MG Sports Cars

Thanks Steve, I appreciate it. It will be good to finish the engine at last.

Rob, those are good suggestions. We dropped it out on a floor jack but going back in is a little more complicated, the big thing is working around the wiring harness and fuel lines. But I'm not going to even try until the fenderwells are cut and some shop cleanup is completed. Things have really gotten quite out of hand here and I have a big job on my hands getting it all straightened up again. Spring cleaning I guess.

By the way, the air cleaner came in today. The casting is a little rough and we will need the knob to fill the large top recess, but we will now be able to fit and trim the hood once the engine is back in the car. Perhaps we can adapt the base of the 14" round chrome air cleaner to use as a base.

Jim

Jim,
I'm hoping to go get the parts from Dale the week after Easter. I'll keep them here and then come to KY on the 22nd. I will probably get there in the early evening, about 7 to 9. I s that okay? That way we can work Thursday, Friday and Sat.

Steve

This is, I hope, the t-shirt we will be selling this year. Notice the changes from last year, some maturity has overtaken the group so we no longer spell out BADASS.
The cost will be $12 for sizes Regular through x-large. If you need an xx-large or bigger PM me and I will order them. They will be $15.
If you want to reserve one PM me and I will hold it till British V8 2009.
The color is sports grey.

Steve

Looks GREAT Steve. I may have to get a couple of the x-large too just in case the xx-large ones I reserved are a little big! I really like the design. Be forewarned though, we may have to change the wheels next year. In fact, you might check with your printer when you have the chance and see if we can superimpose a photo of the actual car. By next spring we should be ready to do that.

Guys, like last year, this will be the only chance you have to get this shirt design. There is a limited number being printed so if you don't buy one now the chance will be gone for good. Better not risk it.

Steve, I will contact Dave and inform him of the schedule change. I am looking forward to your visit this time around probably more than any other! We will be getting very very close to operational. And yes, Wednesday is quite fine.

Do we have anyone in the group who is an artist? Or enough of one to make an attractive job of putting the names of the contributors on the car? At this point I'm thinking felt-tip markers would be perfectly acceptable since we will be painting over it anyway, and it gives a lot of room for trial and error. If nobody steps up I'll be forced to do it and you've all seen the 'lovely' job I did on the driver's side quarter of my Roadster. Is that the sort of artwork you want on your project? Probably not, so step up and be counted! Otherwise, you already know what it's going to look like. Heck, I haven't even been able to come up with an acceptable logo for Blackwood Labs, and I've had 20 years to work on it. So PLEASE, somebody save us from this madman!

Jim

Guys, we need an air cleaner base. This can be any old thing which we can cut down but it needs to fit a 8-1/2" I.D. filter element and it needs to fit a Rochester Quadrajet carb. (Holley should be the same, as well as Edelbrock and Thermoquad) I probably had an old I-H one that would have worked but it is long gone. Have a look around your local junkyard or scrap pile and see if you come up with anything. You won't find the original (too valuable) but we just need something we can make do the job.

Jim

I have a carb base I think will work. Its made out of aluminum and is a little "dinged up". I Think the base will do ok. I'll pass it along to Steve

Thanks Tom, very helpful. One more thing I won't have to worry about.

Well we should have the cam in a couple of days, maybe less. Final fitting on the shocks is finished, a little more work on the brake lines and the IRS is ready. Then on to the wheelwells.

Everyone concerned has OK'd the schedule change after Easter so we're good there as well. Steve, when you get here we need to check the steering for anything out of the ordinary before the engine goes in. I'm mentioning it in case I forget.

Jim

Guys, we need to raise some more funds. Dale is putting up the money to buy our parts for the heads and that is beginning to get into some money. By my reckoning (which is probably low) he's already spent $200 on valves, needs to spend that much more on springs and retainers, and probably close to another hundred on keepers and spring seats (locators) plus there are also the seals which may be another $50 as well. I know he said he'd front us the money until after the show but is it really fair of us to ask that of him after all he has done for us already? So here and now I'm calling for some donations. If you've got $50 you can spare then all we need is 10 or 11 donations that size to cover it. Dale is also going to considerable trouble and expense to host us at his place of business during the V8 meet. I think it's only fair to spread out the burden a little.

So do what you can if you will. Better we should cover this early than end up dragging it out.

Jim

Jim....Do we have a PayPal account set up anywhere for cash donations?

If not, I would be happy to accept this type of payment on behalf of the Deviant Project and forward a check on to Steve.

Rick, as Chair of Ways and Means I think that would be quite appropriate for you to do that and I certainly have no objection. Please carry on!

The cam, lifters and pushrods came in today and look just fine and the cam slides into the block just as it should. The card lists somewhat different specs than shown in the catalog, .505 lift vs about .530 and I'm happy with that. It also gives spring recommendations which should help Dale a bit. I've found the brake line fittings I need and have marked the fenderwells for cut lines. Now that there is going to be a dirty job. The wheelwells are lined with mud. Not looking forward to that one.

Jim

It's time to start thinking about how we are going to set up the rotation schedule.

As a prelude however, at present it appears likely we will have a driveable car at the meet. If we have time to make it safe and street legal I will try to put tags on it. This presumes insurance coverage and we do not have the funds for insurance. So, I am going to try to contact McKeel Hagerty and see if he can work out a special deal for us. If that is successful and the car can be registered (title is already transferred) then we will be able to take it on the street, provided everything checks out properly.

This will take us into the next phase of the project, namely testing. Ted suggested that we test for a year prior to tear down for paint and wiring. That seems reasonable to me. The question then becomes, "Who is going to do the testing?" Initially I will do that for obvious reasons but I would not expect to have to spend more than, oh say something like 3 months to get all the bugs worked out, after which it can go to the next member and make the rounds until it is time to tear down.

So what factors do we use to determine who takes the car when? Obviously the individual has to be willing to do so, but do we go by largest contributions first? Geographic location? And then there's the issue of pre-paint vs. Post-paint. Do we start the rotation over after paint for instance? This means the members who weren't able to contribute as much will have to wait longer to have the car but it also seems appropriate for the big contributors to get it after it's freshly painted.

I know we're a congenial enough group to sort all these details out without anyone feeling mistreated, but if you would, please give us your thoughts on the matter. What seems right to you?

Jim

More progress, the brake lines on the IRS are plumbed and ready to connect, and I cut the wheelwells.

Now not everyone is going to like what I've done, but before you complain I'd just like to point out that you weren't here and that everyone had plenty of notice and more than a fair chance to come on over and do the job to your own satisfaction. You left it to me. Also bear in mind that the last time I did this job I did it with a cutting torch and this time it's much neater. I got a little better job of it on the passenger's side, practice y'know. Bill, you'll notice I used hard lines instead of the braided ones, there just wasn't room for them, but they might really help in making the connection to the car. So now everything is in readiness for final installation of the IRS, and without further ado, here are the photos.

Jim

Jim,
Everything looks really good. Can't wait to see it in person.

Steve

Cash donations for the British American Deviant Automotive Sportscar Society can now be made via PayPal to:

mowog1@aol.com

Please indicate "BADASS Donation" in the subject line of your correspondence.

All proceeds go to the building and maintenance of this big-block Buick powered MGB/GT. HAve you got $10, $20, $50, $100 to spare to help get this project on the road? Your donation ***could*** also be tax deductable.

This low-budget, group effort of British-American engineering of a high performance sportscar by unpaid professionals and amatuers could use a financial shot in the arm...and YOU can help!

If you are not familiar with this project, you can follow its process here:

[forum.britishv8.org]

Thanks in advance for your assistance....

rick ingram
Chairman - Ways and Means

I wonder if we should consider starting a photo-journal separate from this log? We could then send the hyper-link to any individual interested in its photo-history.

I've had a couple of requests to see pictures...and folks are hesitant to wade through 33 pages of dialog to catch all of the photos.

We may be able to get more donations this way as well...by giving the car some photo credibility.

Just a thought.

Rick, if you can mine this thread for the photos, or use the embedded links in this thread then I'd say it is worthwhile. You could then place regularly spaced links back to the whole story for those interested in the entire history. I just checked and you can bring up the photos' properties along with the link location and should be able to copy and paste the jpg's as well. The file numbers are not sequential, indicating that they are not segregated by thread so it would appear there is no quick and easy way to grab them all at once though. I do have most of them in a couple of folders but there are also photos I didn't use for one reason or another and some that I never copied over to the folder. But there must be literally hundreds of photos by now.

Anyway, it seems like a reasonably good idea if you want to go ahead with it. Let me know if I can do anything to help, but please remember I'm trying to get the car done, first and foremost.

And, having said that, the IRS is now back under the car and partially bolted in. I should be able to get the rest of the bolts in tomorrow and then I'm going to fit some tires to it and play with the spring settings, and maybe even hook up the brake line and look at the e-brake cable.

Jim

Jim, the brake lines look good, no problem with me there! Use what works and if the lines I sent you don't work then use them on your car or do whatever you want with them, I have plenty and they didn't cost me a dime. Rick, the photo journal sounds like a good idea. I've already mined a few that I included in the Power Point presentation I was working on. I'll send you an e-mail with the link to them when I get them posted.

OK, got more photos:



Here is what it looks like with the Corvette wheels and tires at full suspension compression. Good clearance all around but it needs 1/2-3/4" less backspacing as inside clearance is inadequate and it hits in a couple places. This wheel has 7-1/4" backspacing so 6-1/2" would be the correct amount to use, pushing the tire out another 3/4". This tire is a 315/35-17 on about an 11 or 11-1/2" wide rim. It wouldn't take a whole lot of flare to cover these but here again, they would stick out another 3/4".





This is with the Jaguar 215/whatever-15" tires and 4-1/2" backspacing. These work on the back OK and don't stick out too bad at all. The matching wheels on the front hit the Dodge brake calipers though. With a 5/16" spacer they would clear (I stacked washers to check) but the lug nuts we have give only 1 thread of engagement, really only adequate for checking and not even enough to put the weight of the car on it. Jaguar used some lug nuts that had a shoulder that extended down into the wheel and if we had those we might get by with these wheels temporarily. It looks like 16" wheels will clear fine in both the front and the back and 17's give a nice safety margin.



In the above photo the suspension is set too low and I raised it to the proper height for the IRS. I don't have a photo of that, maybe I left it in the camera. What is considered the normal height of the chrome strip? We're at just a little over 27" at the bottom.

The suspension feels good and it's going to give a noticeably more comfortable ride but we will probably need a sway bar back there as well as in the front.

Jim

Jim,
I have a set of Jag lug nuts, but they will not fit the studs on the front of the car.
We would have to find some with the right thread.

Steve

Yeah, I remember there being something a little weird about that but it doesn't make sense to me. Both the front and the rear use a 1/2" stud and the rear hubs are stock jaguar. So I don't know what is up with that. That would be a goofy fix anyway and we don't have the spacers. I sent Tom the new info on the wheels, maybe he'll get lucky and find something off a GM car that will work. Who knows? Cadillac maybe?

I bought the water pump (Thank you Bill) and I'm getting ready to order pan and valve cover gaskets. I think it will be a good idea to enlarge the oil pump pick-up passage as this has universally been recognized as a problem area. I can enlarge that passage in the block without contaminating anything, but the 5/8" pickup tube is expensive at $69. Still it's a lot cheaper than wiped out bearings and now is the time to do that. This and the other oiling mods should guarantee a good supply of oil to the bearings. Regrettably we do not have enough money to cover the cost of the gaskets and the pickup tube. That old song is getting real familiar.

Jim