Steve Lyle's Journal

Early on, I decided on a cloth top, vs vinyl, and tan, vs black - just trying to match everything up as close to biscuit as possible. In early April I went to TopsOnline.com and ordered a Robbins cloth (Stayfast fabric) top, along with a top cover. I skipped the toneau for now - I just wasn't able to justify the expense to myself. It seems to me that if I want to cover the car, it wouldn't be much more effort to just put the top up.

After the spousal trip around the block, the plug wire induced miss on #4, and the subsequent carburetor flooding, and with nowhere to drive anyway until I get the registration done on 6/1, the last major part to go on the car was the top. Might as well do it now, since I wasn't going to be driving.

As always, that started with reading up on top installation, checking out the MGBE library, the Porter book, and searching for forum threads. Additionally, top installation is covered in the second half of episode 8 of "An MG Is Born" - I watched that a few times.

Step 1 of the installation - install the hardware on the body. There were a couple of tricks to this. First, on the passenger side, I had welded in a patch panel where the front clip is attached, so I had to locate exactly where it needed to go and install the clip. On the passenger side, the clip rivet holes had been filled over, so they had to be redrilled, hopefully in the same location.

To make that job easier, my buddy Bill had a shell available with all the hardware removed, so I made some templates, one for each side, using manila folders. Using the fender beading as one datum and the stud holes (which my car still had) as the other, I was able to precisely locate the clip holes. I taped over the paint to avoid the drill chipping it, put down the template located by the datums, located the clip on top of the template, and drilled through it. Perfect, it looked like I went right back through the filled holes on the driver's side, and the passenger side location worked perfectly with my new top.

Then to install the studs. A couple of things here. First, I wanted to use gaskets under them to get a good seal and minimize the likelihood of distorting the sheet metal. So I cut some out of gasket material using the studs as a template, inserted into a wooden block. Worked great. The second aspect was how best to get the hardware - washer/lock washer/nut on the stud, knowing that if I dropped them, especially the fwd 2 that are above the dogleg, I might never get them back. And in the other 2 locations you actually have less finger room, so I needed some way to safely manipulate that hardware.

My solution was to tape the nuts and washers to a wrench, then feed the wrench in to the hole, line it up by sight, then insert the stud. Worked great.

I collected the various parts from around the house, and staged them in the garage, in the process rediscovering the fact that my header rail had a small but noticeable dent in it, pretty much right in the middle. It would definitely show through the top. Still wondering how that might have gotten there, but it was there when I got the car. So this would be the last filler job on the car - I pulled out my angle grinder with a 40 grit rolo disc on it, roughed up the surface, mixed up some Duraglass, applied it to the rail, sanded it down, and drank a toast to being able to put away all my body tools for the forseeable future. Woo hoo!

The basic procedure used was:
1 - fit the frame to the car, including the header seal (without the retainer, just clamp it between the header and the windscreen top rail).
2 - fit the top over the frame, starting at the back - the rear bar, then the door tab clips, then the lift-a-dots
3 - pull the top over the header rail. This is a 2 person job, one at each corner. Put down 3 strips of masking tape vertically - one in the middle of the windshield, one at both ends, to allow us to mark where the top needs to be laterally, and how far it needs to be pulled over the frame toward the front of the car to be taut. We used a magic marker to make a vertical mark at the edge of the top extending down onto the tape.
4 - We ran a chalk line where the top lapped over the front edge of the header rail.
5 - Fold the top back, onto some plastic sheeting so that any glue doesn't get on the top. Transfer the chalk line to the underside of the top. Apply contact cement to the bottom of the top from the chalk line back a couple of inches
6 - Apply contact cement to the top of the header rail
7 - When the cement is dry to the touch, reapply the top to the header rail, using the marks on the masking tape to get it positioned to the original place you had it, if not tauter. Press down firmly so the top is well adhered to the rail.
8 - Open the top up, fold it back. Apply glue to the front edge of the top, and the underside of the header rail (i.e., where the seal goes). When dry, wrap the top over the front edge of the rail, so that it's glued onto the sealing surface.
9 - Install the seal retainer. I used screws, which made it "easy" for me to redo this process when I didn't have the seal in the first time and so didn't get a "taut top".
10 - Install the seal into the retainer. I used the same "hook tool" that I used to install the windscreen to body seal.

That's the procedure. Of course, there was some trial and error in determining it. The major issue, as mentioned in step 9, was that in my first attempt, I didn't have the seal between the top windscreen rail and the header, just the header clamped directly to the top windscreen rail. We went through the entire install, but when I had the seal in, and the seal retainer, it basically pushes the header rail off of the top of the windscreen, shortening the top frame, and allowing the top to sag. Not good.

So after a break (boy, it was HUMID), I undid everything, and did the 'clamp the seal in between the rails' thing in my step 1 above. Something I hadn't read about, or at least noted, in the "how tos" I'd read for this, or seen in the "An MG Is Born" videos. But boy, it made all the difference.

I went back and rewatched the "An MG Is Born" episode - when they did the top, they showed them putting the top up, nice and taut, but before they had installed the header seal. I'm betting they ran into the same problem I did, once they put their seal on, and just didn't bother going back and explaining that. Arg.

Anyway, the top is on, nice and taut. The first time I pulled the clamps down, it was a bit of a struggle, but got much easier after leaving it up for a day.

One of the key tasks in completing the interior is covering the rear cockpit trim rail. After my last entry I realized I didn't cover that. Although it's not at the challenge level of replacing a windscreen, recovering a dash, or installing a heater box, it deserves some special mention.

I've seen posts where this task is done in small steps, gluing a bit at a time. Or using a lot of clothes pins to clamp the cover on. While I tend to try to follow a well trod path, this just seemed unnecessary to me. So I went at it in one big, quick, shot.

First off was cleaning the old glue off of the rail, this was done with an old paring knife, basically scraping it off to get a relatively smooth surface. I ran some a couple of stud plates through the channel in the back to make sure it was clear. A little hammer/dolly work straightened the rail out where it got a bit deformed when I took it off of the car, 6 years ago.

I determined which side of the rail was "up" by laying it on a flat surface, then marked the (approximate) middle of the rail, and the cover, with a magic marker.

I covered my workbench in a strip of wax paper, and took a disposable paint brush and brushed on Weldwood contact cement over both the front and back, trying to avoid getting any in the rear channel.

I laid some wax paper over my rolling work stand/tool box, and laid the new cover over that, then painted the back of it with contact cement.

Once the cement was dry to the touch, about 20 minutes or so, I picked the cover up from the middle, letting the ends hang down. You're good as long as you don't let two glued surfaces touch. Starting from the top edge, I located the top bead on top of the rail, then pulled the back down and adhered it to the rear of the rail, then the front down to adhere, then rolled the lower edge under the rail to adhere to the back.

I didn't see the need for any clothes pins - the contact cement grabs quickly - just put some pressure between the cover and rail for a bit, and it's stuck. The only tricky part, such as it is, is on the inside curvature, in the corners - the cover will tend to wrinkle there as the fabric bunches up a bit. Just keep working it, smoothing it out, and you should be good.

It really went pretty quickly. Really not a job to be afraid of. Watch what you're doing, avoid the glued surfaces contacting where you don't want them to, take your time, and all will be well.

With that covered, I've been going about ticking things off the punch list:

1) I noticed a bit of oil pooling under the oil pressure fitting that connects the flexible hose from the block to the hard line to the gauge. Oops, I needed to tighten up the fitting at the hard line a few turns...

2) I've been listening to the car radio while in the garage, but when I wired it I hooked it up to the white ignition circuit, so when it's on, the fuel pump and ignition are also on, forcing me to unplug the coil wire to avoid overheating it. Time to get it right. So I undid the front console and rewired it to the green/pink "accessory" circuit, where I should have put it originally.

3) After my lap around the block with the Mrs., the engine started to miss just as I pulled into the garage. My guess was that the steel oil cooler line from the rear of the block, that basically runs over the dizzy and through the plug wires, had chafed a wire enough that the wire was shorting to the hose. Sure enough, the #4 wire had a slight nick in it at the hose, so I wrapped a cloth around it, started the car, and it ran smoothly. Okay, got to do something more permanent about that, but first...

4) During that test, I noticed that the car didn't want to idle. It wasn't a miss, it seemed like a multiple-cylinder problem, maybe a carb issue. After shutting down, I noticed a gas smell. Then spotted a pool of gas at the base of the PS engine rail - under the drain hose from the carbon canister. Not good. I pulled off the overflow hoses from the carbs, turned the key on, and gas spurted out of the rear carb overflow line. Rats.

I called Dana Britton, my carb rebuild guy at sucarbs.com, his first theory was a leaking float. So I took the carbs off, disassembled the rear, got the float out, and no luck - the float was dry. Maybe the other one? Same deal, dry floats. The float needles looked good, too - no obvious dirt in the bowls.

So the carbs got boxed up and sent off to Dana for a more thorough analysis. Rats again, that'll delay the road tests a bit.

5) When I installed the seats for the drive with the Mrs., I couldn't get the fore/aft adjustment of either one to work. It was getting late, so I just muscled them to a 'roughly right' position, set the expectation that for now, they are where they are, and around the block we went.

So in the light of a new day, I took a look. The driver's seat was basically locked into position - I had to loosen the attachment bolts to get it to go anywhere, and tightening them just locked in back in place. So the seat came out, and measuring the mounting holes in the floors (BMH floors, btw) showed that the rear holes were slightly, maybe 1/8" wider than the fronts. So I pulled out my trusty mini grinder with carbide cutter, and widened the rear holes in the seat rails a tad. Upon installation, the seat adjusted like it was on ball bearings - perfect!

For the passenger seat - it adjusted fairly well, but it was getting hung up on the attachment bolt under the adjustment arm. I took the washers out from that bolt, and skimmed some metal off the top of the bolt head. That helped. But the fingers of the adjustment arm weren't slipping in or out of the holes in the rails readily, so the seat came out, and I smoothed things out with the aforementioned grinder/cutter. Back in the seat went. Now it slides like the driver's, very smoothly, up to the limits of it's travel, and locks with no fuss, just the way you want it for your significant other passenger.

BTW - to simplify seat installation, I cut the heads off some longish 1/4" bolts, ground a slot into one of the ends of each so I could turn them with a screwdriver, and used them to locate the front mounting holes into the rails. Worked great, I could install seats in just a few minutes with those.

6) In preparation for installing the top frame, it's now or never for rustproofing my fender welds - the dogleg on the PS, and the lower fender from the trim strip down on the DS. So the rear b-pillar panels came off, I got a $10 garden sprayer from Lowes, put some Penetrol in it, put some newspapers and catch basins under the car, and sprayed the Penetrol on the weld seams, from both the b-pillar access holes as well as from the boot. That should enable me to sleep better at night.

Next up - getting the top installed.

For years I've had parts cached around the house. You get kind of used to it. But lately, it's like the car has been eating them up. It's amazing how much less space parts take up when they're finally on the car!

Interior selection starts with color. The options in play were black or biscuit. Black is original, and it can't be beat for hiding dirt, and it's the easiest color for all the various interior parts to 'match' with. On the downside, it's not the best for the Oklahoma heat. Biscuit is a clean look, doesn't absorb as much heat. But it's going to need cleaning more often. It's not an original color, but then I haven't hesitated to stray from originality up to now.

I fell in love with the biscuit interior being offered by Midland Sports & Classics, in the UK (now known as MGpartsUK.co.uk). Seating surfaces were leather, which again probably isn't the most utilitarian surface, but then, this is a hobby car, not a daily driver. The price was right, even with the shipping. So the order went in.

It didn't occur to me at the time, but after having it on hand for a bit I realized that the carpet in the set wasn't biscuit, it was dark brown. Duh. So I let that bug me for a few years, eventually deciding that I was going 'all in' for biscuit. So I ordered VB's biscuit carpet set.

I toyed with the idea of installing the seat covers myself. When I tore the headrest a bit on my first install attempt, I decided to find someone to do it - ultimately Vanessa's Upholstery in Tulsa. Vanessa's a 'get it done' kind of person, which was a bit of a problem when I gave her the wrong seat foams (I had mistakenly ordered the Mk 1 foams). That didn't stop her - she tried to make them work, but ultimately I got the right foams and she backtracked. I'm happy with the seats - the headrests are a bit loose/lumpy, but they'll do for now.

A key part of the interior was the sound system. I know a lot of MGB people go without, and I get it, but I really wanted at least to have the essence of music in the background. I went to Crutchfield, and was surprised to find out how MGB-knowledgeable they were. They had several head units that fit, each of which was "driveless" - no CD drive, so they weren't very deep and were easy fits. I went with a JVC unit - a "KD-X310BT". About $80, and it supports Bluetooth music streaming, Bluetooth phone support (complete with microphone), iPhone and Android integration. Pretty amazing for the price.

For speakers, I originally thought I'd go with the original, single speaker in the passenger footwell. Ultimately I decided that while you may never have good sound in an MGB, that was probably the worst place to put speakers. So I went with door mounts. Crutchfield had several speakers that would fit. I went with Retrosound R-452N units that are 4" diameter and 1.3" deep. Easy fits in the doors. their winning feature over the alternatives was that they had plain, unobtrusive speaker grills, vs more avant garde versions that just weren't right for a 42 year old car.

At first I thought I'd go without an antennae, and just rely on my iPhone for tunes. On second thought I gave the Retrosound "hidden" antennae a try, and I'm glad I did. I taped it to the 'roof' of the passenger footwell, and was amazed at how effective it was. Without it - no FM reception at all. With it, my local favorite stations came in 5X9. Woo hoo.

I messed up and didn't plan for the door speakers. As a result I didn't have speaker cable holes in the front face of the door frames. And at this point I didn't want to dismount the doors to get those holes drilled. The alternative was to run them under the door cards and through one of the door card retainer holes in the door frame. A zip tie of the wires to the hinge arm, and I was good.

My console was a mess. It got cleaned, then painted with interior/vinyl/plastic paint - a flat black that worked well. I got the latch repair kit that both VB and Moss sells, and used it to fix where the original latch had broken through the top of the console - done by gluing the repair panel to the old console with epoxy. I removed the metal spring from the new latch, per an MGBE post/recommendation, and I'm glad I did. The latch has plenty of 'catch' without the spring, and it seriously reduced the strain on the assembly by removing it.

The interior kit came with a new biscuit shift gaiter. I got the remaining shit gaiter parts from VB - screws, trim ring, and rubber gaiter. The original leather/rubber gaiters were stapled together, but I didn't have a stapler that could pull that off - those are pretty thick/touch parts. My alternative was to get my sail sewing kit out, and sew the leather gaiter to the rubber one.

I got some 1/4" x 1" aluminum strips to make new seat base runners, replacing the wooden ones.

After that, it was a pretty straightforward job. Just a lot of contortionist positions to get the panels screwed into the footwells. Some soldering and wiring for the radio, and rework to hook it up to the green/pink circuit so the radio works in accessory mode, and some careful cutting of the carpet to make access holes for the seat belts and shift gaiter machine screws.

A couple of things didn't go as planned. One of my panel fixing screws on the rear quarter panels is screwed to air - I'm going to need a longer screw. And the inside door latch mechanism trim pieces were too tight to the new door cards - I scuffed the door card vinyl on the driver side getting them installed. Rats - got to remember to not look too closely there.

Other than that - it's pretty amazing the difference getting the interior installed made. Here's some pics, including a 'before' shot.

With the car mobile again, attention turns to the interior.

I've had the interior pieces for quite a while. One of my first purchases back in 2008 was a 40 ft**2 pack of Second Skin Damplifier. I got a biscuit interior set (seat covers, panels, carpets, etc.) from a UK supplier back in 2011. And when I didn't like the color of the carpet in that set, I ordered Victoria British's biscuit carpet set.

First step, put in the sound insulation. I cleaned out the interior with a vacuum and scrubbed it down with dewax/degrease. My temporary driver seat install came out, then the seat. Then the pedals, so I'd have plenty of room to work in the footwell. I used the panels as a guide, because I didn't want soundproofing to be visible - I only wanted to cover the areas covered by panels.

Damplifier consists of sheets of butyl rubber with a heavy aluminum backing. It's sticky, but can be peeled off if absolutely necessary. You only need to cover 2/3 - 3/4 of a panel to get the sound reduction benefits, so perfect fits aren't necessary. I tended to use the material as it's own pattern - fitting it where it needs to go, folding it as necessary, then trimming with a utility knife. Peel off the backing, stick it in place, and move on.

My 40 ft**2 pack really wasn't enough. I had used some of it on the inside of the door skins, but even without that it wouldn't have been enough. By the time I got the footwells, tunnel, sills, floor, and lower rear bulkhead done, there was nothing left for the boot bulkhead, wheel arches, or battery panel. Maybe a nice winter project, some year.

Watch out for this stuff - the aluminum is very sharp, and if you get your fingers crosswise with it, your fingers will lose. I got a couple of nasty cuts in the process, one on the tip of my thumb. More of my blood to baptize the car in.

I used a wallpaper roller to roll the sheets into the panels, and a screwdriver handle at times. Much saver than thumbs!

I put some aluminum tape down between sections - although I don't think it serves any purpose, other than to look nice.

Next up was the carpet. Victoria British puts out a good interior installation booklet, and I pretty much followed it to the letter. It took almost two quarts of Weldwood contact cement to glue in the sill pieces, the fwd tunnel sides, the wheel arch covers, and the vinyl piece of the lower bulkhead cover. But I was probably very generous with the stuff. I was a bit concerned about it coming through the carpet, but it didn't. And it appears to hold really well.

There were a couple of aspects that I wasn't sure about. The sill pieces aren't gusseted, they're just cut with a bulge on the outside edge from the b-pillar back. Force that edge to follow the sill/b-pillar corner - don't let it 'climb' up the b-pillar, and you'll be good.

The other area was the wheel arch covers. Dry fit them first, carefully cut a few darts in strategic areas, like the outside corners, but let the wheel arch carpet extend onto the batter box cover shelf - don't trim it back to the corner.

Other than that, it was real straightforward. You just have to be a bit of a contortionist in the footwells, so have Advil on hand to assist in recovery.

Carpet makes a BIG difference!

Got some items checked off my punch list. One near miss. And of course new problems cropped up.

- The near miss was the coolant leak at the rear thermostat housing stud. Originally I had used Permatex black there, and I got a stream of coolant. I drained the radiator, REALLY regretting not having put in a drain valve, and redid the seal with several wraps of Teflon tape. On Saturday, it ran fine with no leaks. When I ran it on Sunday, I got a very slow seeping of coolant. Rats. Close, but no cigar. Now what?

What a pain - without that radiator drain. I caught as much as I could in buckets and trays. Wrapped the 2 'thru' studs in teflon tape, several wraps, and put everything back together. That succeeded in reducing the leak from a stream to a seep, from one stud. So without draining, I removed the nut and washers from the rear most stud, slathered Permatex black under the flat washer, around the stud, etc., got rid of the split washer, let it cure a bit, put the nut back on, let it cure a bit more, then snugged it up.

That seemed to do the trick. For now.

- Tappet noise was louder than I remembered it should be, so I checked the valve lash. One was significantly off, engine much quieter now. Which led to...

- I tuned the carbs. Still not right, still getting the hang of it, but it idles at 1000, seems to run smooth. Close enough for now.

- I set the toe with my new toe plates. Quick and easy. My initial setting was a guess on the toe-in side. I guessed at about an inch of toe-in. Now it's a tad over 1/16". Pretty neat process, I used two Time magazines as my rotating plates, they worked great.

- I was thinking my OD wasn't engaging. Now I know it is, it's just that my speedometer isn't very responsive - at low speeds it doesn't register much at all, when you get up to 3rd and 4th at 2500 rpm or so, it starts to register. When I engage OD the speedo lags, but eventually it does increase. When I disengage, I can definitely feel a clunk from the transmission, so I know the thing is engaging/disengaging.

- And I'm getting an oil leak from the OD solenoid cover bolts. The only oil leak from the car. So far.

- Due to the vagaries of Oklahoma title/registration rules, long story - I'll cover it in French Lick, I'm not legal on the road yet, and won't be till June 2. So the most I chance it is around my suburban block. I still get up to third, though!

- Still chasing the problem with my fuel pump running intermittently with the engine off. Looks like I'll be sending the pump back to Dave to take another look at it. I don't really need it till June 1.

- For grins I wired up my JVC media deck (a head unit with no CD player, only 4.5 inches deep) with my Retrosound door speakers (1.3" deep). Bluetooth for phone and music streaming. Pretty cool. May be hard to hear, but I'm hoping that in cruise mode I'll at least be able to have the essence of music in the air. Working on an MGB playlist - first up is Steppenwolf: "Git your motor running...head out on the highway..."

- On Friday, the car wouldn't start. Turn the key, nothing. Previously, I had to make sure I pushed in on the key when I went to 'crank'. Now that didn't work. Bad switch? Called my buddy Bill, he had a couple of switches off of his part cars, ran out to his place and got them, came back and took my switch out. His switches were from later cars, and didn't fit. But it didn't matter, because my switch tested fine, it was the lock that was the problem - it wouldn't rotate far enough to engage the 'crank' setting on the switch. Another part to order. Meanwhile, I just left the switch dangling, and operate it with a screwdriver.

- There's a future in this hobby. The little girls from across the street have informed me that "that's a cool car!". On Saturday as I pulled the car into the garage, an SUV stopped at the foot of my driveway, the windows rolled down, and the 10 yr or so boy in the back said "Cool car!", and his mom told me it was very pretty. I think the whole neighborhood knows I've been working on this thing for years, and are glad to finally get a really good look at it. Wife and I are planning a "roll out" party for neighbors and friends, probably some time after French Lick.

The engine/transmission went in bare - so I had a lot of assembly to do, including:

- Driveshaft: just a bit tedious, at the transmission end you don't much of a throw/turn on the nuts before having to reposition the wrench.

- Speedo cable: no big trick, it just took me a couple of tries before I liked the way it was routed. I was surprised how flexible the cable was.

- Clutch slave and bleeding: Before bolting up the slave, we bled it. I used coathanger wire to restrain the pushrod to the slave body, and oriented the slave so that the bleed screw was the uppermost point of the slave. Then the standard "down/up" with my wife's assistance, until we had all the air out. Then bolted the slave to the case and hooked up the pushrod to the throwout fork.

- Exhaust: I went with the Moss Tourist Trophy exhaust. Very nice. Followed their included directions, the only trick/tedious part was the rear hanger, I couldn't get the rear section on the hanger after it was fully bolted to the valence, without risking scratching the valence paint. I had to leave the hanger loose, mount the rear section on it, then tighten up the hanger, and of course couldn't get much wrench 'throw', so again, it was a bit tedious.

- Intake and carbs, linkages and hoses: No big trick here. I took various parts in to the auto parts store and they had me go back to their fuel line/vacuum hose section to figure out what I needed. Turned out 5/16" fuel line from the end of the hard line to the filter, then 1/4" line from the filter to the carbs and between the carbs. 3/8" for the valve cover to evap canister. Small vacuum line of unremembered size to hook up the carb vapor lines. A bit of the 5/16" fuel line for the crankcase ventilator from the tappet cover to the Y fitting, then a vacuum line (didn't note size, but pretty large) from the Y to the carbs. Vaccuum line same size as the vapor system from the manifold to the distributor.

The carbs were rebuilt by Danna Britton at sucarbs.com, He's fairly local to me, in Omaha, I believe. Nice job, very shiny!

- Alternator: I went with the Saturn alternator conversion that's well documented on the web. For just a little more money than a rebuilt Lucas, you get 2-3 times more generating capacity and great spare availability. I found a local shop that converted it from a ribbed belt pulley to a V, and rotated the front of the case. I had to trim off a bit of the outer/upper edge of the adjustment arm to clear the alternator fan. Other than that it bolted right up, perfect fit.

- Radiator: This was a bit of a struggle, new radiator and it didn't quite match the holes in the radiator support. So I had to take things off, widen the holes with a carbide cutter on a mini die grinder, and bolt things back together.

- Oil cooler: I blasted the old one at Bill's, and put on a couple of coats of silver paint. Shiny is good. Hooked it up with new ss hoses. Very nice. New grommets to pass through the newly painted radiator support - the trick to assembly is to place them over the thin necks of the hoses when you insert them, then they go in easily with just a little lubrication.

- Heater valve and plumbing: A new valve came with the car. Getting the old one off was a struggle - I had no wrench that could deal with the lower bolt, so I cut the thing off with an angle grinder. That was back in the day when an angle grinder was my favorite tool!

I knew I wanted to do something different there. I tried a 1/4" drive 7/16" socket, but it still didn't give good access. Closed end wrenches don't fit. An open-end wrench gave VERY little throw. I tried Torx head cap screws, no room to get a Torx socket in there either. Finally, simple Allen head/hex head socket screws. Picked them up at Ace HW. 1/4" shank, these should have taken a 3/16" key, but in my vast supply of keys, I could only find one that barely fit, all my 3/16" keys were slightly too big. Finally, I tried my metric keys, and a 4.5mm key fit great. Even better, it had a ball end on it, and that enabled me to reach around the body of the valve and just spin the screw in, no problem at all. Lovely.

For the plumbing, I reused the old return pipe. Of course, I'd forgotten about it, so it needed some sanding and painting. But first, when I test fit it to my new cast alloy valve cover, I found that it interfered with the larger oil filler cap on that type of cover, so I had to bend it a bit and open up the mounting holes. At least I got that done before I painted it!

The hoses, of course, were too long, and need to be cut to fit.

- Distributor: I went to Jeff Schlemmer to get mine rebuilt, of course. Also sourced the wires and coil from him. He recommended sticking with old-school points, so that's what I did. When I went to fit it, I found that the PO or his engine builder had the distributor drive gear 180 deg out of position. Not a big shock, that. You can wire around that, but I went ahead and extracted the drive shaft and reinserted it correctly - now I've got a distributor that's set up as it came from the factory, so anybody familiar with the B series will feel at home.

- Coil wiring: My car originally came with a RVI, current sensing tachometer. Which of course meant nothing to me. When I sent the instruments of to West Valley Instruments, they recommended that it be converted to the later, voltage sensing, RVC type. To which, I said, ok, you know this stuff, I don't. Then I read up in Rick Astley's book how/why RVC is better, and felt ok about that decision. However, that meant I had to wire things differently, since an RVI tach is hooked to the positive side of the coil, and an RVC to the negative. And there's only one tach sensing wire from the dash to the coil, that originally is the only coil current source. Switching that wire over to the negative side meant I had to add a + current source wire to the coil. No problem, the + mount on the 3'rd fuse where the white circuit is fused to green has two mounts, one normally unused. So I took about 18 inches of white wire, put female spade terminals on both ends, hooked one up to that unused fuse box mount, the other to the + coil spade, added a couple of wire ties, and I was done.

- Valve cover: I converted to a new cast alloy cover. Two things had to be addressed - the gasket has to be essentially glued on to the bottom of the cover, they recommend red Permatex silicon gasket glue/sealer, which I luckily had. That takes a bit of time to cure, so I left it on a bit of wax paper overnight, then pealed off the excess.

The second task was to close down the vent for the evaporative control system. I wanted to maintain mine as stock. The valve cover vent is supposed to have a 7/64" orifice, per John Twist, and this cover had a wide open 1/2" tube OD sticking out the side of it. I tapped it for a 7/16" thread, so glue would have a good surface to stick to, ran a bolt from the inside to about 3/8" from the outside edge, then filled the remaining space with Duraglass filler. Once it set up, I removed the bolt, and drilled the Duraglass plug with a 7/64" bit. Task done.

The valve cover situation led to an oil spill event. I was all ready to spin the engine to check for oil pressure, except for having the valve cover ready. But I had the old one, and I had a spare gasket. So I slapped the two together, put them on the head, and poured a gallon of oil in.

Unfortunately, I had a terrible seal between the gasket and head, and in the flood of oil, a bunch leaked out before I could clamp the valve cover bolts down tighter. Rats, an oily engine before the thing has run once!

The night after the 'oil event', I got everything ready to go. I set the ignition key to 'run', and let the pump do its thing. I expected it to shut down once the float bowls were full, but it intermittently kept chugging away - I'm guessing some sort of air leak in the fuel lines - the first thing on my 'punch list'. But eventually I said what the heck, and pulled the choke out and turned the key to 'crank'. After a second or so, she roared to life.

Plenty of oil pressure. Very reassuring to see the fuel gauge and temp gauge functioning. With the choke off, almost immediately, the idle kept rising - I think that means an overly rich mixture. Once the thermostat opened I got a leak from the top of the thermostat housing, so that's got to be addressed, and upon restart my starter wasn't functioning reliably. Sometimes it spun without engaging, other times it engaged without spinning, other times it just sat there, and eventually it spun the engine. I could always hear the relay close, so I'm going to put a new/rebuilt starter in it.

O'Relly's has one in town, for $80, if you can believe that.

Next step - carb tuning and working the issues.