MG Sports Cars

Looking good.....nice job with E-Bay, as well!

Dave Van Wyck stopped by a couple of days ago on his way back to the great white north (Michigan that is) following a stint in the sunny south (and how I envy that trip). We met at Ted's winter party and it turned out he was looking for some 215 conversion parts and also was in the business of making custom exhaust headers, now mostly retired. Dave was very interested in our project and wants to be involved, so he took measurements and photos and asked me to get him an exhaust manifold gasket, which I will order as soon as TA Performance opens for business the first of the week. Dave is going to lay out the parts and prepare sketches of two options for exhaust, one a tubular shorty fenderwell header, and the other a tubular fenderwell log exhaust, and once we have those we can pick which one pleases us the most. Then once he has had the chance to cut the pieces we will take the car up to his place and let him fit it all up. This is great news to all of us and neatly handles one of the more troubling aspects of the conversion, so now, those of you who happen to be somewhat well heeled and waiting in the wings just to see where this experiment will go, the riddles are mostly solved and your very own all aluminum Buick 455 engined MGB is one large step closer, as Dave will undoubtedly keep the patterns. It looks very much like our pledge of leading the way to a BBB MGB with the same weight as a stock vehicle is well on the way to being met. Not that this one will do that, but we are close enough that a TA aluminum block and Ted's IFS will surely finish the job.

We put him up for the night, greatly enjoyed the visit, and sent Dave on his way a happy man, several steps closer to his own 215 conversion as many of the parts I will not be able to use with my new 340 were now in his truck. He was happy, I was happy, the project got a big boost, and just as importantly we made new friends. In the end I think that's probably the greatest benefit of all.

Jim

Jim,
That really looks good.
We do have about $700 in our massive treasury.
I have alittle trouble keeping up since I get most of the information second hand.
Hope there will be something left to do when I get up there in April.

Steve

Oh, I don't think there's any worry about that Steve. Right now I'm negotiating for parts and I should know more in a day or two. I've got the specs for the coil-overs and will try to contact Ted about them tomorrow plus check on a starter, then there's a package deal I'm working on which could net us most of the engine parts we need including a flywheel. I'll post again when I have more details.

Jim

The coil-over shocks are ordered and should be in within a few days. We all know these are expensive, but I figure Ted saved us close to a hundred by getting them for us at his cost. Also, Jamie McClinton from the V8Buick forum donated a mini starter to the project. Jamie is a very respected vendor on that site and sells mini starters that fit the BBB, SBB, and V6 Buick for $165, which is quite a bit better price than you can get for a generic one at the local parts store. He takes extra steps to insure that they fit, work right, actually start the engine the way they are supposed to do right out of the box, and to improve durability and reliability. He's the go-to source over there for starters. He also supplies starters for the Nailhead motors and may have something for the BOPR as well, though I haven't asked yet. [www.v8buick.com]

Another member over there, "Coach", has donated a mild Isky cam, lifters and pushrods, and another, Kurt "455 Powered" [www.v8buick.com] has valves and associated parts he'll make us a deal on so we're rolling along pretty good. At this point we have maybe $250 we can afford to use and still keep a minimum balance in the checking account. I have a little over a hundred of that yet to deposit but I will probably wait until after I transfer the title, probably tomorrow. I had the Sheriff's deputy out today to inspect the VIN number and after hearing what we were doing he waived $10 of the $15 inspection fee.

I have people looking for a flywheel and other parts, but one thing we really need badly and that I am quite certain somebody has, is the lower oil pump housing, or cover that the oil filter screws on to. The one we need comes off a 215 and has the oil filter shooting straight out rather than going off at an angle. This was the stock 215 piece so there have to be quite a few of them out there but for whatever reason I'm having a real problem getting one. I just know one of you guys have got one you aren't using. So give it up! Donate it to the project already! Or, if we must, we'll buy it.

Jim

Remember Allen Mandeen? He's the Buick guy out in Kansas who donated the 455 engine that we're using in this project. Then Bill Young and Dan Jones transported the engine back here so we could begin the build in earnest with the proper engine.

Well, Allen has just donated a flywheel. This is no small matter, manual transmission 455 flywheels are not that common and aftermarket ones start at about $300.

We will have to surface it, and get a clutch and pressure plate, plus the one other part we will need is the HTOB. We may have to take up a collection for that.

This is great news! One more major hurdle bites the dust!

So can we make it by June? I don't know but we're sure going to try.

Jim

I should have the oil pump housing. I'll look later today.

Thanks Carl, that'd be great. That one little piece will allow us to use a standard screw-on filter and avoid oil lines and such.

I need to make a small correction, it was Eric DeGroat, Steve's brother who brought the 455 back from Kansas, and then he and Steve brought it up from down south. A small mistake but I want to give credit where it is due whenever possible. Bill and Dan were going to do it but had trouble making the connection with Allen due to distance.

We're looking at right after Easter to do the exhaust, then the heads go to Dale. We also need to get him the flywheel and flex plate for balancing, Allen said he'd go ahead and get it resurfaced for us.

That pretty much leaves clutch, pressure plate, and HTOB. A plain generic GM clutch and pressure plate should do fine, (11 inch preferred) and any HTOB that will work in a garden variety GM V8 application should also work.

Jim

We're one step closer. Dale will get us the parts for the heads at cost and defer payment until after the meet. Now I realize this is "credit" and something that I had hoped to avoid, but the amount is probably going to be around $300 which is surely not more than we can raise, if by no other means than by selling spare parts. I don't have time to do that until after the show and Rob's too far away, but I have a small trailer load of parts if someone wanted to take on that part of the project. Just make a road trip here and load them up.

That leaves the HTOB, clutch and pressure plate. I will check out prices on the clutch and pressure plate and probably pick them up locally. I will then let you all know what funds we have left to put towards the HTOB and other final expenses. (For instance, flexible brake lines.)

Guys, we've almost made it as far as the purchases go. There's still a lot to do and I'll need help with it but I think we can pull this off.

Jim

Jim, I have a lot of -4 teflon braided stainless hose salvaged from my job. I've used it on my Midget throughout the car without problems. Give me an estimate of the length of the lines we need and I'll send you some tubing. I don't have all the fittings, but I'll try to get lines long enough so we can cut them and make two lines from the original piece and only have to buy one new fitting for the cut ends.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/20/2009 12:30PM by Bill Young.

Excellent Bill. I'll do some measuring in the next day or so.

Jim

I believe I now have the paperwork all squared away. I deposited the $113.70 that was left from the sale of the heads (that includes the last of the proceeds from the donated alloy 300 heads) and aluminum 8.8 housing after subtracting costs of the coil-overs, header gaskets, redi-sleeve (for the damper seal) and VIN inspection plus shipping on the mini starter, and I just got back from the clerk's office. On the title transfer we were asked to pay $84 in fees and taxes($75). I'm inclined to think that we should be exempt from the tax but without a ready answer I just had to go ahead and pay it. When I get the chance I'll look into that and see if we can get that back, but it may not be before the fees come due again next year.

Bottom line, with a balance of $278.97 before title transfer we are now at $194.97 and of course we need to keep at least $20 or so in the account. So we've got $175 to work with. I found a GM OEM HTOB for about $125 on ebay including shipping and sent the link to Carl to see if he thought that would work. I've also found several clutch and PP sets at about the same price. Well, the clutch & PP come first so that the PP can be balanced with the flywheel. That puts us about $75 short on the HTOB if everything works out, plus if we ship parts to Dale we're looking at nearly $200 in shipping charges. (both ways) Add in what we'll have to pay Dale for the valves and such and we're almost $600 short. I'll do everything I can to make this work, but I can't even possibly cover that, you guys are going to have to help out some if it's going to happen. It probably won't take $600 but a hundred here and there should come real close.

Oh, and I did finally set up the bank account for online access. I will be getting the log-in information to Steve right away.

Jim

A clutch package has been purchased and shipped to Dale. It's a pretty generic 11" Corvette setup. Allen is sending him the flywheel after it has been surfaced and is sending us a rebuilt Q-jet carb and $20 for flywheel bolts. We also need to buy pressure plate bolts. The starter has arrived and is bolted into place. It clears nicely. We are waiting on the cam, the coil-over shocks, and a few other small bits. I'm working on completing the engine mounts and hope to finish up within the week. Then I'll get back to the rear suspension and finish that up.

I've begun fender and tub work on the mule and now know where the cuts will need to be made for the flares. What has to be decided is how wide to go and to fit up the Omni pieces and see how well they will cover and at what width. [forum.britishv8.org] next to last post.

The last mechanical piece of the puzzle is the clutch release. We have two choices. Well, three really. HTOB is the simplest. An external pull cylinder is also an option, it appears there is room for one. Third possibility is a cable release. I haven't really looked into that one but will investigate it a bit more today. I kind of like that idea really, if we can make it work. But with the later style pedal box I have doubts.

Jim

Jim, any chance on the clutch that you could use a setup similar to the solution I found for my Midget? I'd think if you have room for a pull type slave that you might have room on the engine side for a small diameter slave cylinder such as the Spitfire/1500 Midget piece and it's mount.
Braided stainless lines shoud be there tomorrow or Wednesday. Let me know if you need anything else.

I don't know Bill, it might be possible to go through the area where the extra starter bulge that we cut out was. We'd have to shorten the clutch fork pretty drastically... well we don't even have one yet so we'd have to get one first.

By the way, the brake lines got here today along with the brake pawl. Looks pretty usable to me, tomorrow should be warmer and I'll try to get out to the shop for awhile.

Jim

Jim, if I remember correctly I took about an inch off my clutch arm. I mounted the slave just about as far out as I could in the ear and angled the push rod slightly out and up to get it in alignment. With the stock diaphragm pressure plate from the Camaro the clutch effort is still pretty comfortable. We may not be able to do that with the stronger pressure plate for a V8 car though. I was mainly suggesting that the Spitfire slave was nice and slender and the mount wasn't too large either, certainly should be easier to make room for than a stock B slave which is pretty bulky in design. If you need any more line just let me know.

Bill, I don't think the clutch arm is going to be able to extend out beyond the opening in the bellhousing. For sure there isn't room for a push rod out there. The rod will have to be inside if we can go that way. There isn't a flex plate on it right now so I don't know how much room we're going to have outside the ring gear but the rod will have to sneak by pretty close to that. Should be room enough to do it, since there's room for the starter on the other side, but we'll probably have to cut 2 or 3 inches off the clutch fork. That won't be a problem if we get the right slave cylinder but it could take a good bit of experimentation to get it right, and the parts stores aren't real fond of taking cylinders back once you put fluid in them.

Hopefully tomorrow I can get a better look at it. We may be able to run some calculations to get close.

Jim

Jim, if there's not room outside the bellhousing for the release arm then I think as you first said the HTOB is the way to go. Without that length on the arm, getting the ratios right and the correct slave cylinder would be a pain in the butt.

It'd be the simplest but we don't have any money to buy one.

Jim

A couple photos of the starter, showing the clearance with the frame rail:





And the coil-over shocks which just came in.



These were only available with the 1/2" eyes, so we must reduce the 5/8" mounts to that size. Easiest way would be if we could get some 5/8" x 1/2" (1/16" wall) tubing. I'll check my stock but I think all I have is .040" wall stainless. Bill, any chance you've got something?

Jim