Hello Friends,
I write this morning to report that my '70 MGB is
once again alive. The valve job is complete, ignition
fully rebuilt and the car started and ran just fine.
Old engines are so cool.
As the car warmed up my son noticed a small coolant
leak at the thermostat housing. The coolant was
coming from around the threads of one stud. We shut
the engine down and allowed everything to cool before
cleaning up the weep of coolant.
I now realize what happened. Two of the three
thermostat studs are open to the water jacket. In my
quest to make everything 'pretty' I had set the height
of all studs equal in height. That meant that the two
studs entering the water jacket were not 'bottomed
out' and THAT was where the coolant was entering the
threads and working its way out.
I simply removed those two studs, applied a tiny
bit of sealant and ran them down until they bottomed
out. I then replaced the nuts and washers and started
the engine. Voila! No leaks. Now, a day later, its
time to tune.
Thanks go out to Paul Hunt and Fred Sisson for
their excellent SU tuning write-ups. I read the
Haynes version and then Paul and Fred's. I didn't
pick up anything new but rather, just enjoyed the
refresher. The only bit left out of these write-ups
was the process for centralizing the jets. Still,
these are 'tuning' write-ups where centralizing the
jets, float bowl heights and needle selections are
'settings'. My goal is not to debate semantics but
rather to thank Paul and Fred for taking the time to
write those reports.
Today, I will 'tune' my SU carbs, if time permits.
I'll start by checking the settings, including the
needle alignments, and then move on to mixture and
airflow. Of course, this all assumes that I don't end
up with honey-dos before the Canadian F1 GP. I choose
to not work the race this year and given the
temperatures, it was probably a good decision. (Not
as young as I once was!) After that we have family
junk to do. My window of opportunity is now until the
Grand Prix. So why am I typing and not tweaking? I
dunno. Better go.
regards,
rick
PS: I'll write a quick follow-on after the SUs are
back in good form.
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