Luv2Wrench

I've take a bit of a detour from getting the tub together because I realized I haven't sent the chrome away to get plated. Oops!! I called the plater earlier in the week and they are running about an 8 week backlog. That's probably fine but I certainly don't want to wait any longer. I spent just about the whole week going through the chrome and getting things ready. The bumpers, obviously, are a big part of that and I found a few surprises when I got to those. The bumper bar on the rear bumper was at some point broken... but no big deal because a welding genius welded it back together. And yes, this is real... I'm not making this up. I've yet to be able to identify the, uh, patch material other than it appears to be metallic. There's so much to like about this job, note how an additional piece was added that is no where near the actual break. The real genius took two people... the guy that welded the bar in place in the bumper getting splatter all over and then the plater that just plated it without a second thought. The real icing on the cake though is seen below.... the break in the bumper bar escapes unscathed (or shall we say... unfused.). While my cat doesn't weld, I'm pretty sure he could do a better job. Getting back to the tub, one of the last pieces was securing the scuttle in place. I reassembled the windshield so I could make sure the width was correct. It turned out perfect so I nailed the top in place. The rear of the scuttle is welded to the front quarter panel in two small spots on each side. This was one time I wish that I had a MIG welder and not Oxy/Acetylene torch. It turned out just fine but boy there is a pucker factor when you're welding thin sheet metal that is wrapped around a 68 year old wood frame. It is just two small spots on each side so it wasn't an issue but it did seem like an eternity waiting on the puddle to form. Once I got that done I put the spacers on the front and installed the firewall. Unfortunately I immediately ran into problems. It turned out that I pulled the sheet metal down too much in the front and drilled the holes in the front support too low as well. The end results was the spacer on the top fits the firewall perfectly.... OR the spacers on the side fit perfectly... just not both. 😳 I took the firewall back off, removed the top spacer (which, of course, I had added a nice bead of silicon caulk as well) and pulled the nails out to free up the sheet metal. I raised up the sheet metal, raised the spacers, put the firewall back on and was able to get everything to line up. As it sits now it is perfect... the only problem is that the spacer is not screwed into the tub and the scuttle top isn't nailed in either. I'm not 100% sure how I'll keep everything in place when I take it back apart such that I can nail and screw everything in. The one thing I do know is that it was late and not the time to try. I'll get that done tomorrow and the finish up the doors.

I'll never look at a brake rotor the same way again... To think that I've thrown so many away!

Can you get something to hang over the lathe that would hold the chuck? I've been thinking about that for mine because they are heavy regardless of one's current health state. At one point I had it on a "shelf" that was immediately behind and level with the back way. I could roll the chuck off that shelf, on to a board that sat between the ways and the up on a 2x4 block to get even with the spindle. Reverse the process to remove. I think the hanging hook idea might be more trouble to get set up, but once you did it would be super easy.

The good part of forgetting what you have is that you can't be too worried about forgetting where you put it... and the surprise when you run across it later is almost as much joy as when your acquired it to begin with.

EPDM is indeed a synthetic rubber and shows up in your local hardware store as weatherstripping. What makes it good for this is its designed ability to handle cold temperatures by remaining pliable, not shrinking and/or cracking. As a synthetic it is also easier to mold/form and can make interesting shapes that give it the gap filling capability. These were really good features for the area I was using it in. I'm sure it will later be found to cause some sort of cancer and be banned...

I got the passenger's side front and rear quarter panels installed. I'm using an EDPM rubber strip between the quarters and the frame parts. The one I selected fills between 1/8" and 5/16" gap. It is adhesive backed and goes on very nicely. Doesn't hold water and gives a nice fit between the panels and frame. Should protect against rubbing. Astonishingly enough... it was available at the local Home Depot. I got the passenger's door mounted and it looks like it is going to work very well. I need to bend the hinges a bit to bring the rear of the door out away from the rear quarter panel and the door itself and little towards the rear so it will have more of a gap at the front. I took a closer look at the driver's door and I can see where the front of the panel has a flat spot instead of the curve. I think I'll be able to get the curve back and that should bring the top in closer to the quarter panel. I also raised it up a bit with the hinges and it swing shut pretty much spot on. I think with the change in the curve it will be perfectly acceptable if not perfect. Lastly I got the scuttle installed though before I nail the front I will install the windshield to make sure the scuttle is still the correct width. I didn't think about this but I read it in the MGT forums when I was researching door fitment. I'm glad I did as getting to the end (with paint no less) and the windshield not fitting would be a huge letdown!!

Martin, Roger and Mike, Yes, I think my mental image of what this car should be has been driven by a set of pictures I found for an MG TD that sold at auction for $88K. It was perfect, gaps, lines, everything. One way or another that has become my "goal" for this car. I had prepared myself for the disappointment of the doors not fitting right because of a mistake I might have made redoing the woodwork. To find that I had done it correct and that the door didn't fit right leaving the factory... that was the source of my despair. I also blame (not really) Joe because he's made me a machinist and trained me to look at 3/16" as 187 thousandths which is a monstrously huge amount. I'm going to leave the door as is for this morning. I'm going to set the other side in place and see how that door fits. Once that is done I'll take another look at the driver's door. If I could bend some curve into the front so that the spacing away from the front quarter panel was even top to bottom I might be satisfied leaving it low. In truth... if I do get the spacing correct in the front I'm going to then try to get the height right because when it comes to making a bad situation worse... I'm always game.

Yeah so it went OK but not great. FedEx is now saying the shipment is "Pending" which I guess is their was of saying "crap, it didn't make it on time and we're not sure what went wrong". These are trying times so I not shocked. I got the driver's rear quarter panel on and it is a great fit. Very happy with it. Backboard is complete save for the two t-nuts which I'll be able to put in later though not as easily. The front quarter panel is on and it fits good as well. The not so great news is that the door is about 3/16" to 1/8" low. Not angled... just low. The bad news is that I think it was made this way. These are things I noticed when I put the car together the first time and went for a test drive. The post on the driver's side didn't change and the rear post on the door is original as well... the holes for the hinges are all original... they are all lined up... but it is just low. Period. If that wasn't bad enough, the front of the door is not curved enough to follow the front quarter panel. Maybe the same amount off. Unfortunately I think this is original as well. I've noticed various parts of the car were put together poorly, bad joinery, misaligned holes, etc. These cars were built by hand and I'm afraid the guy that did mine just didn't do that great a job. There is one spot on the rear quarter panel that they didn't even use the original hole... they drilled another one 3/8" below it and used that. Ugh. I'm not really sure what I'll do at this point. My guess is that I will not be able to ignore it and I'll plug up the holes in the door post and drill news ones 3/16" higher. I'll need to trim the sheet metal as well. I looked at trying to offset the hinges in some way but even if I did that it would be pretty obvious. I held the passenger's door up on the other side and it seems to fit into its spot a lot better. When I put things together the first time it fit pretty well so maybe it will this time as well.

No pictures for last couple of days but making very good progress. I'm now waiting on some t-nuts to finish off the backboard. Due to how the car is assembled I have to have that in place before the rear quarters can go on, which is holding up fitting the doors which is holding up fixing the front half of the panels which is holding up the scuttle which is holding up the firewall. FedEx says they'll be here by end of day tomorrow... I sure hope that it is before that. I've been plating some more nuts and bolts and have had pretty good success this time. Last time I really struggled but I made some changes in prep, a tweak to the solution and change in the current and it seems to be working really well now. The goal this weekend is to get the tub back together and off the chassis so that it can be prepped for painting. I felt like this was reasonable earlier this week but I'm starting to wonder if it will happen. I do have some questions about, for lack of a better term, "best practices" in the final assembly. I made good notes about what I found as I took things apart but I do have some questions about what was original. In addition I'm sure there are some things that, while original, I don't want to do... like felt between some pieces. I bought another book that while a bit dated should have some more information that will be handy. I'll have some more pictures over the weekend.

That's great news. I ordered one last night. I did not replace it when I did the rebuild as I completely overlooked it. I went back and looked and it is on the workshop manual but I either forgot about it or just flat out missed it.

Panels are fitting and I'm breathing a big sigh of relief. Door will be up shortly and if I can get those to swing closed properly I'm really going to be pleased. Might take a bit, so I'm prepared for patience.

Would the pilot bearing only make a noise when the clutch is pressed in? If so... then that sounds like my problem.

Feel free to jump in any time! The plate that came with the MG TD has a center ring that then presses on the finger. I've heard that a roller style (and even the carbon bearing) works better if the ring is removed and the fingers are nice and smooth. That sounds like the setup you have on the Morris. Thanks for sharing!

I wouldn't bet against you at this point! I plan to paint the car British Racing Green and a dark shade of that. I bought the Moss biscuit leather interior. If there is a show close by and close to the time I finish the car I will take it, but the plan has always been to sell the car and start another project. I could see myself getting another TD in the future and keeping it but right now I enjoy the restoring part.

Most of the frame on now, battery ran out of juice as did I. Will pick back up tomorrow.

All parts for the tub are primed and ready to go back together! I didn't shoot the outside of the body panels as they will take a little massaging when they are bent/nailed back around the wood frames. Once together I will prime the outside with epoxy primer, wait 2 days and then spray sanding primer on the whole tub and start sanding. I like the easy up/down of the paint booth as I can sand away and not worry with getting the "walls" messed up. I will keep them stored in my garage. They are light enough to take in two trips but just a bit too bulky so it takes three.

It seems, at least to me, the basic issue here is that the original design worked and was fine, but when the quality of replacement parts fell off like most things made today the design then became a problem. Since the arm that pushes the bearing towards the center of the pressure plate rotates on a point below the path, the bearing itself must move in an arc. The arm isn't that long thus the radius is short and the curve in the path is significant. The curve in the path means that there are only two points (on a complete circle) where the bearing would be concentric with the center of the pressure plate. In between those points you would have friction ranging from little too intense. To better imagine this you can imagine the extreme case of not being concentric would be to have the center of the bearing to have fallen equal to or below the lower edge of the center of the pressure plate at which point you would have the center of pressure plate traveling in a smile path and the TO bearing traveling in a frown path... making for a lot of friction. The original design had a material that would wear and would do so at a rate slower than the clutch itself... thus when it was time to change the clutch you change the bearing as well. In fact, back in those days you heated the holder up, what was left of the bearing material fell out and you glued a new ring back in. No big deal. As such, as long as your release (throw out) bearing outlived the clutch it was fine. When the quality of the bearing degraded and possibly when new drivers not familiar with the concept of NOT continuously applying the clutch bought these cars... well you had problems. Problems that required removing the engine to fix. As such people looked for a modern fix. Those familiar with the modern equivalent laugh at the idea of a wearable surface pressing against the pressure plate. A rotating surface against another rotating surface is an obvious solution. The difference in a modern setup is the TO bearing is applied in a path that is concentric with the center of the pressure plate. I believe they follow a sleeve and/or are actuated hydraulically inline with the first motion shaft/crankshaft/etc. So that's the theory behind this and it makes a wonderful argument to passionately defend and matters little which side you take. The reality is that while the radius is short it isn't *that* short and the path is not *that* curved. A high quality thrust bearing with a wearable thrust surface is likely to be a near permanent solution and would certainly outlast a poor quality wearable bearing. Not continuously holding the clutch in is something to remember as well. One more *very* important note in all of this is that I said above there are two points where they would be concentric (for all practical purposes.. there is one point). My question is where is that point? Is this at full travel, part travel, initial engagement?? I would imagine the engineers set this up to be slightly low of center on engagement, dead on at the point where the plate has released the clutch and back slightly low just passed that. As such a properly adjusted clutch lever, an understanding of how far to press in the clutch, when to shift, etc, would probably result in very little wear. Stop me if this sounds like drum brakes vs. disc brakes. Now.. for my case I'm not convinced yet that the noise I was hearing is the TO bearing failing. I think it is more involved than that. However, now that I'm aware of the quality issue I most likely will be looking for a more modern solution. While I might be able to understand what is required for proper operation I can only imagine the next owner might not. In other news... the weather gave me a break, the rain quit, sun came out and the temp climbed up to 60... just enough to get the last bit of primer shot.

It seems that the lack of concentricity is the issue for roller bearings. The attempts to fix this issue seem to be the use of teflon, delrin and carbon... with the idea being that the smaller amount of friction between the two rotating (but not concentric) surfaces would be eased by these surfaces. How someone drives their car also plays a big role in this. If you keep the clutch in when stopped you greatly increase the wear/heat or so they say. I do wonder, however, what the concentricity looks like at full extension?? I think some measurements and experiments are on order for this rainy day today.

Yeah I've got two roller bearings in my "cart" right now. Seems a Honda Civic bearing is just right. I still have some research to do, lots of opinions in this area.

Shot primer on the tub parts yesterday. Almost got everything done, probably only needed another hour but temp dropped fast and while I can keep my shop at 75 degrees, I can't do that when the fan is running and sucking in cold air. This is a two-part epoxy primer and it wants a surface temp of no less than 60 degrees. Since it is the base to the entire finish... I thought it best to just wait until conditions would be better. Today is doubtful as it is 47 degrees and pouring rain... still a nice toasty 75 in the shop, but that awesome fan would have it down to 47 very quickly.... much faster than my heater can warm it. Monday afternoon will be great so it'll get done then. As noted I noted Chris's mga thread, Little British Car company is still open and delivering parts. I got my t-nuts and floorboards screws Friday which was fantastic as I was able to get the t-nuts in the door frame before I shot the primer. Since I did get to put a few miles on the car and it has been sitting for a year, I'm getting a great chance to see how various parts of the restoration have held up. I've noticed that a few nuts/bolts that I thought were fine actually needed to be re-plated. The core plugs on the engine are still weeping/leaking even though I replaced them before. I've ordered another set and will try yet another installation technique this time. The brand new master cylinder I got from Moss is already rusted... so I guess it didn't have any corrosion protection at all. Maybe that's the way it was supposed to be but if so a big "paint this or it will rust" noticed should have been included. It is a real disappointment as it will be a pain to pull that out, paint it, put it back and bleed the brakes again. Last item is the clutch noise. The first few times I drove the car everything was great. Then I started hearing a screeching/grinding noise when the clutch was depressed. At first it seemed like maybe when it was all the way in but then later it seemed to happen for the full stroke. It was occasional as well. I replaced the entire bell housing, clutch release bearing, throw arm etc, etc and was greatly relieved to be rewarded with slight and smooth operation when I drove it after that. However... after a few more drive the same noise was back. Since I was planning on taking everything apart for paint already I decided to wait until now to have another look at the assembly and see what might be causing the problem. I took a peek through the access panel and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. I ordered another release bearing (which is really just a block of graphite) and will take everything back apart and, hopefully, will see some witness marks of whatever is causing the noise. The design of the system is pretty suspect and I've read some interesting threads on various solutions. To make matters worse it seems the release bearings are now made with much less dense carbon/graphite material and don't hold up. Unfortunately this seems pretty typical. I've seen some people use the roller bearing style from the MGB and Triumphs but I've heard from others that you shouldn't do that because the bearing is not concentric to the pressure plate during travel (it moves in an arc not straight in/out). It seems like the best solution would be a combination and it seems that someone has done that by turning out the housing, pressing in a roller bearing and then pressing a teflon sleeve/cover over the front of the bearing. It is a whopping $125 plus $20 shipping but if it works it sure is cheaper than pulling the engine out later. First I need to find the "real" problem and then decided if I should also switch to this type roller bearing.

Forward progress today is now measured by full backward progress on the car... as it is back down to the frame. That's good because now the things that go back on the frame will stay there (more less). The tub has been completely removed, wood restored, panels patched, blasted and prepped for primer. I've been saying this for months... but I hope to get primer on these within the week and start getting the tub re-assembled. Once it is back on the frame and complete... I'll take it back off the frame and mount it to a rolling base. From there I'll spray a sanding primer and start bodywork.

Same problem for me with Moss being closed, however, https://www.lbcarco.com Little British Car Company is still open and shipping and they still have a large inventory. You can order from them based on Moss part numbers as well. Jeff Zorn is a great guy and got my stuff out to me in 1 day and it should be here tomorrow. Not as convenient to you as Moss but same part numbers, 15% less on the price, quick shipping and they're still open.

I LOVE IT!!! Nice find, looks like a time capsule. Just beautiful. Only disappointment was no burnout after rolling off the trailer. And yes, Ed, same birth year so it isn't an old car... just coming into prime.

Mike, This is terrible news!!! I do hope the Dr is wrong and future days will bring better health. It was a joy to be a part of your restoration of the Humberrette. I do hope that you will stay involved in the forums as I know we've all enjoyed your company. Your knowledge is so valuable and knowing that you're following my posts always gives me joy... and I'm sure it does others as well.

Completed the rear wall of the paint booth. The rear part is the most complicated as the two center panels are open to have a 2x2 grid of filters in each. That give me an 80"x40" bank of air filters. The fan will be set back about 24" and have a shroud to expand its 40"40" opening to match the 80"x40" filter bank. I think this should give me good air flow. I got a different fan because I felt like the other one wasn't putting out enough air. I bought a junked 36" diameter fan that was used to ventilate a chicken house. It has 6 blades and a 3/4 HP motor. It was beat to heck but I was able to restore it. I fixed a couple of the blades, replaced the bearings and went through the motor. This thing was designed to move some serious air. It weighs a ton and it a real bear to get into place but wow it moves the air. We have rain and storms predicted tomorrow so I likely will not have a chance to put the panels up and get the primer on but the first of next week looks good. I'm super happy with how the panels for the temporary paint booth turned out. They are sturdy but thin and light. Had I known it was going to be as much trouble as it was I probably would not have done it. Now that I have it done, however, it far exceeds my expectations and was certainly worth the time and money.