This last spring I sent my dizzy to Jeff, which he rebuilt and changed it to a Pertronix. When I installed and timed it, I found that the vacumn advance pointed to far to the front of the car, and that it interfered with the dip stick. I needed to remove the dizzy and the dizzy housing and the drive spindle underneath it to rotate it back one tooth on the gear.

You'll need one tool, a 5/16" X 24 bolt about 3 1/2" to 4" long. First I static timed the engine and removed the dizzy. Then you can see the housing which has one countersunk screw in it. Thread the 5/16' bolt into the spindle in the engine block, it shouldn't have to be more than finger tight. I made a mark with a marker pen on it so I could see where the bolt was initially before I removed the spindle.

The hardest part was removing the countersunk screw. The last person who put it in had reused and old screw or had torn up the slot in the screw head. After the screw came out, the housing needed some small taps with a mallet to rotate it loose, be carefull here, you don't want to break this part, I think their unavailable.
Once the housing was loose, it slid right out and then you could see the spindle in the block. Whoever put it in last had it so that the slots were at 3 and 9 o'clock, they should be at 2 and 8 o'clock.
I removed the spindle, it rotates a little as it comes out, and turned it one tooth counterclockwise and slid it back in. I put a new countersunk screw in that I got at the local LBC garage, it should be a 1/4" X 28, with a grip length of 5/8" and a 7/8" total length.
I put the dizzy back in, timed it and I was done. There's lots of room between the dipstick and advance unit now and the pinch clamp is much more accessible to get at also.
Really a very easy job to do.

Here's some pictures of the Spax shock conversion that was done on my car about 10 years ago. This was done long before I bought the car in 2008. I'm not sure if their better than the original lever shocks, I'll have to wait and see after I put some more miles on them and have a chance to compare it with other cars.

Well I had a chance to drive this car for 6 weeks before I put it away for the winter. I put some miles on it and had some fun in doing it, but I also found some things that need some work.

One of them was the heater, I had air blowing but no heat. Earlier I ordered some gaskets and other parts for the car. When I got those I was ready to drain the anti-freeze. After that was done I pulled the thermostat and the heater valve.
Well it was obvious right away that the cause was, it was a blocked valve. I pulled it apart with directions from Bob M. on his web site. It came apart real easy and I cleaned it out, but the casting has too much corrosion to save. I posted this infomation earlier on the forum and got some good advice from the members. Some said it may have been blocked from someone using stop leak in the cooling system. I think it was a combination of that and the car wasn't driven very much in the last 4 years before I bought it.

While I have the system drained I'll pull the radiator and have that cleaned at a shop, and I'll have a look at the water pump and make sure that looks OK. I also have to replace the core plugs because 2 of them weep. Next spring when it warms up I can flush the system and get everything back together.

I took my last drive in my MGB for the 2008 season two days after Thanksgiving.
It was about 42F with mostly sunny skies and calm winds the last few days. Really great weather for the end of November in Minnesota. I put on about 40 miles that last day with an additional 55 miles the day before.

On Thanksgiving I brought it over to the in-laws for our turkey dinner and later my wife and I went over to my sisters place to visit with my family.

Thanksgiving was the first time some of my family had seen my car as I only bought it about 6 weeks earlier. I wanted to let my nephew have a chance to drive my car. It was his first time behind the wheel of a MGB, and I'm sure he got a kick out of it. He likes old cars and things like that and he's heard me and his dad talk about the MG's we had in the '70's.
His dad had a '63B he bought sometime around '72 and I'm sure that had a large influence on me buying my '69B in '73. His dad later owned a Jaguar XKE for some years in the '70's. I think it was a '66, I remember it had a 4.2 liter straight 6 that I got a chance to drive once.

The picture is of my nephew Andy and my car shortly after our drive. I can't wait until next spring when I can really give him some time behind the wheel and go to some MG events together.

By the way, he's 24 and owns a '50 Mercury, he's pretty cool.

Now that the driving season is over up here in Minnesota it's time to get some work done on the car for next summer. There's been some minor issues, like the side cover leak I fixed and the fact that I have no heat in the car. It blows air but it has no warmth at the outlets. I know the usual suspects are the heater valve and the core, and I'll work on them after I drain the anti-freeze. I recently ordered gaskets and other parts and I want to have them on hand before I drain the fluid.

Other things I want to work on or improve are the carbs, I want them cleaned up and polished with the intake manifold painted. It runs good with good smooth power, but I haven't been able to get the idle set correctly, and I don't want to mess with them too much with out knowing first what I'm doing.
I also want the dizzy changed to electronic for the relibility factor.

I also want to look at the brakes and see what condition their in and maybe while I have them off I'll bead blast and then paint them. I have a strong fuel odor in the boot so I'm planning on removing the fuel separation tank and replacing the lines back there. Other than that I'll clean up some parts and replace some hoses under the bonnet as I go along.

After the side cover leak was fixed, the next time I had a chance to drive it was about a week later. I took it out around the block on two different days, about 5 miles each. I just wanted to get things up to normal temps and make sure that I didn't have any more leaks. On the second test drive I brought my wife, it was the first time in a MG for her. I think she liked it, she said she felt kind of special riding in it.

A couple of days later it was sunny and about 48F and then I really took it out for a drive. I put on about 60 miles that day. I stopped near a pond and a lake where there was some late fall color left. I wanted to get some good pictures before the winter came.

These are some of the pictures I took, I hope you enjoy them.

I drove my new MG from the previous owners home, 31 miles on the freeway. I needed to have the choke about 1/2 out at the stop lights, but I didn't use it on the freeway. The instrument light was out in the speedo and I had a hard time trying to guess just how fast I was going. I could see that the needle pointed at the 12 O-clock position but I didn't know what speed that was. It was to dark to see and that part of the speedo was covered up by the steering wheel. I just guessed I was going about 60-65MPH.

Boy did that drive feel good, that was the first real time behind the wheel of a MG in over 30 years. It felt great to be in the car, with the same seating position and sounds reminding me of when I last drove my '69 and I was in my 20's.

The car ran great with about 70lbs oil pressure and the temps running nice and steady.

A couple of days later when I got back from work I had my first chance to go for a drive. I got about 1 mile down the road and smelled hot oil, so I immediately turned around and went home. I looked under the bonnet, and I had about 3 or 4 small oil puddles on the driveway about 2 or 3 inches in diameter. Nothing really serious but definitely an oil leak to fix. I started looking around to find the source of the leak, it was on the left side of the engine and behind the exhaust manifold. That pretty much means only one thing, the tappet covers. So I pulled the carbs and the intake manifold off, and then the exhaust. The next day I got a set of gaskets from one of the local repair shops that deal with these cars and replaced the front side cover gasket. As soon as I saw the old gasket it was no wonder it leaked. The corner of the gasket got kinked or twisted when it was last installed and it was only a matter of time before it leaked.

I'm just glad it didn't happen at night on the freeway on my way home from the previous owners place.