In a weak moment I bought an MGB. About 3 weeks ago. I'm glad I have these weak moments now and then. I have a Healey and 2 Corvettes and over the last half of a year it seems all three work well and need no finishing or repairs. Or I have just been nieve. But a friend and I drove about 3 hours to see this "B". It is a '74 1/2 with rubber bumpers. It actually ran pretty well and it has Overdrive. That's what got my attention. Any way even though it ran ok it is other wise a real piece of junk. But the body surprisingly is really solid except for the left rear fender dog leg. I don't worry about stuf like that, easy fix and I'll paint the whole car anyway. Carbs are screwed up, idles at about 2000 rpms. Owner said that the OD drops out now and then, especially on bumps. And sure enough during our test drive it did at least twice. Oh yeh, on the test drive we ran out of gas. On the freeway. Against a high concrete sound barrier type retaining wall. Traffic whizzing by at about 80 mph. So the owner brings out some gas and we get it started and get back to his place. I make the deal, my buddy says it ran pretty good why don't you drive it home instead of going to get the trailer. The trailer was 3 hours away, that's 6 hours minimum and another day to retrieve the thing. So, Ok we agree to drive it the 3 hours to get home. Half way home we stop for gas and some food and I suggest that we should at least check the oil. We never looked at it before we left. I figured if the engine was going to blow let it do it now. It was surprisingly quite and smooth. It only has 166,000 miles on it. The oil was down 1/2 quart. We kept driving. I'm crusing 70 on the interstate and the OD drops out. It never did come back. Hmmm, I wonder how much oil is in the trans. Well we made it the whole 3 hours home. The next day it won't hardly run, the plugs are so black they can hardly fire, and the points look like the peaks of Gibraltar. Sorted that out and now time to look into the OD. The OD has no transmission 3/4 gear lock out switch. Hmmm, that's not good, just make sure not to put it into reverse with the OD on. Of course that's not a problem at the moment since the OD doesn't come on anyway. Well I got power to the solenoid, maybe the solenoid needs refurbished? Took it apart, cleaned it and Walla it works. Took another ride. A couple of bumps and the OD drops out again. Hmmm, evidently we didn't fix it yet. So I lowered the trans to see if there were anymore switches maybe wired in the circuit that shouldn't be wired in the circuit. Nope, nothing there but the rev switch and the little known Seat Belt Sequencial Control circuit switch. Always wanted one of them, NOT. So I put everything back together and decided to put a fuse inline with the wire feeding the solenoid. Hmm, now it has no power. This is new. Finally found it, another easy fix, a pin in the connector under the dash for the steering column OD switch came out of its holder. Wow, with such success I decided it was time to see what could be done with the carbs. Here all I did was lean out the jets and the thing idles at 900 rpms. Wow, this thing runs great. And the OD works everytime. The car looks like crap, the interior is the pits, and the top should be used as minimum fowl weather gear for a dog house, but mechanically it's unbelieveabley good. Well, except the rear springs and shock are shot, and the rear gears slap so hard I wince every time I let the clutch out. But hey, it made it home and it sits there for my future weak moments when I just want to tinker. Maybe some day I will have a really good 'B'. Eat your hearts out all you Miata lovers. This is Lucas Lover territory. :):):)
