Keith Jones has owned this nice MGB GT for 17 years. It looks good but was in need of some love and attention! Running rough, and hesitating when pulling away in low gear he decided to treat it to a new Accuspark ignition system and general maintenance and repair.
Accuspark Ignition
The ignition was checked next – Keith supplied a new Accuspark kit which had a new distributor fitted with electronic switching, new rotor arm, cap, leads, plugs, and coil. Before I started I marked the pulley with white paint to indicate the timing marks. Once the old distributor was removed I noticed the clamp plate was fitted back to front; also at top dead centre the distributor drive cog was not in the correct position. With the distributor and clamp removed it was easy to reset the drive cog.
Once done and new distributor fitted the timing could be checked and adjusted.
Carburettors
Carbs were checked and balanced. Taking dashpot off front carb showed missing spring! Rear spring was in place. Float chamber checked and missing overflow pipes noted. Syncho check used to balance carbs, and new overflow pipes fitted.
Clutch Biting Too Low
First impression was that the clutch was biting far too low, indicating a leak somewhere in the clutch hydraulics. Sure enough the slave cylinder was leaking, but examination showed that it had been replaced previously but installed incorrectly:
The photo above shows the old slave cylinder – the red arrows show the bleed nipple where the flexible feed pipe should be and flexible feed pipe where the bleed nipple should be! The result is that it is almost impossible to bleed correctly, even without the leak. The reason for this is that replacements come with the bleed nipple in the wrong hole so that it will fit in the box. The photos below show the new one:
As supplied
Correctly fitted
Empty clutch master cylinder:
New cylinder fitted, empty master cylinder filled and bled correctly. Note the tie wrap to hold the piston as far back as possible to aid the bleeding process. Clutch now working perfectly.
Faulty Servo
Brake pedal test while starting highlighted the servo not working, although it is hard to tell on an MGB! Examination of the vacuum hose at the manifold end showed it was blocked, usually caused by leaking brake fluid which is sucked into the engine.
Sure enough when the vacuum pipe was removed from the servo brake fluid started to drip out! Once the servo was removed it was emptied and the photo below shows how much there was:
Servo leaking brake fluid
Brake fluid emptied from Servo!
New servo called for to replace old one, duly fitted, new vacuum hose and brakes bled.
New Servo
Old Servo
Rear Brake Shoes
Handbrake seemed to be working, but every now and then the rear brakes would lock. Strip down revealed the cause:
The lefthand images show the nearside rear brake. All looks ok except the handbrake spring which is on the wrong side of the car. Righthand photos show offside handbrake spring fitted on wrong side. The lever part of the spring should press down on the handbrake bar. Also on the nearside the adjuster was seized and replaced; on the offside there already was a new adjuster.
Handbrake bar which was seized shown below:
Brakes stripped down on both sides and rebuilt, spring now correct. With drums refitted shoes were adjusted up.
Rev Counter, Fuel Gauge, etc Intermittent
During a test run the car was fine, but suddenly the rev counter and fuel guage stopped working. At first voltage stabiliser was suspected, but turned out to be corroded fuse box terminals and odd fuse. Reversing lights also found not to work, which was traced to corroded bullet connectors.
Door Glass Dropped
Drivers door glass had dropped and wasn’t winding up or down correctly. Removal of the door card showed the winder mechanism had come out of the glass slider, and the rear window channel was not bolted to the door frame, allowing it to move. The bracket that connects it to the door frame had rusted badly sometime in the past and the channel had been resined in place, see photo below. The resin was removed for fitment of new bracket. Channel back in place; the winder back in the glass slider; all lubricated and it works fine.
