David Terry's Journal

Got bored on Sunday and decided to refurbish my console armrest. Used a foam sponge from Ace cut down to one half inch. I now have a padded armrest and no more sore elbows all for about four bucks.

While doing my regular maintenance and and servicing, I noticed some play in the rear universal joint. While I haven't experienced any driveline shudder I decided to pull the shaft and then have the joints replaced. Pulling the shaft was slow, slightly tedious but remarkably easy. I disconnected the front part of the shaft first and then unfastened the diff end. The whole shaft then slid out slicker than frog fur.

Since I really didn't want to enjoy the experience of replacing the joints myself I tried to find a local repair shop that would do it. Remarkably, they all declined. Lucky me. Fortunately, one of the club members offered to help either replace the joints or swap out the shaft for a new one. Hopefully, I won't be idled more than a few days.

I had found the original 36 year old SU fuel pump that the PO had replaced some years (decades ago) in a bucket of parts. It was in two pieces. I sent it off to Dave DuBois to work his magic and who returned a work of art.

Installation was very straightforward and took only about an hour, including preparation and clean-up. After blocking the front tires, I jacked the rear up on placed the car on stands. The PO had made a mounting bracked that placed the facet in the same location as the SU. Once removed, all I had to do was install the rubber mounting grommet, connect the fuel lines and then apply electricity. To keep fuel from bathing my eyes I wore eye protection and used hemostats to limit fuel seepage from the open fuel lines.

While the Facet worked flawlessly and without criticism, I am very happy with how this project went and how well my Dave DuBois fuel pump is operating.

PostScript: the SU worked for about six months and then proceeded to dump the contents of my fuel tank all over the street. At that point, I replaced the SU with a Hardi purchased from Basil Adams and have been gong strong since then.

I finally bit the bullet and replaced my front shocks. The PO told me that they needed to be replaced when I bought the car and based upon the quantity of oil they left on the garage floor I dare say he was right. After researching all of the posts on MGE on the subject and the associated horror stories, I ordered the parts, doused the upper trunnion with PB Blaster, found my BFH, and prepared for the worst. I should mention that I ordered my shocks from Peter Caldwell at Worldwide Auto Parts due in large part the universal endorsement from folks on MGE.

I set aside a full Saturday afternoon to do the work, starting early in the morning. Peter had said that removing the fulcrum pin would take six minutes to remove. He was wrong. It took less than one. So, basically I had the right side done in under an hour. The other side took about 45 minutes and that was it. So with more than a few hours to spend, I washed up and took her for a spin. The differences were night and day. I can now drive over bumps without endangering my dental work or risking spinal injury.

This was a fun project that went better than expected largely because of the experiences posted on MGE and the shocks I bought from Worldwide Auto Parts. Time to go for a drive.

I finally got around to addressing the alternator indicator light that had recently begun to glow and determined that the rectifier was giving up the ghost. Given the banjaxed nature of the wiring harness, I chose to replace the alternator with a remanufactured unit from O'Reilly Auto Parts instead of converting to a unit with higher amperage and then rebuild the defective unit for use as a spare.

The actual process of cleaning up the old alternator and replacing the old parts was very simple and took little time. Determining which alternator model I had was more of a challenge. Although many of the resources were equivocal on which model should be in the car(built in March 1976), either a 17ACR or 18ACR, the unit I pulled was clearly an 18ACR. The hard part was determining the correct model and associated rectifier spade configuration. Thanks to a conversation with Mr. Evans at Moss Motors I was able to get the correct parts and proceeded to clean and rebuild. I now have a spare alternator ready to go in the event that its remanufactured sibling currently installed decides to go south.

Now, it's on to replacing the front shocks...

I have been slowly replacing odds and ends on my MGB over the course of the last year. Since I have every other Friday off, that's when I typically try to get those tasks completed. I had originally planned on replacing the front disk pads and had acquired some new pads and hardware from the Bhive. The car had other ideas. Last Sunday, the fuel pump gave up the ghost. So, I spent the week acquiring a new Facet pump and hardware from NAPA. After shipping the kids off to school this morning, I jacked up the rear end and started in. Vascular clamps are really handy when it comes to fuel lines. I never got wet. Two hours later, I had my new pump installed and ready to go. Thirty minutes after that, I had new front disk pads installed.

Two final comments: I purchased the organic brake pads from Gordon at the Bhive. They're made in Canada and I'm happy to keep some money on the North American continent whenever I can. And also thanks to Kevin Profitt for helping to diagnose my dying fuel pump.

Time to go for a drive.