MGB photos

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I was hoping to take photos after I had someone fix the body guy’s crappy job of fitting the lids. (Or rather, non-fitting of the lids.) But one shop had the car sit in it for three weeks and they never touched it, and another shop wouldn’t give me an estimate because the car had already been painted (but the first body guy). So I said to hell with it. Other people have had my car longer than I have, and I want to drive it! So I never took it out for photos. But I did snap a few today.

Here is a page I’ve posted before, showing the car in the shop of the one person who actually did what he said he’d do and got the car back together. (Nice British guy who has the same accent as the Geiko Gecko.) I put the new snaps in there.

2

That engine compartment looks sweet.

3

I love the red interior. It looks so Very British. :slight_smile:

4

Man, I wish I could’ve been of majority in 1966, riding around in a car like that, pehaps with Cathy McGowan in the passenger seat and The Kinks on the radio…

Sweet car!

5

Car looks great. I agree about the engine bay, look at all that space!

Makes me wish I had bought an Alfa Romeo Spider when I had the chance.

6

It’s the same scheme as the car my mom bought new in 1966, and which I received as a hand-me-down in 1980. (Different car though.) I thought about BRG or red, but I went for nostalgia. Turns out Old English White became popular while the car was in resto.

Thanks! As it happens, I have The Kinks on the iPod (Word Of Mouth).

They’re still out there! :wink:

7

Nice car! I have a 1966 MGB too. Brit racing green with black interior. Hard as well as soft top, pressed wheels not spokes. And a 1968 GT which has beat up bodywork but drives better than the convertible. I am pic-less. I will try and remedy that.

8

I’ve got four steel wheels with tires on. The tires have good tread, but they’re old so they’ll have to be replaced. I’ve no use for these wheels. If you want them and want to pay for shipping you can have them. (Though what you’d do with an extra set of wheels I don’t know.)

Speaking of wheels, ya gotta love British engineering. A good engineer would make a differential what will accept bolt-on wheels or knock-offs. Just change the hubs. But BMC? They decided to go with different-length axles. :dubious: :confused: And they had two types of differential: ‘Banjo’, and Salisbury (‘tube-type’). If you want to put wires on a car that came with steel wheels, you either need to get a ‘banjo’ diff that is the right width for wires (getting a bit hard to find, and expensive – ask me how I know), or a Salisbury for wires, or use the Salisbury-for-steel (readily available and pretty cheap) with adapters to offset the wire wheels. Okay, I know why they went to the ‘tube-type’ diff. It’s stronger than the banjo. But why did they have to use two different widths? What were they thinking?

Re: the bodywork. One great thing about MGs is that they’re still making sheet metal for them. You can even get a whole new body.

9

Absolutely beautiful car, Johnny L.A.. If I can dig up some pictures of the one we had, I’ll throw them into this thread in a day or two. Of course, it was merely restored in our back yard on an extremely low budget, but it was nice looking and ran (all that mattered to me).

Congrats on a sweet ride.

Brendon Small

10

Wow, thanks for your generosity but I’m in Australia so shipping might be kind of high. Also, I’m pretty keen on keeping the car original. I’m second owner only and the car is unmodified in any way (except for roll bar which I insisted on), including the pressed wheels which were not standard on export cars. My car was bought in the UK and shipped here by its first owner when he migrated here in the early 1970’s. I even have all the papers, just like a pedigree :wink:

The GT has spoke wheels and I havent bothered about getting anything done on the bodywork as its my “fun” car. We’ve been toying with putting a Rover V8 into it for a while now. It’s a good straight car that drives…well, it drives baby.

11

Some nice photos of a nice car Johnny.

My Dad had a BGT in British Racing Green before he changed up to a Lancia Beta, that’s perhaps what has my sister interested in buying one. Every few days I get an email with an Ebay ad in it from her :stuck_out_tongue:

Dad once looked at a V8 model, when he unfortunately couldn’t get insurance for it. A customer was looking after it for his son. The son, a pilot, came home occasionally to take it out for a drive and while he was away for a few weeks his father turned it on to let the engine tick over. A bit of a shame to let it waste away like that, but Dad had to turn it down sadly. Dad also had the chance to pick up an E-Type Jag’ in 78 but the fuel and insurance bills were too much, that and he had to buy a car that could fit me into the back.

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I bought a baby seat that would fit in the front and a stroller that folded down small enough to fit in the boot. No compromises for me :slight_smile:

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Thankfully Dad found a Lancia Beta coupe which both fitted me in the back and could outrun the MGB :smiley:

14

Yeah, but seeing it in LHD is weird. Cool though.

Nice mo-sheen you have there, Johnny.

Don’t be upset if I call you a bastard. I’m not jealous or anything. No, sirree.

15

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr.

16

My mom was going to get a drop-top E-type, but it didn’t have a back seat. So she got the MGB. If I’d never been born I could be driving a '66 Jag!

17

I’ve seen Johnny’s B in person.
I own a '67 and worked on them when they were new. So from that view point, mechanically his is damn near perfect. The body is OK, but not what he should have gotten after the wait he had.

All in all a very nice car.

18

Too right. I can heartily NOT recommend A to Z Auto Body (or was it Auto Works?) in Huntington Beach.

The paint is good. The replacement sheet metal (rear fenders below the beltline, floors, etc.) are good. But Antonio fitted the rear panel 1/16" top far in, so the boot lid hangs over a bit. Worse, he didn’t fit the boot lid or the bonnet (hey, it’s a British car) at all and the doors are only adequate. The back lid has a gap on the left side, so it’s not watertight, and people have told me ‘Your hood is open!’ because the curvature is off. The right side seam at the rear of the (new) rocker is too wide. He didn’t quite get the (new) front fenders fitted around the grille. And he had the car two and a half years.

An Orange County MG hobbyist said he could restore the car. He bought lots of new parts, but when I called from 1,200 miles north to ask about progress he said ‘Well, it gets heavier every time I work on it.’ Yyyyy…aeah.

A guy in Anaheim built the engine and did a very nice job. Only he’s used to American cars and didn’t whack the freeze plugs hard enough and one popped out this summer. But the engine seems to be great.

As I said, I finally got it to someone competent. Chris built hot rods in England, and was the British car specialist at Britalia in SoCal before he built his own shop. (It’s Chris’s shop in the photos, featuring the lift.) He fixed the mistakes the Hobbyist (John) made… such as ‘rebuilding’ the bearings but neglecting to put grease in them and putting the old pistons back into the ‘rebuilt’ brakes. Chris didn’t want to work on the body, since that’s not his thing. But he got the myriad parts put together into an actual car and dialed it in.

So the body isn’t perfect. I’ll address that later. For now I’ll enjoy driving it, weather permitting. How does it drive? GREAT! It tracks straight and true and handles like a sportscar. I ‘made the ton’ last week – on the speedo, anyway. I’ll have to take a GPS along to see how fast it really goes. Everything is still pretty tight, as I’ve only put less than 1,500 miles on it. The overdrive is wonderful. One of the '77s had o/d, and I like it in the '66. I drove it to Everett and back last week, an estimated 160 miles round trip. Speed varied, but I was indicating 75-80 mph most of the way. I was passing everyone else on the road. Estimated fuel mileage was over 26. I’m hoping it will improve as the engine breaks in.

And I’ll see about getting those lids fitted (and the doors) next year.

19

That’s quite metaphysical! :slight_smile: