fifty shades of green

I didn’t really get anything done on the Morgan today. The day started with an early trip in the MGB heading north on the A61. On the way to the Autobahn, I already had the feeling that there is sometimes a strange sound coming from the front suspension. At around 175km/h (the scary thing is that this is just half throttle in 5th gear…) I started to notice a vibration and immediately slowed down. A couple of weeks back I noticed that a front top trunnion poly bushes is broken but this cannot cause the vibration. Thankfully, the team from Frontline Developments just sent me new bushes earlier this week.

So back at the garage I jacked up the car and quickly changed the bushes. This is a 5min job and I decided to also check all bolts using the torque settings table I found on the net. Those were all fine – nothing that could explain the vibrations. Since I had the car on axle stands I decided to grease the front suspension – although I just did this back in August – not even 2500km ago. After putting the wheels back on I found the most probable cause. The wheel bearing on the right (offsite) has substantial play. The left side (nearside) just a tiny amount.

For the MGB a pair of front wheel bearing costs close to nothing. I wonder if the front splinted hub for the MGB and Morgan are the same. They sure look similar – the way the bearings are installed, however, is a little different. Changing the wheel bearings for the MGB will be good training – on the Morgan the bearings seemed OK but eventually have to be changed as well in the future.

As you can see from the pictures Maggie (my MG) has a few shades of green. According to the heritage certificate the car was shipped painted in “British Racing Green”. In the paint shop we measured the thickness and color of the paint. The roof, trunk and some parts of the rear panels still seem to have the original paint. This has the paint code GN-25 (British Racing Green). The paint repair-kit and info I got from the seller when I bought the car is that the car is painted in GN-29 (British Racing Green Dark). This was an option from 1968-1969 for the MG. The repainted parts of the car clearly show this difference.

None of the tones on the MG matched the Deep Brunswick Green (P030-0427) that the Morgan had – despite being remarkably similar. None of these tones are dark enough for my taste. This leads to three options that are on the table now:
– Connaught Green (GN-18) was both available for the MG from 1964 to 1967 as well used on many Morgans.
– Deep-Green (GN-41) can be found on the BMC options list from 1967. I saw a Midget at an event last year that I liked in this color. However – my paint shop could not find a reference on how to mix it.
-Brooklands Green (BLVC 169) – we found this as Rover HYF / LRC569 in three different variants.

Decision needs to be made by Tuesday when I will get all panels that go on the frame will be painted on the inside.