Practically Classics Forum

Thanks for the encouragement guys

Ok here are some photos of the wing fitment issues. You can see that the wing is being held out slightly but I can't take much more off the scuttle material. Of course when the wings are bolted on they will be held tighter and i;m replacing the lead beading with rubber beading so that will give some more flexibility in fitment etc.




As you can see, the nearside wing needs some scuttle profiling to fit....i'm sure each wing is different!!!



The final bit of shaping work needed will be cleaning up this repair...but I need it out of the tunnel before I can grind that.



Now onto the engine, the heads look in good order but need a clean up




However, when i had my original 3.5 engine, I bought these off a friend as an upgrade. They are 3.9 heads but also have a hole plugged off by the exhaust ports which i was told was an air injection port? These heads have been cleaned and seem in excellent condition but i'm not sure if, given that plugged hole, will be as good as the original heads, ideas?

Progress is slow due to the weather at the moment and other work being in the garage, plus my brother has found his shell again so has decided to do work on that instead of the MGB...you very much have to get him in the right mood

Engine looked good though the big-end journals at the back of the engine have some scoring



The accompanying bearings.



Given that further forward you went, the better the bearings were, seems to indicate its been starved of oil a bit maybe at some point. It may be ok but to be sure i'm getting the crank checked and ground if needs be. The shells were the originals so I have oversize to work with.

Looking pretty clean



Now its ready for cleaning before I buy new bits and put it back together. In the mean time I decided to measure up and look at the new front cover I will be fitting. This came off my 3.5 litre engine (see earlier) from a Rover P6 and had the short nose pulleys and covers that are required for the V8 MGB install. I've been told they bolt on but the engineer in me and my dad wanted to check everything first.

On the left is the cover removed from the 3.9 and on the right is the cover I want to fit.



The main difference is on the later one the oil pump is internal and driven directly by the crank (its casing can be seen held by the cross head screws) and the earlier one has a completely different and external oil pump that has a long shaft thats driven by the distributor, which is turn is driven by a gear on the camshaft. Dimensionally the distributors are the same and have the same pitch on the teeth but the earlier one has the slot in the bottom for the oil pump drive shaft. This is removeable so I can fit it to the newer distributor if I choose to use it.



Closer view of the older cover oil pump



I need to clean this up and fit a new seal in before using it, along with driving out a snapped bolt which will be fun. Slow and steady will be the way me thinks.

The only other question I have now is about the front pulley. Both the 3.5 and 3.9 cranks are the same shank length (70mm for pulleys, drives etc). Now, the stack-up of all the components on the 3.9 engine make 70mm considering the timing gear drive, a small spacer, the cover seal and oil pump drive and finally the pulley. Bearing in mind the older casing is about 25mm shallower given it just has a crank seal and no oil pump it means in theory that the older front pulley should too be about 25mm longer to take up this clearance but its not, its about 10mm short. Its been ages since I stripped the 3.5 and cannot remember if there is some sort of spacer to take this clearance up or if there is just a 10mm or so gap between the timing cover and the pulley? I will look through my old pictures tonight and also go through all the parts I saved from the 3.5 next time i'm home. But some food for thought for anyone who's done this before.

Do you really want to downgrade from a serpentine to v-belts? Changing the belt on the late one is a 30 second job, V-Belts are a 2 hour swearfest.
The older oil pump is at best adequate while the late one is superb and self priming.
Saying that if the late oil pump has more than 100k on it, it will need to be replaced. The old one can have it's internals repaired but as the later one wears the casing it will be £250 to replace the lot.

Valid points, but it's a question of clearance. It's that or hacking the shell about to move the radiator etc forward

I admit that I am used to looking at these under the bonnet of a land rover but is there very much difference? Having done the swap the other way round I have never had to change a rad, fan, etc.

Unfortunately yes. Moving the radiator mounts forward a touch is tricky but not impossible, but then the anti-roll bar woulld foul the crank pulley so you have to either move it or get a stepped one. The main issue though is the oil filter location. Where it is on the 3.9 front cover puts it directly into the MGB crossmember. So short of moving the engine back or forward (no thank you!) thats the alternative. Its been done many times before so isnt a big deal

That's a bit of a bummer. You could fit a remote oil filter but it sounds like the older timing cover is the simplest solution.

Indeedy, but many thanks for your interest

In the meantime, the car is now officially a V8 Got the logbook back recently with the updated details.




Well, had 6 days at home to play on the B this weekend. Of course there were other distractions so it wasn’t all spent on the car but I got a bit done. I got home to boxes of bits



And an LT77 gearbox, complete with the release bearing, arm and gear lever, all for the price you usually just pay for the box! I also lined it up to the engine to check the bellhousing, fits perfectly.



Engine first, here it is with the crank in



This engine came with a crank driven oil pump, and therefore had a thicker timing cover so when my dad and I measured the SD1 cover & pulley with the new crank we expected there to be a gap between the pulley and timing gear. So we fitted everything up and it all marries perfectly, which is a relief 



Metal Cloyes adjustable timing gear fitted. There are 3 slots on the crank gear allowing you to use standard or advance/retarded timing. Seeing as the standard 3.9 cam is being used I stuck with standard.



And here it is, the short motor almost fully built up 



I have 2 distributors. One from my old 3.5 from a P6, the other from this circa 1993 3.9 and has electronic ignition. Can I use this system on my non fuel injected B or shall I just fit electronic ignition to the older distributor?



The sump and oil pickup are being cleaned and will be fitted next, once the gearbox is cleaned up I will fit them together and to a trial fit in the car. Dad thinks it might be easier to install the engine with no heads.

Onto the body. The donor car was put back together and made rolling ready for sale or scrapping



The car has good wheels, and nearly new tyres when I parked it up, so I fitted them to the shell. Its amazing how good a set of wheels can make a project look isn’t it?!



Fitted the brake drums which I’d painted some time ago



Got the car out for some grinding, as the welds had failed on this part under the rear light



Ground it down and covered it in weld-thru primer ready for dad to weld it




I’ve not done much bodywork before, as my brother and dad are the experts at it. BUT in a bid to get confident with it I had a go on a simple part of the car first, so here is the rear quarter after some spot welding



I painted it to protect it a few months ago



Then I grinded it down.



Onto the shaping! First layer



I then sanded this with 80 grit to get the basic level and shaping, flattened it back again then added a bit more filler to take out any dips



Measuring it with a straight edge after the 3rd levelling off showed two tiny indents which I have put a slim of filler over. Dad tells me filler sinks sometimes so I ran out of time to finish it off but left this final layer on to harden before I went back in a few weeks to put the skim coat on and flatten it back with wet and dry, for my first attempt I’m very pleased so far:



I also got the floor painted with underseal in the corner that had to be left bare for the above welding, so now I’m just awaiting some padding material then I can paint and fit the fuel tank.



This is the washer pump button casing before



And after, along with a few other parts



I was annoyed with the heater knobs though, I washed them in warm soapy water with a soft spongle and not only has the lettering started to fade, but also the plastic has gone sorted of faded, like its degrading. Is this repairable or shall I just get replacement knobs?



Painted up some engine brackets too



Finally, the new calipers have been painted red, and look nice.




Fitted:



My balanced flywheel



Something that caught me unawares was that the engine mounts fouled against one of the strengthening webs. Seeing as these are the best part of £100 I wouldnt have been impressed had I paid that much for mine.




So I had to grind a bit of each plate away to get the correct clearance. Voila:



I hung them up after this and painted them gloss black. I also found the starter I had from my previous engine.



Sump painted


Got the bottom end just about built up today. As has been stated by others before, the SD1 oil pump drive is too short for the distributor drive but you can buy the correct drive



Oil pump fitted



Had to make clearance on the block for it..



Recon starter fitted



As it looks now



Got the gearbox painted and the bellhousing cleaned too

That is a seriously smart looking V8!
Is this going to be a weekend toy when finished or your daily?