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| | Getting close to putting the body back on the chassis
At the end of the last report I had installed a 5 speed gearbox. I follow
this up now with what you have to do to the transmission tunnel. I also
completed all those jobs that are easier with the body off including installing
the exhaust system, the plumbing and wiring from front to back and the
floorboards. I also completed modifications to the carburettor shield to
hopefully eliminate fuel vaporisation. Not many pictures this update because the
work done was very basic and uncomplicated.
Transmission Tunnel Modification
One
problem with fitting a five speed gearbox is that you have to modify the
transmission tunnel because the gear lever hits the original (the flat
plate shown in the first picture is the part that hits the tunnel. There
are also problems with reusing the original rubber gaiter that can pull
the gear stick out of gear. To overcome this you have to cut a piece out
of the top of the tunnel in front of the gear lever. I have decided to use
the chrome gaiter retainer used on early MGB's . |
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Here you can see the metal frame I fabricated to
raise the gaiter ring above the gear lever. You can also see how much was
removed from the original tunnel. The top ring is sized to fit the chrome
gaiter retaining ring
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Here
I have used body filler to cover the steel support frame. The chrome
gaiter retaining ring can be seen. The filler is unsanded |
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Here
is the final product, sanded and painted |
Handbrake Installation
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Before fitting the rear transmission tunnel remember to
reinstall the handbrake. Above is the refurbished original hand brake with
the pivot rebushed
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These
two pictures show how the two internal brackets fit inside the
transmission tunnel . The plate shown in the first picture fits on the
outside of the tunnel with the bolts capturing the brackets and plate. The
handbrake arm is held in place by the lever arm shown in the middle
picture. It is splined and held in place by a pinch bolt. It has to be
oriented so that the pinch bolt holes in the arm align with the cut out in
the hand brake pivot. The other end on the arm connects to the handbrake
cable. It uses a trunnion that rotates in the bottom end of the arm. The
cable basically has a spring one side of the trunnion and the adjuster nut
screwed onto the end of the cable |
Exhaust Installation
| I decided to wrap the
manifold and exhaust in an effort to minimise the heat coming off the
engine. This will hopefully minimise the heat that gets to the cockpit.
The exhaust I fitted is stainless steel three piece that follows the
original design |
This shows the front
exhaust support brackets. Don't expect this bracket to be in the correct
position to line up with the bell house bolts. Be prepared to make you own
supports |
This
is the middle support bracket by the batteries and shown how the rubber is
taking up misalignment between the bracket mounts and where the exhaust
runs. The old mounting showed a similar distortion |
| The is the rear support
bracket ahead of the exhaust silencer |
I spent a lot of time
aligning the three part system, especially the silencer. The tail pipe
should point to the center of the car ( to miss the bumper over rider )
and show a slight rise. |
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Here
is an overall view of the exhaust system. You will note that the hand
brake cable is running across the top of the exhaust. This is because the
rear suspension is still sitting higher than normal. This can be caused by
the rear springs being overarched or because the body weight is not on.
The rubber straps have not yet been attached. Once the body is on I will
review the whole issue of the rear springs. |
Carburettor Shield
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I modified the
carburettor shield to protect the inlet manifold from heat coming off the
exhaust manifold. This included using heat shield material that faces the
manifold, extra plates on the top of the original carburettor shield and
semi circular shields that wrap around the inlet manifold. Its based on an
article on Barney Gaylord's MGAGURU website where details can be found.
Thanks to him for that |
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Floorboards
| Floorboard
installation is straight forward but be prepared to do a lot of sanding to
make things fit. I purchased a ready cut set that were quite good and
bevelled in all the right places. Toe boards and rear board go in first.
Make sure that all the captive nuts in the frame support rails are tapped
to clear any muck. Process is to sand the boards to fit the location and
then mark the hole locations from the underside. Be prepared to elongate
some holes where the hole you drill does not align with the captive nuts.
The white material you can see is waterproof flexible silicon filler that
I used to bed the boards on and to fill any gaps between the edges of the
floorboards and the metal work. It was then over painted. The boards had 3
coats of Hammerite paint on all surfaces. Remember to use appropriate
washers with the floorboard screws. Be prepared to notch the floorboards
around the handbrake and bolts. |
Front Extension
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The
front extension is now fitted as well together with a reconditioned
steering rack and anti roll bar with blue polyurethane bushes. |
Front to Back Fuel/Brake/Wiring Loom
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In
between I have progressively been installing the brake, fuel and wiring
loom that runs from the back to the front. Again this is straight forward
and for obvious reasons best done before installing the floorboards.
Running the copper piping needs care to make sure that it is held in
location by curling over the support tags welded to the floorboard rails.
I wrapped rubber around the copper at these points. The wiring loom and
main battery feed are in clips bolted to more tags welded on the support
rails. The weight of the cables has caused my tags to deflect down so I am
going to also clip them to the floor boards. Another point to watch is
that the screws used to secure the floorboard don't touch the copper pipe work
where they protrude through the captive nuts |
Coming Up
The
work on the chassis is just about done. Next step is to finish the welding
work in the area above the fuel tank and get the body back on the chassis. |
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