Bridget’s Diary

The compressor started misbehaving, it wouldn’t get up to pressure. I tracked it down to the head gasket, which looked like this. Mrs L, clever thing, made me a temporary replacement from cardboard, which worked very well, and I contacted the suppliers in Germany to see about getting a proper replacement. They said they would like to see a photo of the  inside of the machine where the gasket fits, so I took the head off again and sent them a photo. A few evenings later I went back into the garage to do some more work, and switched on the wall socket as usual, to which is connected a trailing extension, to which was connected the compressor. The switched on compressor.  The one with the cylinder head still unbolted. It was quite impressive - bits of metal flew everywhere, some just missing me. The con rod on the cylinder snapped, and the cylinder  flew across the garage. I still haven’t found all the bits. I contacted the suppliers again and told them what had happened. They said I would have to pay for repairs as it was my fault. I decided that was fair enough, but it wasn’t worth repairing. I found what appeared to be a much better one at Axminster Power Tool Centre, and the following day it had been reduced in price, so I thought this had to be a sign and ordered one. It’s a twin cylinder 3 hp job, and its output is about three times that of the other one. It did have a tendency to blow fuses on start up (others have reported the same problem, it seems it may need more than a 13A supply in some areas), and I find that I have to drain it down and hold the relief valve open to get it to start reliably. But after that, it works much better than the old one, it keeps up very well with all my tools. 

I was on my last disposable welding gas cylinder, and I spent some time working out how much I was going to be spending on disposables before this project is finished. It came out to a ridiculous amount, so I decided to invest in a proper gas cylinder. Most of the cost of these for a low usage hobbyist like myself is in the rental, and the gas itself is very cheap. So I bought a regulator, sorted out an account with Air Products, and got the AP agent in Kirkwall to send me a cylinder over. I got a large one - hopefully there will be enough in one cylinder to see me through, it holds the equivalent of about 100 of the ‘extra capacity’ disposables. It’s about 5 feet high and weighs 80 kg, so I’ll have to work out some way of moving it around the garage.

Meanwhile, on the MGB front, I just about have all of the old nearside floor pan removed. More on that shortly.

I decided it was time for some serious rust and metal removal, so I bought a compressor and some air tools.

I did my research, and took advice, and it was very clear that I had to get one with sufficient power (measured in air throughput, normally in cfm - cubic feet per minute). I investigated loads of machines and suppliers (finding one who will send one up here for a reasonable price is quite tricky), and then I spotted a bargain on eBay from a supplier in Germany (made in China, naturally), and somehow I managed to forget everything I’d learned, and bought it. Delivery from Deutschland, Deutschland, so gut nannten sie es zweimal, was actually less than most UK suppliers wanted.  

And of course now I regret it, as it’s underpowered for what I want to do, as in cutting, grinding, hacking and slaying. I have to keep stopping to let it catch up. It supposedly does 7 cfm, but in reality it looks like it does about four. I knew that manufacturers normally quote the theoretical throughput - the piston displacement, but the actual output you get at the business end is much less than this. But somehow in my quest for a bargain I managed to forget this. So let this be a warning to you! I’ll probably replace it with something a bit beefier when I can afford it.

Anyway, back to the car, and its floor. I hacked away and removed lots of rusty bits, thinking I could patch it. Let’s not forget, we’re not going for concours, we’re aiming for a car with no holes and rust that we can drive around and have a bit of fun. But it soon became clear that there were more patches than floor. Many of them well done patches, it has to be said, as well as the tack-weld-a-bit-of-metal-over-the-rust variety, of which this car has many. Or it did have, before I was let loose on it. So now it looks like this:

It probably looks a lot better in the picture than it is in reality. So it’s got to go. Fortunately, being an MGB, replacement floor pans are easy to obtain, and quite reasonably priced. And what’s more Moss are having a 20% off sale this weekend.  And their delivery charges to Orkney aren’t too bad at all. So I will get to use this:

Flash Gordon or what!

We were put in touch with a man on Orkney mainland who had a ‘74 BGT which had been sitting in a garage for some years. It seems he wanted the space back, so I said I’d be happy to take the car for parts for Bridget. So last week, we booked the ferry, hitched up the trailer, and went to fetch her. She’s very rusty in places - one sill has gone completely, but in very good original condition in other places. It almost seems a shame to break her. Anyway, she now has a name - Bianca - and we’re trying to get her started, mainly because it will be easier to move her around if she’s running. She resolutely refused to fire. I took the carbs off and gave them a bit of a clean inside, and sent off for some Easy Start, which arrived this morning. She will now fire a few times but still not run.  The batteries are now on charge for another go later today.

 Update: She starts! A good squirt of Easy Start in each carb, a bit of choke and a bit of throttle and off she went! I’ve been up and down the track and she runs OK. A little bit rough, but we can sort that out. We can’t break her now, can we?

It’s been a long time since my last entry, and much has happened since then. Not much work has been done on Bridget, though.

We moved from Wanlockhead, in the Southern Uplands of Scotland, to Glenlivet (yes, that one), in the Highlands, where we had no garage. So Bridget sat outside on a trailer under a tarpaulin, slowly rusting away, for almost exactly a year, until… we moved again. To Sanday, in the Orkney Isles.

Where we do have a garage - quite a large one in fact, as you can see.

And so Bridget now has a new home, in the dry, and work can start again. Very soon.

I just have a bathroom to install, first. And a few hundred other things, like tidying up the garage and putting some shelves up so I can unpack all the bits of MGB from those cardboard boxes, and start putting them into some sort of order.