I removed everything and stripped and cut. All the progress in the other direction has been in the last 2 weeks.Expect questions coming soon guy's,while I took lot's of pictures,never bagged and tagged didn't expect to be that long.
JOhn

Uh oh!!!

I am an obsessive bag n' tagger and photo taker because I have an ability to forget what part I took off from what location within seconds of doing it.

I do have lots of photos taken during the disassembly of the GT engine compartment that I can share if you need 'em.

Cheers,

Chris

Wow. Just wow! Great work.

that just blows me away.... amazing and impressive skill for sure... well done!

Hi All:
Thanks for all the great comments. I must make clear,that I did the grunt work the actual welding,filling & painting were done by my friend . I am guessing that
he spent 20-25 hours in the last 2 weeks here.We both worked our jobs in the daytime,grabbed a bite and started working,he would do it in sections,and then give me my project for the rest of the night,usually until 11:00 , we spent about an hour tonight and his part is finished for now.Felt so weird to come out of the garage at 8:30 and spend time with the family.

Chris,bring it on with the pictures.This photobucket group I took with my son's camera,the ones before with my 5 year old 4mb camera ,the ones from my camera,detail is pretty bad,electronics are starting to go.


John

Looks like a month later, and seem to be getting back on track again. Had a few things that I couldn't believe how long they took,but starting to look up. I kept hearing how hard it was going to be to line up the windshield bolts and was not looking forward at all. It took me a hour this afternoon to get all the bolts in and tightened,by myself . Might as well do it (job creep) has ended up with me doing a rebuild,was supposed to be a freshen but ended up with a .040 overbore. Got the engine from the machine shop on Friday(short block) . Just took one quick picture before the batteries died in the camera,but looking back at my post from a month ago,there has been a lot of progress .
John

Looking good John! Putting it back together gets fun.

Steve

Finally back on it's wheel's . For the first time in about 5 month's the car was moveable . Had company over tonight and you show them what you have done and you can tell,they have no idea on how much work is involved.
John

Looks great John!! Will you be coming w/ us to Hood River for Gary's Run this year? We're looking forward to it!

Paul

Paul:
I wish I was! I had to advise Chris last week that i wasn't going to be able to make it because the car won't be ready. Project creep,has put me about 2 months behind. Hopefully will see you at Bellevue ABFM.
John

Looks like your rolling along good now John!

Now I'll be even more ashamed to open my hood :(

We'll miss you two on Gary's Run. I talked to Paul Clement at a club session on Sat. Sounds like they're going on the Coast version of the run.

P

I have stood up, faced north and just began to clap, bravo!!

And as of tonight,brought the engine home.I have been doing it at my work because of more room there. Redone head(with hardened seats & valves) cam reground,.040 oversize pistons and most of the other pieces replaced. Going away for a week,hopefully that will revitalize me for the final push.
John

Good grief John, no wonder I havent heard or seen you! What a remake. When you're ready for a test run, swing on down!

More room at work my a**. You worked on it throughout the day didnt you? Like me bringing fenders to work and having my fabricator patch and weld during the week so I could finish on the weekend. At least I am providing employment for others!

John L.

Holy Transformation Batman!!!

Very nice John!!!! I have put about 15 miles on my new engine rebuild and my engine bay resto. I am somewhat dissapointed as a few oil leaks are popping up. The engine runs and looks great though. I hope they will stop on their own, haha. Mikek

Hi john:
Mostly on my own time,except for one day when Paul came down & we put in about 2 hours setting up the cam gears & front plate. But there is definitely some creep into work time. I would say doing it at work had good & bad,even though I live only about 10 minutes away,after u leave it's hard to get up the energy to go back,forget one thing at home that u need and u are finished for the night. I will drop by & see u next month I hope.
John

Looks good John...You have been busy.

It's progressing slow,but steady! Thanks to some bigtime help from one of our member's engine is in.The next milestone is getting it running.
John

Yesterday was start up finally! No major problems.A couple of (What the hell's going on!)Forgot to turn the fuel shut off back on after I replaced the fuel tank. I had built up oil pressure before installing motor and had about 70 lbs with
a old triple guage cluster I had laying around. I had converted my electrical guage to the 72 and later mechanical guage,when i fired up yesterday could only get 25 lbs,a little panic over that but it is a bad guage,checked with a borrowed guage and 75 lbs at idle.I can see the end now.

The list is getting down to bleed clutch & brakes,hook up heater cables,replace choke cable,reinstall seat,finish up underhood area,install hood & install Rick's struts,replace drivers kingpin assembly,and torque up the polyurethane bushings that I have installed,on top of this there is a pile of little things that will need to be sorted out.Crossing my fingers on the bleeding the clutch haven't tried to do a MG yet
John

IT's Alive!

Left the garage under it's own power tonight for a short illegal street run. Got some sorting and finishing to do.
But end is in sight. Hope to drive it this weekend. Started on it Christmas time, the might as well do it's extended it 2-3 months.
John

Way to go!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!