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MGB lives again

Back in August 2010 I blew the MG’s engine up. I did get around to taking that one out and fitting the spare. The battery was too flat to start it and winter came along before I’d got any further. With moving house, the work on said house and garage and 101 other things, the MG just never happened and its been sat looking sorry for itself ever since :(.

Today, I thought I’d see what state it was in. It was changed overnight so the battery should either be good or knackered. The bonnet release cable was snapped but I found a way in.

Whilst stiff, the controls all seemed to roughly do what they should. First try at ignition on saw petrol explode over the engine bay as the fuel line between the carbs gave way. At least the fuel pump works I guess.

After a small new piece of fuel pipe was fitted, take two. Ignition on, fuel at pressure, no overflow from the carbs which was a pleasant surprised as I was expecting a carb rebuild. Trying the starter, the engine turned over at a reasonable speed, it even make a hint of a cough of life. The lack of oil pressure stopped me at this point. I took the plugs out, then ran it on the starter and after what seemed like an eternity, the oil pressure climbed to normal. Ok.

Plugs back in, try the starter. Nothing. This was the point I was at after the rebuild but with a charged battery. I noted the distributor was loose and I’d never set the timing. Ok, twiddle it one way, try again. Still nothing. Ok, lets try the other way.

This time, you could hear it trying. After some further gentle nudging, it started coughing into life, first on a single cylinder then quickly onto approximately two. At this point I just gently tried to keep it running. The other cylinders kicked in intermittently at first, then it was running on all approximately four. I looked around for Dad who’d run off to try and stop the clouds of smoke a two stoke would be proud of from getting into the garage (too late). I gestured for Dad to check nothing was on fire on the exhaust (probably just the petrol from the earlier spillage).

I decided not to run it too much more since there was no water in it. We stopped and then rectified that, cue a comedy moment where there was water pouring from a hole in the cylinder head with us wondering “what’s missing?” until we realised it was the water temperature sender unit.

Emboldened by this, we wondered “could it move?”. My Dad carefully moved vehicles out of the way in case the brakes failed in some catastrophic way and made dire predictions about whether I’d destroy the clutch trying this. It started and then we managed a controlled lurch forwards as the brakes unbound with not nearly as much issue as we’d expected. At this point I drove it off the drive and did a couple of loops around the T junction. Everything felt seized up but it was none the less moving, stopping, starting and turning.

At this point attention turned to the driveway which needed a good clean and with the car missing, this was an ideal opportunity. Later, the car started first turn of the starter and reversed back on relatively happily.

Sadly the bodywork is in a bad way but at least now its known to vaguely function and move under its own power :).