always look on the bright side….

The pictures below are not from taken by a remote-controlled submarine filming the bottom of the ocean. No, unfortunately not. It is actually really bad news I received via a WhatsApp message today from GB Classic. This is the bottom of cylinder 2 of Maggie’s engine – my 1967 MGB GT. And while all I have is the image right now – I believe it is already quite clear, that the head & engine needs to be pulled.

Just a quick recap on Maggie’s history: Engine was fully rebuilt during winter 2018/2019 in the UK. This includes getting a +60 bore, a BP285 cam, CSI electronic ignition and a Weber 45DCOE carb. The head gasket had to be replaced 9 months and 10000km later. After that the car ran great but Corona lockdown related, I only drove approx. 7000km in 2020 and 2021. Earlier this year Viktor Günter Motorsport in Cologne checked the carburettor tuning as well as switching to a CSI pro distributor. It was blast to drive with the car after this. A long trip to Spain, the UK and back in March as well as many tours followed in 2022. Adding up to a total of roughly 28000km since I bought the car.

All was good until I was 10km away from the German border on my last trip to the MGB60 event UK this September. The engine did not deliver the same power anymore above 2500 rpm. After I got the car home, I checked what I could. Static timing was good, fuel filters clean, compression test was ok, etc – the only thing I found was that the valve clearance was almost gone.

Over the entire time I had the car (even before the rebuilt) this is something that happened multiple times (at least twice a year). Every time I searched for what the root cause could be, corrected the clearance and all was good again. The same looked to be the case now. Well, that was until I wanted to take the MGB to the driving-safety training. The engine started to make a horrible sound and I decided that I need help from somebody with more experience.

In Cologne they tested the compression again after this and it is only 3 bar on Cyl 1 and 2 now. Next they used the endoscope and the pictures are below. To my knowledge there are a few things that can cause a hole in a piston but it is too early to determine this just based on the picture. The next logical step is to pull Maggie’s cylinder head. And GB Classic would do this next. But as I have Mildred’s (1973 GB GT) 18V engine almost back together, I decided to bring back Maggie to my Garage and do an engine swap myself. After this Maggie’s engine rebuild will be done together with GB Classics.

Looking at the bright side, it is an excellent way to test if the 18V engine is OK before it will go back into back in the 1973 MGB GT shell (which is so far away from being repaired…. another topic to be addressed). And hopefully I hopefully have a driving MGB GT in the meantime.