MG TD TF 1500 Ominous Engine Rattle - Part II BBS discussion at MG-Cars.info

MG TD TF 1500 - Ominous Engine Rattle - Part II

It was a good day's work. My sister arrived and the first thing we tackled was setting the head. I'd already put a thin (really thin) smear of grease on the top of the block and on both sides of the head gasket. I'd also assembled the radiator top hose, Tom's wonderful thermostate housing (more on that later) and the water outlet and fitted them to the radiator with the clamps loose. We lifted the head and slid id down the head studs and into place (don't know what the head weighs but when it's sitting on your fingernail it pinches quite noticably). We torqued it down to 60 ft-lbs in ten ft-lb increments. I should mention that I'd also permatexed Tom's Roadster gasket to the top of the head and let it cure over night. Next came the rocker assembly - quite a bear. Because the head has been shaved avout 0.030 it has the shims under the rocker towers. trying to get the tower bolts through the shims and into the head just wasn't working. I thought a dab a grease on each shim to hold them in place while lowering the assembly would work but it didn't. It finally dawned on me to put the shims on the bottoms of the rocker towers and hold them there with a dab of grease. That plus the fact that the small bolts fit quite tightly through the shim holes kind of also holding them in place during installation worked (Thanks Peter for one of my favorite new phrases) a treat and one they went. Thumb tightened the bolts and then started torquing. My sister prefers the click wrench so she used that and I used the beam (I knew there ase a proper name for it - not rod and pointer) wrench. We both went to 10 ft-lbs then I set hers at 20 and mine for the small bolts at 15. Then I took the small bolts to17 and she took the big bolts to 30. Lastly I went to 19 and she went to 43. We worked from the middle bolts to the outer bolts. I then checked all the bolts with the beam wrench and they checked at the proper (19 and 43) torque. Next we decided to tackle the cooling plumbing. That wye tube is a b!+ch to get on.but with a very thin smnear of Dawn detergent it finally slipped right into place. All that was left was to connect the bypass elbow to the thermostate housing. Oh! It was the worst of times, it was the best of times. Trying to get everything lined up I totally buggered Tom's stainless screws and the holes they go into. Twist as I might, those screws weren't going in (Tome, it was me, not you. I dry fitted those screws when your parts arrived and they screwed in perfectly). Dang! I tried thye screws from the old thermostate housing but their threads were much finer (BSF I'm guessing) so I threw up may hands and sent an email to Tom asking for the specs on the screws. We moved on the attaching the intake and exhaust manifolds . Straight forward and they cinched right up. After that I checked my email and there was one from Tom (What a gentleman and a scholar!!) telling me that the screws are 10-24 stainless and that he'd send new ones if I needed them. I said I'd let him know and started rummaging through my random collection of taps and dies. Lo and behold! I happened to have (for no reason that I can imagine, both a 10-24 tap and a 10-24 die. I chased the threads on the screws and in the holes and lined everything up and those babies screwed in as pretty as you please. Next we set the valve clearences to to 0.015 (I don't have the foggiest idea what cam I have to I split the difference between 0.019 and 0.012and I'll see how it sounds when it runs) and bent up and tapped into place the rocker tower polt keepers. We installed the valve cover and it began to look like an engine. All that was left was to install the tyappet chest cover (I'd permatexed Tom's Roaster gasket to the cover the day before). I'd noted that the stud hearest the firewall was odd so I'd ordered a new set from LBC. When I took out the existing stud I noticed that it had coarse threads (I'm guessing 10-24) whereas the proper studs have pretty fine threads. Apparently the DPO didn't wan't to pop for a proper replacement so he just got a double ended stud at the local hardware store and crammed it in. The internal threads are ruined so I had to stay with that piece of junk. Anyway, the tappet chect cover when on with moderate ease and I attached the vent pipe. All that left is the carburetors, the distributor and(I decided to make the conversion) the oil filter adapter. The adapeter is on its way from Bob Grunau and I haven't heard anything from Advance Distributors so I assume the distributor is in the pipeline. The carburetors are another story. I heard from Dave B and (not his words) my carburetors are oieces of cr@p. Nonetheless, he still thinks he can do his magic so I remain optimistic. Tomorrow is mowing grass and drining some well desreved beer. Jud

J K Chapin

The other side

J K Chapin

Well, it's crunch time. Here it is Wednesday evening and the upcountry winery driving tour is on Friday followed by the Euro Fest event at the BMW plant on Saturday. The Distributor is supposed to arrive from Jeff tomorrow but that still leaves the necessity of carburetors (Bob Gruneau's oil filter adapter arrived on Tueasdy and was a piece of cake to install using Bud's article). Turns out my carburetors were much sicker than I had hoped (but not really more than than I suspected) so they won't be back from rehab in time. On a whim I put out a call to one of my British car club members who drives a TD and is restoring a TA and a B and asked if he just hapened to have a spare pair of 1-1/4" SUs that I could borrow. By the George he did! A pair from the 1937 TA. I picked them up on Tuesday evening, sent an email to Dave to see if there was any chance that they would work. I received a positive reply so they went on today. The only problem is that the throttle linkage on the TA is about three inches closer to the firewall than on the TD. No way to get the TA uplink to connect to the TD throttle rod. Solution: Tie the bottom end of the TA uplink to the middle of the TD throttle rod with green garden twist-tie. You can just see it on the attached picture. If you zoom in you may be able to see a yellow arrow pointing to it. Works a treat. I wouldn't want to count on it to hold on a drive to California but I think it will hold for a While on Friday and for a couple of miles to the BMW plant and back on Saturday. Oops, I almost forgot to mention that the float bowl on the rear TA carburetor is on the front side necessitating a longer fuel line from the pump to the first banjo. The 19" line won't reach but I just happened to have an "L" fitting for another project and a bit of 5/16" fuel line so there is continuity from the pump to the first banjo. May not be the most efficient fuel delivery path but I'm hoping it will work. All that assumes, of course, that I get the distributor installed tomorrow and that the danged thing runs. I'm hoping but I'd not bet the farm on it. Send me good vibes. Jud

J K Chapin

All the good vibes worked!! On Friday we drove a tad over 125 miles through the North Carolina mountains without a hitch or a burp. Due to the jury rigged linkage I can get only about 2/3 - 3/4 throttle so I was not the fastest up the Saluda Grade but I was able to hold my own and no one behind me complained too much (the Porsche 911s and the Lotus did scream around at the first opportunity and I was happy to see them disappear around the next bend). While getting it to run Thursday night I discovered that the old fuel lines leaked like a sponge so I replaced them with the new lines from my carburetors - right diameter and fittings but wrong length. Here's an updated picture with my fuel lines attached. Because we didn't finish up Thursday evening until about 9:30 pm, we did the mountain drive in hot-rod mode sans bonnet. Jud

J K Chapin

Saturday was the Euro show at the BMW assembly plant in Greer, SC, so Friday afternoon after the mountain drive my sister and I put the bonnet back on. This went easier that taking it off because (1) my sister held the bonnet in the proper position whole I drove the car under it and (2) we used an electric winch to hoist up the bonnet. The pisture is early Saturday before many cars were in place. My TD is the second car in. The first car (to my left) is a beautiful TC restored by George (didn't get the last name) from Atlanta. Within an hour that whole field was full of British cars. The TC rightfully won our class. Jud

J K Chapin

Here's sort of a panorama of the BMW assembly plant. The round building is the Zentrum that houses a BMW musuem and visitors center. Lots of neat old BMW stuff to see. The Zentrum is actually more or less horseshoe shaped ovening to a reflecting pond in the front. Porsche was the featured marque this year so they had the prime location in front of the Zentrum. We were relegated to the backyard next to the beer and brauts vendors - turned out to be a pleasant banishment. Jud

J K Chapin

This thread was discussed between 03/10/2014 and 22/10/2014

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