[QUOTE=Inigo Montoya]
Me too. And the rear-end pot, and the engine… 
[/QUOTE]
And those bastard dual carbs.
And the bumper lower than every other car on the planet and all the cracked tail light domes.
Positive ground!
Replacing the starter every 3000 miles.
I miss my MG. 
[QUOTE=Seven]
And those bastard dual carbs.
And the bumper lower than every other car on the planet and all the cracked tail light domes.
[/QUOTE]
Yeah, tell me about it. A jacked-up Toyota truck rear-ended my '78 on Christmas eve, hit nothing but taillight and trunk lid, bumper untouched.
At the end of the day I buffed the reflectors, put in red/yellow lights, and went without the dome covers.
$70 bucks a side got old after a while.
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
I joke about Lucas as much as anyone; but they’re really not that bad. My first '66 never had any electrical problems. One of the '77s had a fault in the fan relay that turned it on randomly and ran down the battery. the other '77 never had any problems. They key is that one needs to keep the smoke contained within the closed system.
[/QUOTE]
I’ve owned and wrenched on a lot of cars - Porsches, Vettes, Mustangs, american muscle, BMW’s, etc.
When I started dating my wife she had a 1980 Triumph that “needed some work”
“Sure, no problem. Easy fix” I say. :smack:
That thing made me its Bitch inside of a month. :eek: I refuse to even have it on my property now for fear that the evil demons inside will infect other mechanical items.
Now it is the “Car that must not be named” 
The new windscreen arrived. Apparently the ones from Moss Motors had the wrong curvature and wouldn’t fit in the frame. The one from Victoria British fits. It’s all together, but not installed on the car because (says Chris) it will get in the way. There was doubt about the door locks. They were rather stiff, and the locking rods were shorter than the ones that the car came with (and went missing over the years). But after lubrication they work and the locks are installed. The ‘spare’ overdrive transmission, which is actually for a 1962-1964 car with a three main bearing engine, has been listed on eBay and has a bid. I’ve found my original red tonneau cover. I thought I’d brought my pear-shaped shift knob down from Washington, but I couldn’t find it so I bought another. I’ve had a rather nasty cold since Saturday, and last night I looked in my toilet bag to see if I had some nasal spray. No nasal spray, but the shift knob was in there. ISTR that I put in in there so that the baggage manglers… er, ‘handlers’… wouldn’t lose it. So now I have an extra shift knob. I was reading a 1968 Road & Track magazine where they speculated the MGB would be in production another two years. They were only off by a factor of six.
If you’re REALLY tall, try a Morris Minor. It has room for a 7’1" guy sitting normally behind the wheel.
Um… congratulations and all, but your OP says you wanted a replica, and that’s clearly an original MGB.
Just kidding. Two things to remember:
-it’s British, so keep it out of the rain or it will go rusty in a week;
-it’s British, so don’t make plans to show up anywhere unless you have another car, because it will refuse to start anytime you absolutely require it to
-it’s British, so it will be more fun than any car you’ll ever own that isn’t.
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Um… congratulations and all, but your OP says you wanted a replica, and that’s clearly an original MGB.
[/quote]
A replica of my first car, which was a hand-me-down from mom.
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Just kidding. Two things to remember:
-it’s British, so keep it out of the rain or it will go rusty in a week;
-it’s British, so don’t make plans to show up anywhere unless you have another car, because it will refuse to start anytime you absolutely require it to
-it’s British, so it will be more fun than any car you’ll ever own that isn’t.
[/QUOTE]
Three things to remember:
Wait. Four things…
I had three MGBs at one time; my original '66 and two '77s. I drove the '66 from SoCal to Denver and back. Except for an oil leak caused by an improperly installed filter canister, it ran great. There was the faulty fan switch in one of the '77s that I mentioned. That one also had a mystery problem: It would stall at stop signs/lights. Turned out to be a cracked exhaust manifold gasket. The '66 stalled at a drive-in theatre when I drove it through a puddle. Got the distributor wet. The overdrive-equipped '77 was quite reliable and I never had any trouble with it.
As for rust, there’s none on it now so that’s a good starting point. The whole thing was zinc chromated before painting. Chris is making sure all the seams are sealed (which Antonio should have done but didn’t). As can be seen in the photos, it’s been undercoated. Except for the wheel wells. I’ll see about that later, when I can have the undercoating painted to match the exterior. One vulnerable part is the splash guard behind each front wheel. Chris will make sure those are nice and watertight. Rain will be hard to avoid once I move home, but I’ll keep it as dry as I can. Anyway it sometimes rains heavily in NoWA, and it only has one-speed wipers.
And I do have back-up transportation. I still have that '63 Triumph Herald! 
(And the motorcycles and the Jeep.)
One thing that concerns me is that the owner’s manual says not to exceed 45 mph for the first 500 miles. That’s going to be difficult in L.A. Go under 70 on some parts of the 405 and you get run over.
My first '66 needed premium fuel, especially on hot days, otherwise it would ping. The manual calls for 98-octane by the Research method. Is that what we use in the States? Or is it the Motor Octane Number? I can never remember. Anyway, premium fuel is 92 octane. I rarely see 93 octane. It will have to do.
Octane is the average of the motor and research. Look at the pump it will say M + R/2
Well, bad news came this morning. My dad called me and said someone stopped to look at ours yesterday. Looks like my half will be sold with his half, which makes sense, but man, the work we had in it just to get it driveable was killer, and I had my life savings up till I was 16 in it.
But, I still have 2 trophies. It won a place in the top ten at a car show in my hometown 2 years in a row, before it went into storage. Of course, it was an American Classics show, but eh, no one said a word to me…heh - I guess when there is 1 or 2 car shows a year, people don’t complain…
Brendon
Brendon: What year was it? Since it won a couple of trophies, it must have been in great condition. How original was it? Did you get a fair price for it? Restored examples on eBay have BIN proces of 12.5 to 20 kilobucks.
Johnny L.A. - It is a 65, but winning a show in my hometown isn’t much. It’s a place of one stoplight and stores that close at 10 pm. It was in the top 10, but one year there was only 25-30 there, the next, maybe 40. They seem to award local cars more than they do nice rides that come in, as well. We paid 1800 each, me and my dad, for it and the parts car. The worst part is, we disguised things before the show. They didn’t bother checking if it was original style carpet and such, so we actually broke out part of the rusted floorboard and replaced it with a stolen street sign under the car. Obviously, any clean classic would do good in my little town.
He’s asking 4500 for it, but I think it’s already gone. The last I heard, he was giving the guy a ride in town for a drink this afternoon, then they were going to visit the bank. Of course, I’ll get a cut (which will be nice) but I will miss driving the lil thing around.
Brendon
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
It all started innocently enough. I wanted a replica of my first car, an hand-me-down 1966 MGB my mom bought new. And there was one on eBay for a few hundred dollars. The plan was to get it running, spray it with a coat of paint, and slowly restore it while I enjoyed driving it.
[/QUOTE]
You must have been raised by some seriously cool parents. I wouldn’t even tell you what my first car was, because it doesn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same thread, nay, the same forum with a 1966 MGB.
[QUOTE=Really Not All That Bright]
Just kidding. Two things to remember:
-it’s British, so keep it out of the rain or it will go rusty in a week;
-it’s British, so don’t make plans to show up anywhere unless you have another car, because it will refuse to start anytime you absolutely require it to
-it’s British, so it will be more fun than any car you’ll ever own that isn’t.
[/QUOTE]
Three things. And yep all three are true. If my MGB started, it was fine. The only time it ever broke down on me while running was when the clutch went out.
[QUOTE=Spectre of Pithecanthropus]
You must have been raised by some seriously cool parents.
[/QUOTE]
They were all right. Mom almost got an E-Type Jag. Only she had two kids, and the Jag didn’t have a back seat. If I’d never been born I could’ve had an E-Type convertible for my first car!
I thought the B was cool. Only by the time she gave it to me the paint was chalky, the engine didn’t run, and the red interior had been sun-faded to pink.
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
They were all right. Mom almost got an E-Type Jag. Only she had two kids, and the Jag didn’t have a back seat. If I’d never been born I could’ve had an E-Type convertible for my first car!
I thought the B was cool. Only by the time she gave it to me the paint was chalky, the engine didn’t run, and the red interior had been sun-faded to pink.
[/QUOTE]
My dad was about thirty seconds from buying a V12 E-type in 1981 when my mother informed him that I was going to be born in eight months… and for practicality’s sake bought a Mercedes 300E wagon instead
Question: do MGB owners STILL carry that 3/4" sqaure socket wrench? (It is to engage the squared-off end of the starter motor shaft, to un-jam it (when the ancient 1920 Bendix drive jams up with the ring gear)! 
Not much progress this week, so no new photos. The bonnet was off to make the car easier to work on. I saw the new glass in the frame. The side windows are in their hardware and are ready to go in when the car is ready for them.
I mentioned the tonneau cover. You just can’t get red ones. You can buy black ones all day on eBay, and black ones are available from Moss. But red ones are a rarity. I got mine from a seller on eBay a couple of years ago. Handily, he was just up in Vancouver, B.C. so I drove up and got it. It wants a bit of washing, but it’s in good shape. One of the side zippers needs to be resewn. It has a leather 2" triangular repair at one of the snaps.
Chris said there’s a guy in Georgia who has a ‘mustard’ (which would make it either Harvest Gold or Bronze Yellow – I’m guessing the former) '72 he’s owned since new. The car is in L.A., and the guy wants Chris to clean it up, get it running, and make it safe. Then he saw my car. He wondered if Chris could make his '72 look as nice as my '66. Chris said he told him, ‘I can do anything you want!’ But it would cost about double what the guy was planning on, and that doesn’t include rebuilding the engine and a whole list of things that went into my car. I wonder what he’ll decide? (As I said, if I had to do it all over I’d just get a nice restored example.)
[QUOTE=brendon_small]
Johnny L.A. - It is a 65, but winning a show in my hometown isn’t much. It’s a place of one stoplight and stores that close at 10 pm. It was in the top 10, but one year there was only 25-30 there, the next, maybe 40. They seem to award local cars more than they do nice rides that come in, as well. We paid 1800 each, me and my dad, for it and the parts car. The worst part is, we disguised things before the show. They didn’t bother checking if it was original style carpet and such, so we actually broke out part of the rusted floorboard and replaced it with a stolen street sign under the car. Obviously, any clean classic would do good in my little town.
[/QUOTE]
I told this story to Chris. He said that with a Jaguar the judges will carry clipboards and check the lights and horn. They’ll look for oil leaks. (If there aren’t any, they decide it isn’t a car that’s driven and probably has had its oil drained.) With MGs he says things are not so strict. He’s been a judge, and he’ll give points to cars that have been restored that he wouldn’t give to an original car that has been spruced up. A case could be made either way, but he believes that someone who has put a lot of work and money into a car should get points for it. In any case, in his experience MGBs win trophies for running and being presentable. He said some judges don’t even look underneath. Good to know if I ever need to ‘find a road sign’ for a floorboard repair.
Not that I planned to show the car. The idea is that I want a nice car I can drive. But after talking to him today, I might see if there’s a local show (either here in SoCal, or up in Washington or Southern B.C.) that I can attend. It would be a good excuse for a drive.
[QUOTE=Johnny L.A.]
I joke about Lucas as much as anyone; but they’re really not that bad. My first '66 never had any electrical problems. One of the '77s had a fault in the fan relay… the other '77 never had any problems. They key is that one needs to keep the smoke contained within the closed system.
[/QUOTE]
I know, I know.. I just wanted an excuse to post these:
The Lucas motto: “Get home before dark.”
Lucas–inventor of the first intermittent wiper.
Lucas–inventor of the self-dimming headlamp.
The three-position Lucas switch–DIM, FLICKER and OFF.
The other three switch settings–SMOKE, SMOLDER and IGNITE.
Original anti-theft devices–Lucas Electric products.
“I’ve had a Lucas pacemaker for years and have never experienced any prob…”
Why do the British drink warm beer? Lucas made refrigerators, too.