To introduce myself, my wife and our baby.
Our baby being our 1965 MGB otherwise known as May-B.
I have actually been a member of this list for over three years now but have
rarely ever posted. Mainly because I never really had any problems to ask
about. When I first subscribed I was living in the UK and owned a 1975 B named
Kalamity Pain. A very undeserving name as it happened since she gave me over a
year of trouble free motoring including one trip to Portugal and Southern
Spain.
Throughout that period of ownership I read all the mail to this list and read
the MG BBS daily, it was through the BBS that I met my wife Stefanie. She had
owned a 1979 B for many years and loves the cars as much as I do. Also, coming
from a family of race car drivers she enjoys messing with cars and doesn't
mind getting all oily and greasy! The only thing I can't persuade her to play
with is the angle grinder - something about not liking the sparks flying! :-)
Doubt that she'll ever play with a welder either but I'm hoping she will.
To cut a long story short, in March of 1999 I moved to the USA, in May of 1999
we were married, soon after that we bought our B (any guesses where we came up
with the name?) :-).
The car was a steal, an abandoned project that had been sitting in a garage,
partly stripped, for 10 years. We paid $400 and got the car with most of the
panels to complete her (all genuine BL), a 4000 mile old engine, an all-sync
gearbox fitted and a large collection of boxes of parts! The only major thing
missing is a carpet set. We got a complete set of brand new chrome trim, two
perfectly restored pull-handle doors with all the hardware, brand new top,
perfect seats, etc, etc.
For the first 18 months we owned her we couldn't do anything to her, lack of
time, finances etc. But now a welder will be joining us soon and I have
started sorting through boxes, cleaning, restoring and repainting parts. Thus
begineth the problems, the previous owner of the car also owned 2 other MGBs,
one fell apart with rust, the other he wrecked, our boxes not only contain
May-B's parts, they also contain large portions of both these cars!
So I am now faced with sorting out 65 bits from 72 and 74 bits, hampered by
the fact that all my tools and MG manuals are still in storage in the UK!
So, over the next couple of months while I am trying to put this car back
together I will probably ask lots of dumb questions like which brake/clutch
master cylinder cover do I use? Is it the one with the bracket with a hole
welded to it and another tapped hole for the brake light switch or is it the
plain one?
Yes some of these questions may seem dumb but I have both types of brake light
switch also in the boxes so I honestly have no idea which is the correct one
for a 1965! Or even if there is some reason one would be better than the
other.
Total commitment to originality is not an issue here, we just want a good
reliable daily driver that could be reverted to original in the future.
This is my third MGB rebuild so I hope to get through most of it without too
many problems and the large collection of relevant posts I have saved from
this list over the last couple of years will also be a big help!
A couple of pictures of the car for those interested.
http://www.mghorizon.50g.com/html/cars/may_b.html
Thanks to all that actually managed to read this far!
MikeB
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