April-May 2009
Finished with paint removal. Approx 24 hours in sanding, grinding over the course of a week or so.

Using slide hammer to pull out dents to sill revealed missing rivets holding bottom edge to mating piece. Also jacking point welds broken, pulled loose. L- brackets fabricated and welded in place to strenghten jacking point. Welded sill bottom edge back together rather than using rivets.

Have decided to paint outside myself sith base coat/clear coat. Approx $350 in materials. Best estimate from paint/body shop was $1,800-$2,000 after I had stripped old paint and done dent repairs.

January 2009
Began process of stripping for re-spray. Plan is to go with Base coat/clear coat in New Racing Green. I will attempt to do all prep work myself and find someone willing to spray for me.
Removed all chrome and began sanding with my new Ryobi dual-action 5 inch. Surprise, surprise, car was previously Mallard Green. Who knew? Amazingly the New Racing Green was apparently applied during body off. Jambs, under dash, everywhere covered!
Biggest problem areas, two dents in sill area below passenger side door. Bonnet has a couple dings as well. No rust apparent in sills - or anywhere else for that matter.

While headlights out, I did rig emergency pull wire to the bonnet release in case of remote release cable failure.

November 2008
Finally getting around to installing the interior, boot carpet kits I bought Spring 2006. Only used pad for on top of the transmission tunnel and under the batteries cover. Installation fairy simple, looking good.
Purchased some black vinyl from E-Bay and recoverd radio console, which exhibits badly cracked, deteriorated condition. Deft use of scissors and heat gun along with 3M spray adhesive and it's finished! While messing around, rewired radio to always hot brown circuit, painted face plate flat black.
Next was recovering door cappings. New vinyl big improvement as existing is badly UV damaged.
Boot carpet finished last, looks good. Fairly simple installation. The only thing I used adhesive on was panel on forward bulkhead. Minor trimming, cutting required for fuel filler tube and expansion tank. Cleaned up and painted spare hold-down bolt. Thoroughly washed spare, checked air pressure.

Was able to address several leaks this week. Coolant was traced to failed 1 1/2" bypass hose on water pump. Transmission fluid traced to loose inspection covers cap screws on bottom of overdrive, and crankcase oil traced to pan gasket which still needs to be replaced.

Still to do: spray some clear on spare wheel and clean up the other four wires and get them painted.

It's 75-80 degrees and sunny first week of December - first time top down cruising this time of year for me and the B! Luv S. Carolina...

So I've been driving the car with everything working for several months now. With help from a local LBC mechanic I replaced a number of nettlesome items inclucing the overdrive with a rebuilt unit from Quantum Mechanics, rear main seal, failed flexible brake lines and front disc pads, kinked rear hard brake lines and linings, speedometer cable, water temperature sensor, brake system check switch/light and plug at brake valve body, voltage stabiliser, failed oil cooler hose, and passenger side sun visor. Coolant temperature gauge still reads high but I've learned that the correct sensor is no longer available. Speedo is still quite bouncy but attempts to rectify with $60 angle drive at the overdrive end were unsuccessful as the angle drive is no good.

But I'm at the point now where at least everything works. I'm a little dissatisfied with the fact that I still get the puff of smoke on startup, but car runs well and is getting around 26 mpg using premium unleaded to avoid run-on. Also was able to use a friends media blaster to clean up spare wire wheel and prime and paint it. Wire wheels are pretty bad looking and the other four need same treatment at some point when I can get time to pull all four.

Today I think I may have (finally!) figured out why O/D hasn't been working. It's been quite a saga lasting some six months now...

Jack did r & r motor and trans but was unable to get O/D to work as engaging it after repair caused my newly installed fuse to blow. Fuse (thank god) is in the yellow lead under steering column. And Jack did get emergency brake to work, replace funky plug in intake manifold with a proper copper one, I had a car to get to work, and the speedo did work for about 30 minutes.
All along I've been driving without the overdrive and there've been seemingly constant issues. First was the dash, basically all that works is the tachometer and oil pressure. Temp, fuel gauges inaccurate, blower fan switch inoperative, speedo dead, brake pressure test not working. Very frustrating as most of this all worked before engine overhaul. Also, found disconnected wire under dash to get courtesy light to come on with driver's door switch. Replace several of the four-way female bullet connectors at various places of wiring harness. All lights, horn, hazard flasher, turn signals, cig lighter, o/d engaged light, work.

As I was working full time and didn't have anyway to get to Blowing Rock soon, I ordered new packings for o/d relief valve, solenoid, gasket, etc. and attempted to put this all in in an attempt to put o/d back in working order. NOT! Put check ball where it doesn't go in relief valve and it is now lost forever in the bowels of the lump. John at Quantum Mechanics assures me it probably won't do any harm, so today I fault traced why my light wouldn't come on and unit wouldn't even attempt to engage. At least the light had worked prior to my changing out the solenoid.

Another issue was the water pump began to leak, whick pointed up the fact that I hadn't replaced the alternator, starter, or heater core when overhauling the engine, anyway replaced it and moved on.
And then the front passenger side brake lining was worn to the point of grooving the rotor - I cheated and just put new linings on both sides. Driver's side linings were fine indicating that p/s caliper is probably hanging up.
And then I ran out of gas due to inaccurate fuel gauge, attempted calibration with my ohmeter and ran out again with about half the width of the needle to go before empty.
Possibly the most frustrating was the day I intended to go to Metrolina MG Club meeting in Matthews. It was the week of my birthday, so I was on my way to insurane company to reup policy, and had fuel issues again, within days of running out completely, this day was a broken jet and bad packing in the fuel bowl on the front carb. Stinking mess and car down for a week while I got parts from VicBritish. Ugh!

So, to make a long story longer, today I traced the 12V down to the trans and sure enough, there was the problem. In my misguided attempt at installing the new solenoid, which by the way I removed and verified it's operation today, but I noticed that as I had pulled so hard on the wires to get solenoid lead plugged in, I had disconnected one of the leads from the 3rd/4th gears interlock. Now to figure out how to get my fat hands up there to reattach it. And maybe, just maybe I'll be back in business with a properly functioning overdrive. Maybe that well result in five more miles per gallon, eh?! I think gas has gone up a dollar per gallon in the time I've been monkeying with this silly thing. Last time I drove it with overdrive was last September, I think.