Fixes and trip preparation

Shortly after I dropped off the MGB in Cologne I got a call that they cannot put the car on the rolling road. When measuring the exhaust gases, the O2 level was too high – indicator of an exhaust leak. Now, after fixing this – I am still puzzled how I could not have noticed this before.

I picked up the MG on Thursday noon again and started to get the exhaust manifold out of the car. The Tourist Trophy manifold has a big flange that connects the rest of the exhaust system. To wiggle it out fuel filter, valve cover and of course the carburettor had to be removed. With all of this out of the way I could get the right angle to remove the manifold.

The heatshield tape around the manifold covered up the issue. The dark marks of the exhaust blow-by are not easily visible in the engine bay as the chassis – but once I had it out it was immediately clear that the manifold is broken. Additionally, the manifold gasket stuck to the middle down pipe and needed to be replaced. I knew that Frontline supplied me with a few additional gaskets when I picked up the car in 2018 – but to my surprise they gave me standard gaskets – which do not fit. Maggie has a large bore cylinder head. The inlet ports are much larger. As I needed to get the car back to VGS again asap – I had to improvise. I cut out the middle part of a new standard gasket and hat to reuse the left and right side of the old gasket. Not optimal but it will do the job.

With the car fixed for Victor Günther Motorsport they were able to change my distributor to a CSI Pro with Bluetooth and check the Weber 45 DCOE setup on a test stand. The ignition curve was programmed, jets and fuel pump changed on the Weber and a fourth progression hole was drilled in both barrels – which is the difference between a Weber 45 DCOE 152 and the 152″G” variant. The benefit of this change is a smoother transition between idle and main. A soft mount kit including springs has also been added to minimize vibrations issues. The rolling road test showed that the MG has 118 horse powers (116bhp). Quite ok for a 55 year old sports car. One thing VGS did not catch: Maggie has a Ford T9 5-speed gearbox. They only tested up to 4th gear and 175 km/h max speed …. 🙂

Back home I immediately started working on another important task for my upcoming trip: a larger boot floor. Originally, I wanted to collect the Morgan’s rear axle from JB Sports Engineering last month. But as JB was hit by Covid this did not work out. Therefore, I now need to fit it into the MGB. And as the rear seats in the MGB are not useable anyway – I played with the idea for quite some time already to remove the rear seat and put in a floorboard similar to the Frontline Development LE 50 cars.

Even though I measured everything on the other MGB GT bodyshell a few days ago – it took a couple of hours to build this as I had to modify it for Maggie. The carpet on the rear wheel arches is much thicker than I thought. It was important for me to have something that can be easily reverted again. Therefore, It has to bolt down to the same holes like to old boot floor did. I also wanted a complete flat surface – while having the option to keep the spare tire.
It is not finished yet and I have to make a few more modifications – I will do this in April when I am back – the carpet I ordered will not arrive intime. The prototype will do for the rear axle transport.