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MG MGB Technical - Wouldn't it be nice?

Wouldn't it be nice to have a car in your area to refer to when you don't know how something is supposed to be put together? A sort of model car you could visit and inspect to get things back to factory condition. My car has been torn down and rebuilt so many times that it seems nothing ever lines up anymore and half the small parts that come out of it look homemade.
Steve Simmons

Get Cluasager's "Original MGB" which has photos of most parts of the car and shows all the detailed changes.
Chris Betson

...or track down the local MG enthusiasts club. Gotta be a bunch of them in California, where cars don't rust away, and there's plenty of convertible weather.
Matt Kulka

I just pulled the head off my 71 GT, built in October of 70. I am fairly certain it's the first time off from the factory, as is my mechanic buddy, who has taken apart thousands of them. The original cars are still out there, the suggestion to check with a local club is a good one.
Paul Konkle

I have the book, but it doesn't really help when you're digging around inside a door, or trying to figure out which hole that wiring harness was SUPPOSED to go through.
Steve Simmons

Steve - Go to this web site <http://www.mgcars.org.uk/index.html>
Click on other clubs under the Clubs and Services section and scroll down to California. You should find a club listed near you. Contact them and you should be able to get all the answers you are looking for (plus some that you aren't looking for). Good luck - Dave
David DuBois

Everyone just say yes and agree with me. :p
Steve Simmons

Steve-
At first I was just going to tell you that what you need is a parts car...I have used mine as a reference for little things a lot. But now I'll just say that you should MAKE your car correct all the way through and it'll be so nice, we'll ALL have a model car to refer to. In fact you can then photograph it inside and out at all the unusual spots and put it on the web so we don't even have to visit it in person.
Yes, it WOULD be nice.
Tom
Tom Lennon

"Yes, it WOULD be nice."

That's what I was going for! LOL!!! I try to make mine original but sometimes it's difficult when I can't find pictures or diagrams anywhere that show or describe how it should be. It's the little parts that get me, like a wiring clamp or a grill bracket. I'd love to create an online pictorial showing a car inside and out. One which is assembled exactly like the factory did. Finding such a car would be difficult though, and it would need to be taken apart to get the pictures! I don't even care about engine internals or anything. That's pretty obvious and when it isn't you can always go with what works best or makes the most sense. If anyone finds me a parts car that's actually assembled correctly I'll make the site, I swear! :)
Steve Simmons

I guess we'd really be in a pickle if we find that how some parts went together at the factory was decided solely by the guy working the line that day... hehe

Justin
Justin

On the trim details.... there isn't any consistency. I bet it changed from shift to shift.
David M

Or, you could buy a half dozen cars of the same year as yours, and then just average 'em.

(Prices do seem to be rising, though, so maybe this isn't a good idea anymore.)
Larry Bailey

I could find half a dozen parts cars and I might even be able to somehow pay for them. But my wife would leave me if I had 6 ratty old broken cars in our front yard! Maybe there's a dealer in town that still has an old MG in stock from the 60's that never sold? :)
Steve Simmons

Steve,
Parts cars really are the best resource for what you're after. When you find a car that has never been restored you can tell, it still has things like the little plastic clips just in front of the master cylinder that helped space the clutch and brake pipes on '74 and some other years. They really do help see how to route pipes so they end up reaching to where they're supposed to and stuff like that. Clausager doesn't show that sort of info and most (nearly all, methinks) of those cars have been restored. Overrestored if you ask me. I have an XKE restoration book by A Dr. Haddock, because I can't have an actual XKE, that has all the type of details that you are wondering about. He has a massive amount of pictures and explanations for all kinds of little details, and big ones, taken from actual unrestored, original cars. The kind that has obviously never been apart since they put it together at Coventry. That's the sort of book you need to write :) I'm sure that anyone that really wants to do a balls-out original restoration would quit the Clausager worship business and love you to death!
Wade Keene

I'm game. I just need a car!!! Finding one that has never been modified in any way would be extremely difficult, I think. And it would be hard to tell for sure.
Steve Simmons

Steve, It would be nice indeed.

"...that it seems nothing ever lines up anymore and half the small parts that come out of it look homemade."

Geees... I thought that WAS original.

(Dons flameproof suit and runs and hides)
Peter Thomas

ROFL!!! Very good. :)
Steve Simmons

OK so there's a project for someone - there are at least two cars, a late GT and a late roadster in the museum at Gaydon - they were never sold so are absolutely as per the factory!

There must be other low mileage original cars - I know of one near me.

Most concours judges will have a good starting point for "averaging" because they have seen 1000s of cars.

The factory variation is something that you will always get arguments over - eg my roadster had a GREEN engine from new.
Chris Betson

This thread was discussed between 20/05/2002 and 22/05/2002

MG MGB Technical index

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