MG MGB and MGB GT Tech Talk
A few folks have asked about photos of the Huffaker MGB race car we are currently restoring, so here goes. This shot is of the chassis on the rotisserie we built specialy for the car. In this picture, the car has had all the body repairs and fab work finished and is in primer. We started with the first of three paint shoots today and will update with more photos.
Yeah I know I need to get the pic size dialed down. Actually it's alot more than a start, everything is ready to bolt on the new chassis, all the suspension has been yellow zinc plated or powder coated, we shot the first paint today, all the bolt on panels are already painted finished and we should be ready to move the car into the main shop and off the rack by mid next week, when final assemebly will start. It has a fresh race engine and new Quaife dog-box racing tranny ready to go in as well. Joungbloed has all the wheels right now and are re-doing them. This car will be on the race track testing in 6 weeks and at the Mitty in Atlanta in a little than 8 weeks.
We will have totally restored this car in 6 months, I'm still have a hard time believing we have gone this far so quick.
Hap, looks great. I'll be at the Mitty, I can't wait to see it.
Why is there a whole cut in the boot? Or am I not seeing that correctly?
Do you have a pic of how the roll cage attaches to the front of the car?
Don't they usually just sit in the boot? I didn't realize you needed to cut a big hole like that.
Mark, some people just set them in the trunk, but it's not the smart way to do it on a real race car, rules allow you to mount the cell no closer than six inches to ground. The cell has it's own bolt in structure which allows it to drop below the trunck floor but yet still be six inches from the ground, the whole idea is to lower the center of gravity.
I give you guys a little more history on this project. This is one of the 5 original Huffaker "single hoop" MGB race cars built in the 70s for British Leyland, two of the cars were wrecked and wrote off over the years, two more have changed from thier BL specs over the years through SCCA rule changes. This car is the only remaining original "single hoop car left. I was the third owner of the car back in the 80s, I raced it 28 times including the 1986 and 1987 SCCA runoffs and sold the car in 1990 to a private collector who kept it with his other classic cars in very good shape until my friend Eddie Beal bought it back in the fall. The car was still really nice, but the color had been changed over the years, and although nice was not new, but he wanted like new. So we took the car one time back in August to test and he drove it that one day and then we started the restoration. The great thing about this car, was it was original and in really good shape.
A few neat things about car it has a set of Mike Barrett HS8 carbs on the very rare factory comp intake, Mike Barrett was competition director for BL, he did a very few set of carbs on the side, we got one of the few set s he did. The two engine both still have the original Huffaker bottom ends, I still have the original Huffaker heads and cam, but now the car run Comptune heads and cams which produce more horsepower. The car will have a new Quaife rocket 4spd dog engagement tranny with a Tilton annular throw out bearing, in other words no slave cylinder. The rear end on the car is a banjo center esction with salisbury ends weld on the housing to accept the stronger salisbury axles but keep the advantage of the bango housing and being easily able to swap diffs for different tracks. The orginal wheels were Joungbloed, we are having them rebuit and changed to 15"' rim halves. I could on and on about this car. I will get more pics up soon as we complete the paint.
Hap,
Your project photo almost fell off the bottom of the page before I saw it ... very nice project. My racer didn't require the fuel cell and had the original tank below the trunk floor, and an old drag racer moon tank in the trunk with a filler through the trunk lid for endurance races. I doubt I will race endurance, so I will likely cut the fuel cell through and leave the old underfloor tank as a cover to remain authentic. The empty moon tank will be through piped to the cell to maintain the Monza filler in the trunk deck. I know it is a race car, but I am trying to maintain as many of the unique vintage race parts that I can, and still be vintage race legal. Just need to figure out what to do about the roll-hoop. Your hoop is a nice example, but I am trying not to have forward bars. Will your hoop be current SCCA legal?
Mike Adams
Mike, no the cage is no longer SCCA legal, but we will be racing with the HSR vintage group, so it's fine with them.
Heres another photo, the silver which is the exterior color is now shot on the chassis. Thge silver is the origianl color of the car form Huffaker, silver diamond metallic, 1975 Porsche color.
Here's another photo, this was the first shoot, which was Zolatone in the floorboards and battery shelf, Zolatone looks like the splatter paint that was found in many domestic cars in trunk, often called splatter paint. I use POR15 on the floor and use thier patch material, which I have to say worried me as the patches were very noticable afterward. We sanded down the POR15 as level as possible and then applied 5 coats of urathane primer to build in smoothness. Mostly the holes the patches were used for were drilled holes from different driver seats. The Zolatone was thick and so busy it perfectly hid all the patchwork. As much grief as this part of the project caused me I very happen with the results.
Here's a picture of a very painstaking part of the project that if pulled off never get's noticed. The third link bar on the Huffaker three link rear supension hit the battery shelf when the car was built, it appears that someone had simply just hammered clearance into this area to keep the third link from hitting the chassis. needless to say it looked like a lumpy mess on the car. On most modern-day SCCA race car you would just build a box to clear the third link, but on this car that would stand out like a sore thumb as not original. So our solution was to hand dolly a relief in the battery shelf that would appear to be part of the stamping rather than a mod. We first cut with a palsma cutter a eybrow in the rear firewall of about 1/2" and then hand hammered the battery shelf floor back up into the the reliefed rear floorboard to close the gap of the eyebrow we had cut making a bigger relief for the third link. we hammer for hour till we got the shape we wanted and then it was close enough to only use a very small amount of filler to smooth out the lumps. this was another part of the project I worried about but it turned out great, but few will ever know the amount of work that took place in the this small part of the car.
Hap,
You might have convinced me to put in a textured surface on my floor with your pictures. Since this thread is falling into the archives, I will post my floor pictures in the Motorsport forum.
Mike Adams
