Monza Red MG 1600 R series

[Doctordiesel77]

Yeah 1300 should be the same size as a 1600. It's going really well so I'm guessing it'll be roadworthy soon

The welding on the floorpan might slow things down a bit, at least I'll be able to move it around easily if I get the mechanical bits done. Put some new calipers on today, a the old ones looked abit ropey. Had to dismantle the cooling fan to get some oil into the bearings as they had dried out, the motor is another 'parts bin' item, same as Land Rover heater fan motor (and umpteen others, but Land Rover is easiest to find) . Fan was not keen on coming off the shaft, so I left it on and poured a bit of oil down the side of the rotor, freed up like magic! Another few steps down the road to being back on the road

[Doctordiesel77]

The innards of the fan motor, very easy to dismantle, as long as the two nuts come off ok (these did) the two halves of the motor casing are sandwiched onto a steel plate which is riveted to the plastic frame. No need to take the rivets out and fan only needs to come off if you need to remove te rotor from the casing. Luckily I didn't, as it all looked in good nick & dribbling oil into the casing did work..if the shaft had been rusted into the bush, I'd have had no choice.....

[Doctordiesel77]

More progress today, underbonnet sound deadening seems to have been eaten in parts, will probably replace this with some more modern material which should be lighter and more flame retardant. The scuttle was full of foliage, so cleaned it out, no real rust problem in there, so gave it a coat of jenolite. Will have a few blanking grommets to fit too, seems as though there are a few missing, which would make it a bit draughty.. Wiper spindle bushes are badly worn, so will replace them, motor seems fine though.

[Doctordiesel77]

Clutch cable looked a bit suspect, looked worse on closer inspection! A very easy job to change it & I have spares of the self adjusting ones which replaced the original type.Will probably put a spare in the boot 'just in case'.

[Doctordiesel77]

Final job of the day, not essential at this point, but painting the air cleaner now, will give the paint plenty of time to cure before it is needed.

[Doctordiesel77]

One small job done today, made some new air cleaner to carb gaskets using the only new one I could find as a pattern. This is made from cork, which is not an 'ethanol friendly' material, but in theory should be out of contact with the fuel, so should be ok. The new one was a bit different to the originals, but if need be I can cut the centrehole bigger.

[Jeff Turbo]

Still using Cork gaskets john? Thought there would be something else. I'm guessing the engine etc is nearly done?

[Doctordiesel77]

Still using Cork gaskets john? Thought there would be something else. I'm guessing the engine etc is nearly done?

Engine is pretty much done, just the carbs to set up now, according to all the old wives tales from the 1980's this will be a nightmare & they'll go out of tune as soon as I turn my back. I'm hoping that it will be extremely easy & they'll never be to touch again, like the last ones I did (years ago), Lamborghini & Ferrari used the same carbs (but more of them per engine) & they didn't have a reputation for going out of tune. I can't really see how they could, as there are only three adjustments on them anyway, all with either locknuts or spring loaded screws . I could have made card or paper gaskets, but the only one I could find for sale was ä cork one, so I thought I'd go with that. The original ones were fairly thick material, similar to the stuff we use on oil tanker pipework, so if the cork ones are ä disaster I could get some of that & start again!

[Doctordiesel77]

Got the carbs set up today, I used a set of four cheap vacum gauges from ebay, I checked that the all read the same before using them, I guess not as good a quality as the Austin Rover tool, but they did the job & having four of them makes it a bit quicker. The air bleed settings were well out and took a while to get right, as adjusting each one alters the others slightly. Then moved onto the mixture setting, I cheated again & used four colourtunes to speed things up. It was running very rich at first, so I adjusted the idle mixture so that all four were just slightly rich. It is running rich right across the rev range, which is a bit odd, unless someone has fiddled with the jets in the past. On the plus side my aim was to make it slightly rich if possible to help counteract the likely side effects of using crappy modern petrol, the additives will help I guess. My feeling is that setting a slightly souped up engine from the 1980's to run 'just right' or slightly lean will be a recipe for burned valves & unneccessary engine work. I won't know how well I've set it up until it is on the road, good news is that the emission test limits for cars of this age are quite lenient. One good sign was that when I had to switch off because a plug lead came off, it restarted instantly, at this point it was pretty warm under there...

[Jeff Turbo]

Excellent bit of kit

[Doctordiesel77]

A few more jobs done, new wiper linkage fitted and replacement gas struts for the tailgate, one of the original ones looked as though it had been on since 1983!

[Doctordiesel77]

The back suspension was a bit of a disaster zone..I'm glad I bought a set of spring seats when Rimmers were selling them off!

[Doctordiesel77]

Back brakes not too bad, apart from one hold down spring being replaced with a split pin and a coil spring...no point in using the old wheel cylinders though. I'm going to leave the back hubs off until the welding in the wheelarches is finished, as it'll make a bit more room.

[Doctordiesel77]

No surprise that there is a bit of welding to do, but could have been much worse, there is plenty of sound metal left to weld to. Got a little bit done before I had to carry out some repairs on the welding torch....

[Doctordiesel77]

Then got a little bit more done before running out of gas Decided to give the replacement sill a coat of 'rust anode' before anything else goes wrong!