Restoring My 1965 MG 1100

2005-05-19T23:30:00.000-07:00

These Lucas horns weren't really designed to be serviced, but it seems it can be done. Here's what I have to work with.

2005-05-19T23:27:00.000-07:00

I pressure washed the engine outside Aaron's shop so that it can be painted. It had been leaking oil for many years, judging from the tremendous accumulation of dirty sludge I removed!

2005-05-19T23:26:00.000-07:00

The crankshaft taper - in great shape after 40 years! Check out the oil sludge inside the housing.

2005-05-19T23:25:00.000-07:00

Back to the engine...now out of the engine bay, with the timing cover removed for inspection. Believe it or not, the left side of the engine is the "clean side".

2005-05-19T23:23:00.000-07:00

Aaron fabricated a new exhaust sleeve from stainless steel, and welded it permanantly to the manifold - it will be around long after the rest of the exhaust has turned to rust!

2005-05-19T23:21:00.000-07:00

Aaron welded in some new metal to bring up a low spot and grinds off the excess.

2005-05-19T23:20:00.000-07:00

There was an odd assortment of washers helping to hold the exhaust manifold in place, and more than one gasket. Extreme high and low spots didn't exactly make for a great seal. In the photo above, Aaron is grinding the mating surface flat.

2005-05-19T23:18:00.000-07:00

Aaron removes the drive yokes

2005-05-19T23:16:00.000-07:00

The carbs come out

2005-05-19T22:49:00.000-07:00

Ignition coil and associated wiring removed

2005-05-19T22:48:00.000-07:00

The engine is coming out so that Aaron and I can put some new seals in and paint it. I started with the battery box. I also had to remove the radiator and shroud...a most hateful task.

2005-05-19T22:47:00.000-07:00

The carbs - before tearing into things.

2005-05-19T22:44:00.000-07:00

Here's one of the front park/turn lamp bases. I had to drill out the screws holding these to the body because they were so badly rusted. I disassembled them, ground off the rust with a dremel tool, and then painted them with semi-flat paint. When I put the boots back onto the backs of the lamp, I fastened the larger ones with a zip tie, since one was slightly torn, and the other, while intact, didn't seem very snug. I used generous amounts of dielectric grease to ensure nobody has to do this again!

Into the Container!

2005-05-12T00:31:00.000-07:00

Aaron's 1966 MG 1100, "Blackie"

On Tuesday, I drove the MG (on the temporary wheels) over to Ballard, and got it into the shipping container at Aaron's, which serves as a sort of miniature garage. Next day, I began pulling everything off the engine to prepare it for being removed from the car (picture to follow!) I also got to give Blackie a spin around the block, but I was surprised at how odd it felt to be shifting with my right hand! The rebuilt transmission is great, although I am not used to the feel of that earlier shifter arrangement. It reminds me a bit of the one that was in my MG Midget, except with synchromesh on first gear. It's funny that the A-Series Midget never did get that - only the 1500 version (blasphemy!) had it.

Putting some things back together

2005-04-21T00:59:00.000-07:00

Today I put the bumpers back on the car, now with all stainless steel fasteners. The stainless certainly made things a lot easier, but the job was still slow-going - the bumpers are really in pretty dreadful shape, so the geometry of everything is just way off. I bought a set of used bumpers and the "new" rear one is certainly an improvement over the one that came on the car. I managed to get four halfway decent overriders to use - at least three of the original ones had rusted out at the bottom. The factory seems to have used what I would consider a rather bizarre Rube Goldberg-esque stud and nut arrangement to fasten the lower part of the overriders - I replaced this with a bolt and lockwasher, which makes me much happier.

I am now on my 4th trip to the auto parts store in an attempt to get the correct size fan belt. They've all been too big or too small, and while the adjuster on the generator is several inches long, up at the pulley there is very little movement.

Bleh Is A Wheel Person, With Wheel Feelings...

2005-04-19T21:39:00.000-07:00

Aaron showed me the wheels he's prepared for Alice, the MG 1100 which was his very first car (it is the ultimate 1100 resurrection story!). My wheels were getting awfully rusty, and I figured the body work was going to have to start somewhere...so Aaron loaned me a set of junker wheels and tires to use while mine were off being refurbished.

After dismounting the tires (and discovering that the spare was one of the original Dunlops), I took the wheels, along with some other small parts (radiator shroud, overflow tank, fan etc) to my friend Mo's shop for media blasting. Sadly, the media wasn't quite agressive enough to efficiently clean up the wheels, and I had to concede that I was never going to be able to get them done in a timely fashion. I ended up dropping them off at Ballard Sandblasting & Painting, and spent more money than I'd planned. I then shuttled them down the street to Foster's Wheel Service to be straightened, and again spent more money than I planned. The wheels are now with Aaron for painting, and fortunately, I think that this time I will be able to count on spending exactly what I planned!

The hubcaps are another issue altogether. The ones that came with the car were pretty beat up, and so I don't think I have much choice except to buy some new ones. I suppose I'm fortunate to be able to buy new ones at all (cheaper than re-chroming), but I hate to have to part with $$!

What happened...in the meantime.

2005-04-19T21:03:00.000-07:00

My 1100 didn't do very much traveling after I drove it home from the Port of Tacoma. It made a trip to work on day, and the only other voyage was to visit Aaron Anderson. There are not many 1100s around, but there are an unusual number of them in the Pacific Northwest. I am very lucky to live near (only about a mile!) from Aaron, who is probably THE most serious 1100 devotee in the area!

Since the trip to Aaron's, I started working on going through the cooling system - a process which was interrupted by winter. I'd taken off the thermostat housing and managed to get 2 out of 3 studs out of the cylinder head, but that's where things stopped. I left the car out of commission, because I knew that there was no way I could responsibly run it without going through the cooling system, at least in a basic way.

Once the weather started to get nice again, I pulled the radiator, overflow tank, fan, and pulley; I left the 70s/80s-era Leyland water pump in place. The radiator and overflow tank were completely FULL of muddy, rusty sludge, as well as what appeared to be several small pebbles! I had to flush these several times with some heavy-duty cleaner before they came clean.

2005-04-12T22:54:00.000-07:00

The handles and pulls after a good cleaning

I used a dremel tool with a fine wire brush attachment, and finished the job off with some spray wax. The door pulls aren't a matched set - one of them isn't quite the right size, and is smooth rather than fluted; I suspect it may have come from an MGB. The screws used to fasten it also weren't correct and so I will have to get replacements for those as well. There was heavy grease on the hinge pegs, which I imagine means it must have been quite difficult to move!

2005-04-12T21:14:00.000-07:00

Detail of my trafficator repair

I pulled apart the steering column to get at the turn signal stalk. It wasn't working especially well - one had to wiggle it around to get it to work properly. Instead of something simple like corroded contacts, I instead found that the cast metal piece was cracked in half! I'd been given an NOS switch by a fellow 1100 enthusiast, and pulled it out of the box only to find...that it was missing the right-hand detent spring (it keeps the switch from returning to the off position when you signal and then let go of the stalk). I scavenged a replacement from the other switch, and then noticed why it was missing: the moulded nylon post which holds it in place had snapped off (and with it, the spring). After quite a bit of fussing around, I finally concluded that drilling a small hole and fastening the spring with a very tiny zip tie was both the best way and the path of least resistance.

2005-04-12T21:09:00.000-07:00

The original leather seats and door cards

The car was fitted with leather seats and wool carpeting which I am told are rather uncommon. The seats were quite dirty, but overall are in rather good shape. A good conditioning with the cheesily-named "Leatherique" spruced them up and made them nice and soft again.

2005-04-12T21:07:00.000-07:00

The engine bay as it looked when I originally bought the car.

This area is full of many details which I'm told are often found missing, such as the white plastic blocks adjacent to the battery terminals, and the MOWOG spacer which holds the choke, throttle, and heater cables in place.

Wool Carpet, how I love thee...

2005-04-11T02:17:00.000-07:00

I finally got around to steam cleaning the original wool carpeting. The results were sadly much less impressive than I'd hoped (you'll see when I post some pictures of it back in the car). I suppose I should be amazed that it's lasted as long as it has. The condition is quite serviceable, but I wouldn't say that it looks pretty. Everything about the car was very...dirty. Not awful and filthy, but just years and years of having never been properly cleaned. My aggressive work on the carpet got rid of much of the dirt...but it reveals that much of it is quite faded and worn. The very tiny black rubber mats I found in the car weren't really quite large enough to provide much protection.

It isn't ever going to look really good, but until I can afford to buy (and find) a proper replacement, I think I'll just have a set of overmats made...big custom ones in the right color, which will cover up much of what's wrong.

2005-04-09T03:56:00.000-07:00

At home in Coombefield Close, New Malden

When I was growing up in Alabama, there were (for some odd reason) several of these cars around. Sadly, I never actually saw one running - they were all instead in various states of decay. I remember looking at one which seemed to be permanently parked at a corner gas station along Highway 59 - it was black, with a gray interior, rubber floor mats, and a Webasto top (although back then I had no idea what it was called!). My father and Uncle seemed casually interested in the car, but knew nothing about the model. We pondered the implications of the rusty sills, and left. Several years later, another one would turn up for sale in my hometown. It was even more of a sad case - the hydrolastic suspension had failed on one side, the interior was damp, musty, and rusty, and the sills were like Swiss cheese. But it fascinated me - perhaps because it was different from the standard BMC/Leyland fare that one typically saw in the United States. Compared with my first car, a 1973 MG Midget, it seemed enormous! I remember being especially enamoured with the very 60s Smiths strip speedometer, which was quite unlike anything I'd encountered before. I was about 21 at the time, and actually entertained the idea of buying it and fixing it up. A hopeful call to Seven Enterprises wasn't especially promising, though - the person I spoke with assured me that few parts were available for the 1100, and finally had to admit to myself that it was simply too much of a project to take on.

Fast forward er...a few years into the internet-era, and I found Michael Carnell's MG 1100 website, as well as the story of Herberta Gray's meticulously restored Natasha. Little by little, the story of BMC's ADO16 began to unfold for me. Though my involvement with the online Mini community, I became aware of Todd Miller's Austin America site, which convinced me once and for all that owning an 1100 was both practical and possible.

I began casually "shopping" for one on the web, and eventually came across the car in the photo above, located outside London. I made a tentative offer based on the described condition of the car, and the fellow from whom I bought my Mini went to have a look at it and take some additional photos for me. The car was remarkably rust free - a rarity, especially for a car which has lived its life in England. It was owned by a very elderly lady who'd had the car since it was nearly new - it apparently had been given to her by an uncle (the original owner) when it was only a couple of years old. I don't know for certain, but I am under the impression that the car lived its whole life in the little garage in the photo. It was dealer serviced until well into the 1970s, as evidenced by a Leycare Service sticker I found under the bonnet. Although it had been sitting up for nearly five years, some fresh gasoline and new battery were all that was needed to get the car moving again, and on the way to a new home in Seattle.

And so, here we are. The car is now in Seattle, and I am working to get it into good running order. My desire is to have a car which is as original as is practical - I don't want a fully restored museum piece (so I suppose that the title of this web log is not quite accurate!), I want a car that can be driven daily. I very much want to ensure that the car won't rust any further, and that it can be driven without fear in wet weather.