1975 MG B (sat abandoned for 25 years before I got it)

1.8L engine with a 4 speed transmission with electronic overdrive (didn’t originally come with the overdrive trans, I bought that early model trans after the fact for $600).

Since it is a 1975 USA spec car, it had stuff like a catalytic converter, resonator, muffler, smog pump, rubber bumpers, and three windshield wipers. One of the first mods I did to it was tear out the stock intake and exhaust. It now has a 38/38 downdraft weber carburetor and a full stainless steel exhaust with long tube headers and a resonator. I removed the choke assembly in the carburetor because it didn’t work right. I put in a modern ignition system, which means i ditch the points distributor and put in an electronic distributor.

I bought an aftermarket hardtop off of a later model MG B that was sitting in some guy’s front yard. Replaced the seals on it and it is now being used regularly. When I bought the car, it came with a roll bar meant for a later model MG B but it fits just fine. I repainted it black and put it back on.

Surprisingly the car is still using the same radiator and clutch from when it came off the factory floor. The brake pads need to be replaced before I do any heavy spirited driving with it because they fade very badly, very quickly if you run it fast.

The shocks are not the conventional tube shocks you see majority cars use. It uses lever arm shocks which you don’t normally replace, you rebuild them. I was planning on rebuilding them but putting in heavier duty replacement valves to stiffen up the suspension. It didn’t come with sway bars so I was going to add those too at some point. I want to lower the front two inches and lower the rear one inch. I also want to put in stiffer, uprated springs to help with how “plush” the stock suspension is.

There are some things that don’t work like the windshield wipers and the heater fan. I have not gotten around to fixing them yet but it is something simple to do.

The interior is very nice and almost 100% complete. The exterior has much to be desired in the paint department. Good thing is however, it has been a Southern California car all its life so there is no rust on the car. Because of the design on how the hood and trunk is held in the “up” position, over the years, the hood and trunk have been tweaked and no longer sit flush with the body. The passenger side of the hood sits above the body and the driver side of the trunk sits above the body.

I bought a sebring valance kit so that I could remove the rubber bumpers and make it look similar to how they raced them back in the day. Each rubber bumper weighed about 50 lbs so by removing them, the car lost 100 lbs. They replace the bumpers and the front valance has air funnels to direct air where ever you want. The kit includes “aero-shields” that cover up the headlights and makes it more aerodynamic.

Since my MG B is a late model with the front blinkers in the front bumper, by removing the front bumper, I no longer have front blinkers. My plan was to buy the front fenders off of an early model MG B that have the chrome bumpers. The chrome bumper cars have the front blinkers in the fenders themselves so if I get those, I’ll be able to have front blinkers again. The big problems with doing that is sourcing those early model fenders with the blinker assemblies and the other big problem is that I have to remove the windshield before I can remove the front fenders. RIP

Ever since I bought the car, the oil has always been coming out black in under 1500 miles. So I decided to “clean” the inside of the engine by using an amalgamation of oils. I used equal parts of 20w50 oil (stock), 15w40 diesel oil, and ATF. The oil is now clean and I’m still on that oil change and haven’t changed it yet. The oil pressure with that weird oil combo mix is at about 75 to 80 psi just off idle at 1500 rpm.

(I’d post images but I don’t know how yet)