Jake's Story

There was a little seed of an idea growing in my head. A nagging voice getting louder. And then the bright light switched on in my head. MGBV8

I’ve always had a soft spot for the rover V8, thinking about
• My grandfather had 2 P6B’s, then in my youth,
• Tony pond would be making awesome noises with the TR7V8 rally cars, then the SD1 rally car. No one can forget his spectacular early exits from the RAC rally.
• The Goup 1 / Group A touring cars
• A former colleague from ERF trucks in middlewich with an amazing sounding TR7V8

The more I read, the more I was convinced this was the future
Eventually my darling wife succumbed to the enthusiasm!

Once the engine was out, thoughts turned to the remainder of the car. After a quick review,
All the rubbers were shot on the front X-member. I had spied the worn lower wishbone rubbers on day 1, and had already bought a set of poly bushes.
The interior was intact, but tired.
The LH door has a severe case or tinworm, in the skin & the frame
The RH door was tidy & straight. There was a little crack, I assumed caused by the mirror. Only once I started reading did I find the crack had a name. The Crack of doom. Who knew. I’m guessing that a crack that earns its’ own name is never a good sign !!!!
The sills still looked good, and the front guards seem fine.

So the plans start to form
1st job, a copy of the bible, the roger Williams book how to give your MG V8 power.
I needed to be 100% that rust is NEVER going to a problem ( My memories of UK buckets of rust is hard to get away from)

So to work
Stripping to a bare shell seems like the only way to be sure the evil tinworm has been banished.
Need to find a rover engine
Choose a 5 speed box, then track one down.
Off with the bumpers – Sebring valances
Overhaul the front crossmember – but what about those antiquated lever arms? Killing a couple of birds with 1 stone? A moss coilover kit looks to able to
• Give us the chance to set the ride height
• Ditches the lever arms
• Tidies up the geometry

1st job that couldn’t wait. Off with the bumpers!
Well aware of the ‘flaws’ of the later rubber bumper cars, with the increased ride height an extra weight at either end hampering the dynamics of a sweet little sports car. No way could we cope with keeping the bumpers! Whipping off the rear bumper mounts, I was truly staggered at the weight. Truly Speechless. Round to the front, couldn’t wait to get the monster off. I’ve since asked numerous friends to pick one of these bumpers up, just to get their reaction!

Keeping an eye on ‘Trade me’ the local equivalent to Ebay, I managed to come up with and old engine to use as a Hack, cheap as chips. As it turns out, an odd combination of a Pre 76 P6 10.5CR engine (no rear crank seal), but with a Range rover front cover.

Our parcel of goodies from Moss arrived from the UK, so the front cross member got stripped & stream cleaned.
The moss coil over conversion is really simple, the hardest job is having to cut holes for the coilover to pass through. Not hard with the right size holesaw & a slow, grunty drill. A little bit of juggling with the alloy pillow blocks until I got them in the right positions. Stripped & cleaned the old cross member with a wire cup wheel on an angle grinder. Primed & painted with POR15, results where awesome.

1 comment about the coil over kit, reported back to Moss, was the poxy satin black paint the bits were finished in. Truly crappy. Most fell off whilst putting the kit together, so stripped the remnants off & repainted them.

The trunnions were stripped, checked, cleaned, greased & put back together.

The steering rack felt horrible when turning over by hand. After taking a look at the rack, plenty of oil/grease, the rubber boots looked good. Pulled the bearing from the bottom of the pinion to find a dry/collapsing bearing. A new bearing from the local bearing supplier, check the preload, and the rack is as good as new.

Spent a fair amount of time looking/thinking/pondering the gearbox crossmember. Decided to crop the old mounts of the crossmember, and make up new brackets as per the book. Really wanted to find a spec for the engine/driveline installed angle, but no luck so far. Eventually, I’ve taken a punt at the correct height, cut off the original mounts from the old cross member, and made up some news mounting plates. The crossmember’s going to be moved back, so will need a couple of new captive nuts in the chassis.

In between engine, exhaust & gearbox mounts, bits keep coming off!
Seats, carpets, dash, wiring all out
More backlash in the diff /axleshafts than seemed nice, so the axle is out as well

Trying to get the Journal Up top date, thought I'd postednthis, so a little out of sequence

For the gearbox cross member, The engine is sitting on its mounts, the gearbox is on a trolley jack. I’ve spent a fair chunk of time trying to find out what the installed angle of the drive train is, but Christmas 2014 saw us on a trip back to the UK for some family celebrations. A little bit of homework before hand saw us visiting
• Clive Wheatley, in Bridgenorth, for some engine mounts
• Moss, in Manchester for
• A coil over kit
• RV8 type manifolds
• Sebring rear valance
• Front valance with a little lip spoiler (like the LE50?)

With the engine mounts in our case, and the Moss gear being shipped home, back to NZ

After looking around for a suitable BW T5 box, (the preferred option) I managed to find an LT77 box, still with the right bellhousing. It’s one of the unloved, older types, but better than nowt.

After chasing a couple of flywheels, eventually ended up finding a flywheel at Triumph rover spares in Adelaide.

So the engine goes on the box, and drops into the car. So far so good!
2 big jobs to tackle,
• making room for the RV8 headers,
• making up a gearbox cross member

After some trawling the net looking for what to do with the headers, eventually is time to grasp the bull by the horns, and start cutting. A couple of small holes, a metal blade on the jigsaw, and some tin snips saw the holes from Tennis ball size, dozens of trial fits ending up with a hole that the headers just squeeze through. The holes have ended up bigger than I expected, but no way of getting them any smaller * still be able to get the header in & out. (Ended up taking the carbs & rocker covers off to give me room to manipulate the manifolds) only to find no rockers on either bank. I’m guessing my Hack engine isn’t as good as I thought…..

After checking out my ‘Bargain’ 3.5 motor, things weren’t looking too hot. A pre 76 10.5 CR engine, so no rear crank seal, and small valve heads. Eventually figured the front is from a Ranger Rover, with a high water pump. (same as RV8). Was still hoping to run with this engine, at least to start with. However, when I took the rocker covers off when installing the headers, found to rocker assemblies. Bugger! May still be able to salvage the motor, but started looking for something more useable. Eventually came across a ’95 LR discovery with rotten body. Bought the old girl, ran it around for a week or 2. The 3.9 injected motor seems sweet enough, the only snag is the intermediate serpentine front end. I had thought the serpentine front was introduced with the renaming to 4 litre. Poor research on my part. Love the idea of the new oil pump set up but not sure how we’ll do for room around the oil filter/steering rack. Would prefer to keep the new timing cover/oil pump set up if possible rather than converting back to the old cover & oil pump
Took the engine out of the disco, then managed to sell the remnants on to a local 4x4 enthusiast

Since taking the engine out, I've scraped/cleaned the crusty coating of leaked engine oil & crud from the motor, mostly from a leaking valley gasket I think. I’ve taken the inlet/plenum off, pulled out the trumpets, & had the plenum & base machine to reduce the height, as per the book