Lost and Found

It was quite hot today and as the week left me a bit exhausted – I really had to kick myself to get into the garage today. An unfinished task that is bothering me, is the MGB rear axle overhaul I started February last year.

Due to missing parts – the axle got moved to my MGB storage shelf – like many other things. But on my last UK trip I finally ordered what is needed and I should be able to put the entire rear axle – including brakes and hubs back together. I started by cleaning the surfaces for the gasket and retainers for the half-shafts with first 120, 240 and finally 400 grid sandpaper. A lot of elbow grease in a garage with more than 33°C is a sweaty matter. After about an hour it was time to take a break and do something else. The axle shafts came to my mind.

My plan was to keep the wheel bearings. The original ones last a long time – but one made quite some noise when spinning and clearly needed to be replaced. A cheap bearing puller from Amazon and the impact driver made this an easy job. As just replacing one side did not feel right – I took off the bearings for on both sides. To assemble the new bearings, I was going to visit a friend with a hydraulic press – but his plans changed so this did not work out.

As it was clear that I won’t be able to finish the axle today – I decided to already get all parts together needed to finish including the brakes. At this point I realised that it is about time to clean the left “MGB” garage. It is just over 14 months ago that I started building the shelf on the back wall. Even though I started with a good system – over time some parts got “Lost” – they ended up in the wrong box due to space constraints. It might not look like it – but most items for almost two entire MGBs have found their way into storage by now.

A while ago I also bought two old Mazda MX5 seats. The bare GT shell has slowly turned into storage space as well over time. As the seats were in the way – it made sense to also store them inside the shell. This was an opportunity to test how they would fit. What I already knew is that it is important to flip the sides of the seats. This way the reclining mechanism sits close to the gearbox tunnel – allowing the seats to go much further back. I will create some brackets, allowing to use captive nuts in the floor and place the runners for the MX5 seats further back. The goal is to allow seat adjustment for people between ~5.5ft (170cm) and ~6.4ft (195cm).

After a quick seat test – I focussed on sorting all parts. After a while I “Found” the brake backplates and other parts required to work on the rear axle. The Tourist Trophy exhaust system of Maggie (1967 MGB GT) will also be moved into the shelf soon – I got a great news from Moss via Frontline this week: They will replace the twisted manifold and send a replacement to Frontline – they really keep their 5-year warranty promise, I highly appreciate this. Combined with an additional silencer in the middle it will be a great exhaust system for the Mildred. After my summer vacation I need to find more space – another spare MGB engine, a crossmember and a few other parts are already waiting to be picked up in the UK….