MG Sports Cars

The steering on the car is probably lighter than stock. Remember it has those 17" wheels and the steering knuckle actually sits inboard or closer to the wheel centerline by a couple inches. I don't know what Carl is running for an offset or tire width but I know his wheels have to be offset farther to the outside because he is running 14" rims and the knuckle has to clear the rim and tire. So as likely as not a 14" steering wheel might be OK. Kelvin responded to me that he'd like to contribute to the project Bill, he mentioned a 15" black Motolita wheel and hub. What do you guys think about black? Personally for that type of wheel (3 spoke drilled) I'd rather see polished aluminum but Bill, whatever you can work out with Kelvin or otherwise is fine by me. I trust your judgement. Something in the 14-15.5" range I'd say. He has contacted me via MGE PM but I really wish we could all discuss it in the same place. I feel like the middleman in keep-away.

It looks like the speedo sender probably uses the pigtail that fits a #881 fog light bulb. (Has two locking tabs at the sides) I've not been able to find one though. Any help?

Alternator: I don't know about being self exciting but if it works that way I'm fine with it, I guess we'll see. Normally the indicator wire is turned off with the ignition and the sense wire (Brown/Yellow? Blue/White? Has to be one or the other.) has to go through a relay to keep it from draining the battery, which it certainly will do if it is wired up directly to the battery, or perhaps more appropriately in this case, to the large yellow wire. I'm pretty sure that was on the diagram.

JB

Quote:

Well, as you'll note on the List it still needs an antenna

That's cause nobody wanted to drill the hole in the new paint. I thought we should mount the antenna horizontally under the dash. No external antenna. The megawatt station will come in. The heck with the rest.

Steering wheel:

On my car, when cornering, a 14" wheel felt like the car was driving me. A 14.5" wheel provided more leverage & confidence that the car would go where I pointed it.

We won't really know what feels right on the Roadmaster until we try 'em. A 14.5-15" wheel should be great, but a 14" might feel fine.

Bill, that black leather steering wheel would look awesome!

Forgot to mention, I have many, many years experience (38+) driving a MG with a 16.5" steering wheel. My dad's '63 B & my sister's '53 TD. The big wheel seriously encroaches on the leg room. So, whatever we need to do...

Jim:

See answer from Steve re: Alt wires. The brown/yellow is the ignition light wire. (See diagram I sent you.) As he says, ignore the connections-- they kept the light on and killed the battery.

The ONLY "wiring diagram" we were given for the ancillaries was the instruction with the HDI lights. There was nothing for the alternator-- we only copied (with the new harness) what had been there before. You mentioned swapping the black/yellow and white/blue-- we didn't try that. (We were worried about alternator. Steve has had it checked and has reinstalled it. If he says it's working, then it's working!)


RE: Gauges. NO INSTRUCTIONS. There were none in Kentucky when I wired them up for the first start up, and there were none when it came to FC. (Rem: late night phone call to Guzman?!?) I'm not sure why the green/blue in the harness didn't work on the temp gauge, but Steve ran a separate wire and apparently that does make that gauge work. I've never seen the Tach work correctly. Dan and I tried every combination (5-settings) in Kentucky in the blessed hours and it NEVER read correctly.

RE: Speedo. What came with the gauges was an Angle Drive for an MGB-style speedo (NOT a T5 tranny with electric sensing). No pigtail, else we would have put it in. IF there had ever been such, I have no idea. There IS a green wire for you to plug into, once you get it wired. It's up by the pedal box area. :-) Carl thought you could just get the appropriate pigtail from an appropriate Chevy. :-)

RE: tach. The wires are all ring terminal and nuts. Given access from behind (read: "upside down, stick head in foot well" :-) ) it can be disconnected. The dash is wired with it's own harness-- yes, it means No slack in wires (to "keep it tidy"), but it also means less mess-- no labelling required, etc.-- and easily removed. I would *strongly* consider just trying a "normal" 4-cylinder tach and seeing if it reads double. That at least would verify the wiring and condemn the SW tach for good....

RE: distributor. There is a Pertronix under the cap. If you hook up the MSD, note that it does NOT work with a Lucas tach! (Whether that means it also won't work with the SW, I don't know. At 5000 rpm the tach goes totally haywire. This is a known problem in the racing community, and why you rarely see anyone racing with a Lucas tach! (And if they are, they are usually still racing with Points!))

RE: radio. Should come on with the key. With gauges being messed with it's possible some connection has been "disturbed". I would probably check the ignition switch wires first-- whites or white/green (if there is one. I'm forgetting.) The memory setting (clock, presets) is off the purple circuit in the center console-- if the power outlet works and the interior light works, then so should the radio presets. But the MAIN radio power comes from the ignition switch.


Bill: I think that's a GREAT idea with the Steering Wheel! A 14" will only be 1.25" in from each side-- I don't think it'll be too small. (I've run 14" Momo on a couple of my cars.) It'll block the view of the gauges somewhat, but neither of the big gauges is working right now anyway. :-) :-)

Cheers,

M

Ok guys, I'll order a wheel today, Jim you should have it by early next week. We can always change it if it proves too small for one of the larger 15" wheels from Moss or such. If no one else has a need for the original wheel I'd like it to use as a base for another of my cut down wheels like I did for the A and I could use the horn button on my MGA as well as I don't have a good one for that wheel.

Jim,
When you start first Roadmaster and let it idle, the volt meter will read battery voltage. Rev the engine and the voltage goes up to 13-14 and then stays in that range, whether at idle or above. It will vary some, but not much. It needs about 1500 rpm to self excite.

steve

Steve, how the heck did you discover that? Who would have thought that the Japanese alternator we put on the car would work by just connecting the heavy battery lead and nothing else? Then again, why wouldn't it? It just makes sense to build it that way if you think about it. But the thing is, the implications of this go much farther than just fixing the charging system on the GT. By and large Japanese electronics share many commonalities so it is entirely possible that this feature is common to most if not all Japanese alternators. (Another common feature is the need to disconnect the sense wire with a relay to avoid draining the battery.)

What this means to us is that there is a very good chance that we can go out and grab almost any Japanese alternator, mount it, belt it up, hook up a battery wire and be done with it. Not only does this greatly simplify the wiring but it cleans up the engine bay at the same time.

Nice find!

JB

Jim/Bill:

Shouldn't be a worry with Horn Button on the "new" wheel-- I'm pretty sure the '69 is a horn button on the Stalk Switch! :-)

Jim, verify? :-)

M

Quote:

Who would have thought that the Japanese alternator we put on the car would work by just connecting the heavy battery lead and nothing else

My Delco CS121 74amp alternator works the same way - just a heavy battery feed and one connection at the 'L' terminal for the charge light (which is optional).

You're right about the horn Max, I am using the early B column in my A for that reason as well as to get rid of the original MGA vacuum type turn signal switch. I called it a horn button, but all it is is a decorative cover for the wheel center.

I drove the car today but I completely forgot to check the horn. Well, maybe tomorrow.

GOOD NEWS EVERYONE!
I think we're out of the woods on the low oil pressure, the next few days should tell the tale. It had a standard (old, used) pressure relief spring so I swapped it out for the heavier yellow performance spring which is nearly twice as stiff. Then I used one of the long braided hoses Bill Y sent and hooked up a direct reading gauge and started the car and checked the pressure before relocating the sender to the firewall area where it is MUCH more accessible. The gauge reads a little low, maybe as much as 10 psi at midrange (which is 40) and maybe as much as 20 psi at full scale. I know this because when cold this engine produces 50 psi at idle and 100 psi and maybe more when the rpms are brought up, I didn't feel like going for max pressure with a cold engine. So just running around today doing short trips I was regularly seeing readings around 45 psi indicated with the engine speed up. That should be fine if those results hold up.

In other news today, Mickey's column and wheel came in. Usable as a backup plan but requiring quite a lot of work. Obviously we'll be better off with Bill's efforts. Incidentally, judging from driving around today, if we go with something closer to 15" or even 15.5" rather than 14" I think everyone will be satisfied with that and the legroom will be acceptable.

JB

From experience with high oil pressure I would ask how are your oil lines. If you run a remote filter with hoses using hose clamps the high pressure can blow lines off (ask me how I know)..

Gary

re: antennae

I ran my antennae on the floor along the passenger side of the transmmission tunnel, then laid the carpet over it.

Works fine for me.

The new wheel looks pretty good:



Didn't care for the screws supplied so I modded it (of course) with nutserts and 10-32 stainless countersunk SHCS, buffed naturally. Leg room is now quite abundant and I think it drives pretty good with the 14" wheel. Others may disagree if they wish and are welcome to come up with something better if it's that important to them. I think it's just fine. The leather is a little slick but it'll wear in.

Oil lines: Only one we have is the braided one to the pressure sender so no problems there. We used the 215 filter mount and it fits just fine.

I still haven't figured out how to turn on the radio, so I don't guess an antenna is a big deal. Someone will figure it out.

Bill Young, if you want the old wheel I see no problem with that. Except it might be too nice to cut up.

Merv, if you're out there, how do you get the Jag E-brakes to not squeal? Do they just need to wear in?

And Bill Guzman, you had asked about another Roadmaster shirt. I've been "spending" them on small parts and such and so far as I know the only ones left are the ones Jim Watson took, saying he would try to sell them and give us the proceeds. I'd recommend you contact him to see if he has any left. Dan Masters should be able to help you get in touch.

JB

"The new wheel looks pretty good"

That was fast! Looks great.

I saw Jim Watson last night at the ETMGDC in Morristown, TN. He does still have some shirts. What size & how many? I'll call him.

For my antenna, I just cut the end off a generic antenna, stripped the outer insulation and the copper braid off, plugged it in and just let it hang behind the dash out of site. The inner insulation was left on. I left it about a foot long. It works great on local stations. It won't be as good as a regular antenna between towns, but I'd just as soon have bamboo splints under my fingernails as listen to commercial radio anyway.

Wheel looks good! Thx again, Bill! Way to step up.... :-)

M

Thanks Max, don't mind helping when I can. Can't make many of the work weekends so try to help in other ways. Jim, the wheel is pretty good, we should probably sell it and put the money back into the treasury for the insurance or tire fund. I'll find another one somewhere along the line.

Bill, if you make it to the gathering of the Spurious why don't you just take it with you and dispose of it as you see fit?

I still haven't gotten the car out on a curvy road but I think it's about ready now. I have noticed that it does lean a bit and the steering has some slight play in it. Possibly the rack can be tightened up a little, I seem to recall that it might be a new unit that came off Arthur's Cobra so it shouldn't be worn. Maybe I can get out tomorrow and run Hathaway Rd. down to the river to get a little better feel for it. So far nobody has gone to the edge of tire adhesion in the corners so we really don't know which end is going to let go first, although Steve's interpretation of Hap's comments was that he seemed to think there's more lean in the rear. Anyway, I don't think it's that bad but before we go thinking about swaybars we need to know which end is sticking better. Conventional wisdom would suggest that the rear will be the first to go and a front bar would even things up a bit while controlling sway. Yet Hap suggested rear bar. So we need to do some testing. We also need to do some tuning.

Dave Kirkman has been looking for a pigtail for the speedo sender. It is the same pigtail that is used on #881 fog lights on the '98 Dodge Neon and some '83 GMs and 2005 Fords. The connector has two retaining clips, one on each narrow side of the connector. Steve is going to check with his local junkyard also but at any rate we have to have this part before the speedo will work.

The fuel gauge is super erratic at anything under 3/4 full, I mean it jumps all over the place and is very fast. If anyone has any ideas to slow that thing down now would be a good time to mention it before the dash comes back out. I was thinking maybe a capacitor across the lugs would dampen it a little but I have no idea what size one to use, so even a good guess would be helpful.

I'm planning a short road trip in a couple of weeks. Steve warned me about the sharp edge of the console but with the revised gas pedal and the new wheel it may not be too bad. At any rate that will give me the chance to evaluate it.

And last but maybe not least, Max, how do you turn on this stereo? Just push the big round knob, or is it something else?

JB

Speedo Sensor; check items #120 & 121 about 2/3 the way down this page:

[www.transmissioncenter.net]

Sway bar:

If we have more body roll in the rear & more front weight bias (tending to create a push), I can see Hap's rear bar recommendation helping with both conditions. With the power this car will have when dialed in, I think retaining a bit of understeer is good.