~ Fellow fiends:
~
~ No doubt this is a well worn FAQ, but heck, I've got no manners, so...
~ Can anyone out there recommend a workshop manual for the MGB, other than the
~ Haynes manual? Haynes seems quite variable in terms of depth of detail from
~ chapter to chapter and it just isn't helpful enough for me at times. I have
~ the "Complete Official E-type" manual from Robert Bentley (sp?) and that is
~ a very nice book on that car. Is there a similar book on the B? Any other
~ suggestions?
Yes, in fact it's the same -- the Complete Official MGB, in various
flavors for various years. The early versions come with supplements
for pollution controls, but also add the Special Tuning guide (the
factory competition manual). What's particularly depressing about
that is that the S.T. guide lists part numbers for all the hot factory
racing goodies you used to be able to buy. Sure, most of them have
probably been superseded by modern materials and engineering
refinements, but it would have made such a nice wish-list...
Other good reference works are the Lindsay Porter "D.I.Y." series,
which exists for the Mini and Spridgets as well as the MGB. It's
got some long-winded title (And Don't We All Know How Much I Hate
Long-Winded Things) like "Lindsay Porter's Guide to Maintenance And
Restoration -- MGB" or some such.
There are also reprints of Practical Classics (a British magazine)
articles on restoring hopelessly shot old British sports cars. I
have the MGB and the Mini version; they're mainly worthwhile, I find,
for motivation -- I would NEVER start with a car as horribly rotted
out as the ones they use, so therefore my vehicles must be easy to
fix by comparison. :-)
And I'm going to have to write to David Vizard and see if he'll co-author
a book with me on "Tuning the B-Series Engine." I've used his A-Series
work to make a lot of my tuning decisions on the MGB, and they've
generally been usable in theory if not in dimension. It's also one
of the best references on SU carburetor theory of operation and high-
performance tuning, and a good example of information layout (though he
doesn't give it an INDEX!!!)
That's a good basic MGB library. If you're a nut for completeness,
Lindsay Porter also wrote two other books you may want to look at; one
is his BMC and Leyland B Series History book that I referenced in a
message last week; it's mostly sort of depressing, with only one
photographic section on stripping and assembling a B Series engine.
He's also written a book called How To Improve and Modify Your MGB,
which I don't own, and I own a lot of borderline worthless books on
MGBs, so that should describe my opinion of it.
And of course, no M.G. library would be without "Multimedia Authoring:
Building and Developing Documents," by your humble and obedient servant.
It's not really *about* MGBs, but the HyperCard stack on the enclosed
diskette has a number of tuning and maintenance operations used as an
example of information layout and media selection in interactive
document design. If nothing else, this is the first MGB reference that
actually has an interactive chart, with audio clips, of what the car is
supposed to sound like when you raise the lifting pins and it's too
rich, too lean, or just right. No less an august personage than our
own Marcus Tooze acted as beta-tester on that diskette; if nothing else,
Marcus indicated that you can win the admiration and wonder of your
neighbors and co-workers by tuning your M.G. with a Powerbook resting
on the fender as you twiddle the mixture adjusting nuts... :-)
That's the basics. Our local British cars parts/service emporium,
O'Connor Classic (408.727-0430, and of course it's a strictly one-
way money flow between us :-) has a glass case full of other reference
books on M.G.s, Jags, Triumphs, and a few other cars. They have some
interesting books there, including a pocket (or glove-box) sized
workshop manual that seems pretty complete, and also of course they
have the various Brooklands compilations of old road-test articles.
--Scott Fisher
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