A Mostly British Obsession
Valuable, if hard, lessons learned
Jim got the first coat of Grampian Grey on tonight. It revealed we have a bit of work left to do, so he held off on the clear. We missed some sanding scratches and a couple of dings–staring at primer for ages will do that to you. Aside from a couple of minor points on the body, we completely spaced on one of the doors–it had three small door dings and a very small crease.
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The car just needs to be washed and re-masked for final base/clear to go on. Then the real work of polishing, purchasing and procrastinating begins.
The bottoms of the fenders still need holes drilled to mount the three screws. The driver’s side fender will need a bit of massaging to fit properly at the bottom, the passenger side is pretty good. The tops are the opposite; the driver’s fender fits very well at the top, the passenger fender is a bit less accurate, though it was like that before and was never hit, so it’s been like that for a long time.
The various body openings were trimmed and clear coated in prep for the final body guide coat and block out. The color is a very, very close match to the original Grampian Grey.
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My friend Jeff and I went to look at this 1969 MGB GT last year, when it was for sale for about $2000. The seller was the daughter of the original owner, who had passed away a couple of years prior; the car was used frequently until his death, but from that point sat idle outside. The car was reasonably original, and while you can see usual MGB rot in the doglegs and lower front fenders, it was solid underneath. Wheels and tires were in good condition, and the engine bay looked pretty clean, though it wasn’t running when we saw it. There were a fair number of new looking pieces here and there.
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Jim has been doing yeoman work on the GT, and tonight it was sprayed with the second primer coat, first for the fenders and bonnet (out of photo). The bonnet was a bit tougher than we hoped, having suffered a few bruises over the years…and stripping the paint from it chemically was not fun. But it’s looking pretty good now.
I just have the inner faces of the doors left to strip. We’re possibly looking at having the car in color by next week!
This is my “new” “cheap” ($2,000) “winter car.” I looked at all sorts of interesting older machinery, but in the end I showed a bit of sense and avoided several cars which needed work (lots of work, generally) to be decent transportation. This machine is a 1990 Mazda Miata with about 145,000 miles and all of the assorted dings accumulated in 20 years. Runs well, overall it’s in OK condition, and everything seems to work.
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The first coat of high-build primer went on the GT today. Jim did most of the prep and spraying–I did a bit, enough to show I definitely can use some practice. My goal is to get the fenders, bonnet and doors ready for primer by the end of next week, in addition to getting the initial blocking and fill done on this car.
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I rebuilt the carb on the F250 a couple of weeks ago, and on Tuesday, that little bit of maintenance came back to bite me in the behind as the truck spluttered to a halt halfway up the hill a mile from home. I was able to coast all the way back into the carport, so Goldie was at least halfway decent about the whole thing.
This led me to replace the fuel pump (misdiagnosis on my part, but, hey, new fuel pump) and the coil–which was arcing everywhere, as it turns out. The distributor cap oddly enough had one completely corroded wire terminal–I mean, there was nothing left. So it’s had kind of a mini-tune-up and will be running on at least one more cylinder than it was recently.
But the problem appears to have been the new float needle valve seat coming loose, which would lead to constant flooding, I would guess. I put the carb back together and on the truck tonight, and it appears to be running well again. C’est la vie.
I took an hour or two and cleaned the inner fender on the right side of the engine bay. A bit of touch up and some wax, and it will be fine for this non-show car. The paint is 42 years old, after all. It’s a shame that the cotton cover on the wiring loom dissolved when it was touched, because mechanically the loom is in good condition. I will probably (for the short term) wrap it in cotton tape, which won’t be “right” but keeps me from forking out $450 for a new loom–and the repair will look better than what’s there.
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