my 1966 mg 1100

[mg1100guy]

Thought id stick up a small photo story of my mg. Its quite a cracking little car really. And it was cheap! It's wry reliable considering it mwas made in 66. It has so far made 95% of the journeys I've started in it:p
This is the first picture I have of it. Went on a nice test drive to the beach and on the way back the suspension decided it didn't need any of the fluid on the right hand side!

As you may have guessed I bought it anyway:D I gave the car a good t cut and polish and it came up pretty damn well!
Before

After

The white specs are just dust. Not too bad!
Then it was pressed into service.





I hate the stupid rubber drive shaft donuts. Stopped a trip to Newport pretty suddenly when the decided to shed they're rubber.


Never mind. Soon had it mended with the help of some local mechanics.


Tighten the wheels up and we are done!


All was fine for a while then until...


The left hand side of the car decided it didn't need any fluid. So another lorry ride


I soon had that fixed though and now she's trundling along nicely. Although the front suspension sphere has started to seep a little so should imagine its not going to be long before it Hits the floor again.

[mg1100guy]

I've learned that it can be used for several different things this car. From the tip run.


To tying up dogs


To fording rivers/streams


It's also quite a good poser



And even hangs out with other brand cars that he looks up to



more coming!

[mg1100guy]

I was driving home in the hammering down rain and it started misfiring. Great. I pulled over and had a look whilst getting absolutely soaked in the process. I was pretty certain it was electrical so went through very thing and found no spark. I called the recovery at that point because I was soaking wet and had my 15 year old cousin with me who had school in the morning so I thought if better get her home to stop her winging sorry no lorry pictures this time!
I had a look this morning and tried changing the coil first. And it fire straight up! So that was good went for a little drive and had no trouble at all. Had a little play under the bonnet then. Decided to give my radiator a quick polish.
Before

during

And after



Turns out I hadn't solved my problem by changing the coil. Been having an absolute nightmare last couple of days. I'd start it up and drive off, get a few yards and it would start missing gradually getting worse until it was only running on two. I decided to flush the fuel system through and found rust in the tank

Thats looking through the filler neck. So I scraped it all with a screwdriver then flushed it out with some old petrol I had. I was still having trouble though. I've fitted a fuel filter and changed the leads to no avail. Any way I went for a drive tonight to try it again and broke down. AGAIN. Getting bored of my car looking like this.

Anyway turned out there was a chunk of rust stuck in the right hand carb jet. I suppose it wasn't blocking anything until it floated up and jammed it. All seems ok now anyway. I also changed the fuel sender as it always read 1/4 of a tank no mater what. The fuel sender looked like this

Stuck solid!
I've also had a small exhaust blow from the front pipe for a little while. When I dropped the tank to change the sender I had to drop the exhaust aswel. I undid the back mounts and lowered it down and this happend.

Can't quite see but it snapped off! Bugger! That led to this

Job jobbed!

[mg1100guy]

Had another play around today because my fuel problems were still there a little bit.
First I removed the dash pots and float chambers and sucked all the petrol out.


That revealed a dirty sludgy orrible mess in the bottom. I cleaned all of this out with brake cleaner and cotton buds. Then brake cleaner and an airline just to make sure it was all clean. Didn't have any after shots sorry but trust me they are spotless
I then moved onto the fuel lines themselves. I have replaces all the fuel lines except the long metal one that goes from the back of the car to the front.
I also put a fuel filter before the pump

And one just before the carbs just for good measure

Then I reassembled it all and voila. No misfire! It's always had a small stutter if you just rev it hard from idle. If your slow there's no miss. Now it's perfect

[mg1100guy]

I decided to take the car for a little drive today to take some pictures to thank it for not misfiring anymore



Unfurtunately I got. Little stuck in the quest for pictures

[almondgreen]

Nice stories and pictures, but how about investing in some wire clamps to tighten up the fuel lines ?

[mg1100guy]

bit more work done now, This is the subframe mount.


Two halves!

And this is the rear mount. Its strange it's gone all gooey and stretchy. Not sure why it would have done that. Oil maybe?


Never mind. All sorted now.

I then got the suspension all pumped up. A lot of people have told me that they are lovely cars to be in. Ride lovely etc. I always assumed they were just being generous but wow! It's lovely now! So smooth. I can't wait to go to the how now.



Much better! Ive also refitted the carpet to make it a bit nicer. I gave it a quick clean with my mothers vax hoover type thing. Shhh don't tell her though!
No pics of it fitted but this is the water that came out of the machine

[mg1100guy]

they were jubilee clipped the same day mate just no pictures. sorry:D more to come. my fingers are hurting now:)

quick picture in amongst all the modern rubbish at work


after this i thought about fitting an alternator as i just wasnt happy with jump starting the car most mornings!
Right here goes. I needed a new bracket to mount the alternator. It came like this.

And very quickly looked like this

And after a lick of paint

The essential tool kit

Heres the dynamo

And removed

I dislike this thing. Pain in the arse.

Old bracket next to the new one.

It fits !!!!

Need to sort a belt now. Local motor factors only had three belts in stock do I had all 3 to try! Turned out I needed a standard size! But the adjuster needed adjusting! Started like this.

Ended like this

It has a belt!

Now the bit I was dreading. Sorry for the lack of pictures but I can't do electrics and take pictures
This is the old regulator box for the dynamo. No longer needed. I had to join some wires together and cut others. Not really sure what I done tbh
But look!


Well that's about it. Starts beautifully. Wipers are quicker
Heaters are better. And the dash light goes of at 1000 rpm not 3000:p

[mg1100guy]

Few more little mods. Nothing major. A couple of new stickers



When I had the car it came with proper old school seat covers. Only problem was the stretchy back part of them was Compleatley rotten an just kept disintegrating. My mam then came up with an idea. So she bought some cheapy seat covers and cut the back off mine and the new ones and mated the two on her trusty sewing machine and voila!


I finally got round to doing a couple of little jobs on the mg today. The heaters are terrible. Very little air actually comes from the vents. So I thought I'd have a little look. Turned out that where the motor bolts into the bottom of the heater housing there should be a gasket of some kind. This had totally disintegrated causing all of the air to just leak out around the motor.



So I used a bit of sticky backed foam to go around it



And now it's back to being perfect! Well as perfect as 1966 heaters should be

then someone very kindly reversed into me!


gutted the chrome was perfect aswel. It's off now being fixed. Car looks a bit odd ATM with no grille:p

Never mind be back on tomorrow or day after hopefully

[Pandora]

nice wee car, and like you say, very comfortable.

Hope the reversing blind person stopped and owned up?

[mg1100guy]

Looks a bit silly

Got the dent out pretty well today.


Still there slightly but much much better. Also straightened out all of the grille slats. A couple were quite bent.



Will give it a good degrease and polish tomorrow and reassemble. Crisis averted!

it has a face again! now to avoid fiestas at all costs!


Ok so today the front end of the mg had a little face lift. It started out like this.


Then went to this.


Then finally this.


Not to everyones taste but I love it. Other awesomeness coming!

Right then. Had a wicked parcel in the post today. Another one from Jim (2drtoledo) this one was steering wheel shaped. And I love it. Right my original wheel is ok ish but when I get in with slightly damp hands all the black from the wheel comes off. So it started like this.


This was a comparison shot.


And this is it fitted.


It's like a toy car! Brilliant.

[12G940]

Hi mg1100guy
Did you know BMC made glass fibre versions of the 2 door 1100 shell, Nick Vortz of Vortz Racing was involved with the development side pre production. Not a lot of people know that.

[mg1100guy]

Couple of pics from today.







had a quick look at my donuts aswel as its clunking quite badly


The headlining fell off a little while back. It was all ripped and falling down and opening the windows at 60 didn't help as it came off compleatley and blew out if the window so this is how it's been for months now.


Crappy picture but that's just the metal roof. So a little ingenuity was needed a quick trip to pound land later I had these.


It's DIY time! A couple of hours later voila!



A fully carpeted headlining! All for £7. Now it's quieter and warmer in there. Sweet

I've also added a couple of new security features:D there's always been a key barrel in the o/s/r wing which I don't have a key for. Nothing attached on the other side either. The previous owner told me it was once an immobilizer that cut power to the fuel pump! Wicked idea. Quick look online found a new barrel and keys in maplins for £3.50. So now I have a working immobilizer!


My dads been up the loft and told me he found a couple of old style crook locks aswel. So why not!
Original stick


Then with collar fitted


And sorted!


And this is the other.


I've been having a bit of trouble selecting gears lately. Just getting stiffer and stiffer. So I pulled the stick out today for a quick look. All of the grease inside has sort of gone hard and lumpy.


So I gave it all a good wash in petrol and re greased everything ( sorry forgot pics) and its much much better now. Still a bit stiff but I'm happy:)

[mg1100guy]

no i didnt know there was a fibreglass shell made! what were they actually made for then?

But wait there's more! The mg has always run on a little but it's starting to get worse so a decoke is in order. Went to my local small motor factor to see if the could try and find me a head set. They had one on the shelf!


And the best part about it was he said "I never thought I'd sell that. £9 ok?" Amazing! Whilst he was out finding it I was just looking round his shelves full of old books etc and I spotted a Haynes manual for the mg. so I asked him how much he wanted for it. He got it down off the shelf looked it over and said "ummmm. £2?" Amazing. He handed it over and I noticed its brand new. In the cellophane!



Chuffed:D
Nipped to halfords after that just for a look and found a pair of ear muffs with a damaged box marked up for £2. Today's been my lucky day!

[mg1100guy]

Right. The driveshaft donuts have been clunking for some time but I didn't want to replace them with the standard crappy ones. So waited until i could affor the tidy roller bearing type. Had some delivered this morning so set about changing them.
These are the new type


Got it all jacked up


And had a closer look. Oh dear.


That's not good. Snapped one u bolt off compleatley!

I got the donut out which looks like this.

And the other side of it


Blinking heck! And these are the u bolts.



But that's not all. After removing the donut I could see that It's actually damaged the both drive flanges:( and I can't find any:(




Oh dear. I've now taken them to a local buisiness that I know the manager of an he is getting his boys to bridge the damage with weld then I can clean it up afterwards. Hopefully done by Friday. Ill keep you informed:)

[mg1100guy]

Right. Got a bit bored of waiting for the welded shafts to come back so decided to change the other side (in the snow!) when I was waiting. This side is no where near as bad as ye drivers side but still well and truly dead.



And this is the new roller bearing donut in place.


The part of the shaft that goes into the gear box on the right of that picture has a small amount of play in it. Maybe 1mm. Is that normal?

[mg1100guy]

and that brings us up to today when i had my welded shafts back! came back looking like this





sorted! i gave the welds a good clean with the flap wheel on the grinder until they look like this





sorted no pictures of it fitted sorry i was eager to go for a drive! much better now. ive fited new rubber donuts before and it didnt feel like this. really chuffed:)
sorry for putting so much up at once but ive only just found your forum so have copied alot of it from another. ill keep it updated from now on. hope you like it:)

[UHR850]

And now a good pair of minilites, will look great

[mg1100guy]

hell no:)
maybe some period alloys but im not a sheep:P

[cookie1071]

Interesting and entertaining story , tks for posting and keep the updates coming

Niall
PS Have you had a ton out of the car yet?