Listers,
Well, I'm back from my grueling matrimony stint in Macon...
For the last few weeks, I've had the B's cooling system apart and
generally been sprucing up a lot of stuff in the engine bay. I hope "Punkin"
and MOWOG don't give me any fits for letting her sit too long...hehe.
I spent today putting the newly refurbished radiator, shroud, oil
cooler, valve cover, etc. back in. The front half of the engine bay was
scrubbed clean and all the hardware was renewed or sanded/primered/painted.
I hope the both the rubber and foam rad seals will help the cooling of the
car, but at least it looks "right". I've noticed few Bs with the foam
"thing" that sits between the rad and shroud.
A couple of comments/questions on this project...
1) I'm replacing the grommets that go where the oil cooler hoses pass
through the shroud. Now that I've done it....What a Pain!!!! Don't do this
with children around! This was comparable to the circlips on the rear wheel
cylinders. I decided that I had to cut them to fit them over the hoses and
now I'm struggling with getting them fitted into the shroud holes while the
hoses are through...grrrr.... Did I miss some obvious method or is this just
one of those things? I have a whole new respect for pro restoration people
for not scratching new paint while doing this! The grommets are hard rubber,
btw, which the old ones were not.
2) Is Red Line Water Wetter only a mail order thing? Even the local
radiator guy had never heard of it! Not a big deal, I was just hoping I
could buy it local and pour some in, alas, no. When I pulled it, the fluid
seemed to be almost pure coolant, which explains the needle creeping high on
that long hot blast back from Indy, eh? I'll go with the proper ratio of
distilled water and coolant, of course.
3) Painted the valve cover with some dark gray Krylon Hammertone, and it
looks sharp! Yeah, I know, it's not "proper" but all the other stuff was
painted satin (matte) black (same can as I used for the Rostyle). I even
used a sponge brush and pipe cleaners to paint the engine -- DPO had the
head rusty and blue and the block rusty and red. The procedure involves
spraying black engine enamel into the cap and using a brush -- you won't
usually find engine enamel in a pint can, trust me!
I refered to "Original MGB" a LOT during this procedure, and noticed
that most of the engine bays even have gloss black on the heads and blocks!
What's up with that? ;)
Hopefully, I'll be on the road again tomorrow enjoying my vacation in my B,
which should be able to "sweat" a little more freely in this summer heat!
Dan
73 Blaze B
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