John S's Journal

Upon driving the car late last Fall, I noticed that the speedometer had ceased to work and thought I might have caused it when I was messing around in behind the dash. I thought perhaps that I had inadvertently pushed the LED bulb in too far and that it had fouled the needle as some LEDs are a bit too long and have been known to do that. I was able to confirm that it wasn’t and after a few frustrating drives this Spring sans speedometer/odometer readings, I finally got the car jacked up enough to investigate.

I ran a drill in reverse and confirmed that the cable through the speedometer could be ruled out because it operated just fine which leaves the gearbox end of the equation. I was able to confirm that the end of the driven gear was turning when I rotated the prop shaft but noticed that I had to push it inwards a bit before it engaged. This led me to think that I just needed to ensure the cable was inserted fully and snugged up and that I could run the car a bit on the stands and all would be well. Nope. Fail. Advised to pull the driven gear to inspect which revealed no damage so then was advised to inspect the drive gear and also the flange nut torque. If memory serves, it was torqued to spec for OD gearboxes so I moved on to checking the drive gear with my borescope. Again, no damage to the drive gear which leaves the flange nut. No problem, I’ll drop the prop shaft and check the torque. Not a 10 minute job for me like it might be for some but not too bad for an old fart laying on his back and stopping now and again to get some feeling back in his arms. 20 minutes later the prop shaft is disconnected and up and out of the way. Located a suitable socket for the flange nut, grabbed my torque wrench and crawled back under the car to discover that the overall length of the torque wrench doesn’t work so well when the car is only elevated on jackstands. Why did a buy such a large torque wrench?


The new torque wrench showed up last evening. Wasn’t motivated to crawl under the car until this morning. Wedged a screwdriver in between two flange bolts and checked the torque. No smoking gun so I’m out of things to try. I got the car back down on the ground, put the tools away, cleaned up and went for a drive. Speedometer? I don’t need no stinking speedometer. I’ll keep using my iPhone GPS app I guess.

It’s a good thing I’m retired and this is just a hobby.

I’ve done a lot since acquiring the GT in September of 2020 and got to enjoy the fruits of my labor for about a year now. There seems to always be something that I can do but it’s a short list so putting small jobs off while the cold weather remains is par for the course. I bought a bargain 105 amp alternator off the BST forum and decided to see about fixing it. It was a 123Ignition conversion that just needed a battery post repair and came with a repair kit. Since I’ve never pulled one apart, I did a little internet and YouTube research before I tore into it. Watching someone step through disassembly on a video was a bonus and made the job a snap. I didn’t do a total disassembling since I had access to the battery post without unsoldering the rectifier pack. I just needed to get the front half of the alternator including the rotor off so I could make the repair. The post that came with the kit was too short so I re-used the old post and scrounged up a nut to replace the old stripped out nut that secures the post from the inside of the case. I dug out the old post insulator and used the new one from the kit so the kit wasn’t a total bust.

Today I took the alternator down to the local O’Reilly’s and they tested it for free once they could find a cross reference that they could use as there are no visible part numbers on the alternator. Fortunately, it passed with flying colors and although the original 16ACR alternator is still working, I now have an upgraded 105 amp alternator ready to go.

Other things on my short list are to go through the rear Armstrongs like I did when I rebuilt the front suspension. Remove and clean them up, drain all the old fluid and add some new fluid. The rebound straps are trashed and I’ve got some new ones from The Strapping Lad to go on.
The front valance is still waiting for me to finish up. It’s been hammered and dollied and rattle can primered but has been awaiting some warmer weather for me to skim it with some filler and hit it with some paint. The front bumper had some love taps applied with a wood block and a rubber mallet so a quick clean up of the brackets and it will be good enough for me. Not perfect but the paint is past the born on date so the bumper will fit right in with the decades old paint work. Another item on the list is to figure out why the speedometer quit working late in last years driving season. The good news about my list is that I can drive the car without doing any of these jobs.

Now that the GT has been resuscitated and reliably back on the road, the project list has diminished but seemingly there are always little things that I want to do but lack the motivation sometimes to get done during the colder weather. The unheated garage is a motivation killer.

I took advantage of a warm dry to tackle one such item the other day and started on another related project. The first was a simple one. I misplaced the ring-terminal leads to my Battery Tender and had to get a replacement so when that showed up after the holidays, I worked myself into the back of the GT to permanently attach the terminals to the battery posts and snake the end out under the rear seat where I can easily plug in the maintainer/charger when needed. Simple job but nice to have done . No more removing everything just to hook up the charger, especially when the car cover is on. Related to this project is the modification of the battery compartment cover. I have a spare left over from my parted out wreck and have had plans to slice it up to allow easier access to the driver side battery box bin that I purchased from the BST forum. I got started on that the other day as well and it needs a little more work. The plan was to make it hinged like the ones that are commercially available and so far, I think it’s going to work. I got out my Dremel clone and sliced it across the back of the cover, allowing for room to mount a piano hinge.
Ideally, it would be welded but since I don’t weld, I drilled and riveted the hinge in several places which I think will work just fine once I trim the ends. All that is left to do is that and then a test fit to see if all the fasteners still line up and if they do, then I need to determine where to slice it so that I can open either side individually. A lick of paint after that assuming it all goes well and Bob’s your uncle as they say.

I finally decided to crawl under the car today and drain the tank in preparation for a new sender. One of those jobs that I should have done in the warmer months but just never got around to it. I’ve been playing a bit of a game of chicken in recent weeks by driving the car with an inaccurate gauge. Staying close to home on my drives just in case…
I figure I got about 2 gallons out of the tank so it’s all ready for the new sender and some non-ethanol fuel when I get the chance to go get some.
The new sender seemed like it was all over the map when I measured it with my meter so I had to tweak the stops to get it to read right. I haven’t pulled the other one yet but it wasn’t that old so it will be interesting to see why it wasn’t reading right but that will have to wait for another day as I ran out of time.

I haven’t done much with the car recently as the weather has turned. I don’t anticipate much driving as there is too much else going on this time of the year and dry days are a rarity here during the Winter. Once the tank sender is in and the fresh gas, I’ll take it out on short hops when I can but the car cover will be going on soon to keep the garage dust off of it.

I haven’t done much in recent days as the daylight hours have receded and the temperatures along with it. My focus has been on getting things done around the house and yard while it is still relatively dry outside.

Yesterday seemed like a good time to take the old girl out for a spin as the chores were done and I needed a dose of MGB fun. I wasn’t sure my battery was up for the task as it’s been below freezing for a few days but it fired up after a bit of coaxing. My fuel gauge hasn’t been accurate since I got the car on the road and I have a new one to install but I need to get the level down before I take out the old one. Ideally, I’d like to get it down low enough to pull the plug and catch the contents into a drain pan for a couple of reasons. I know I can change the sender with some gas still in the tank by raising up the passenger side but I want to make sure I drain any residual impurities from the tank that may be lurking before I put the car to bed for the rain/cold season as I won’t be driving the car regularly for awhile. My plan is to put about 5 gallons of clear gas in the car once the new sender is in.

I discovered that my speedometer/odometer weren’t working on my drive yesterday which is probably due to my messing around with my gauge lights the last time I did anything with the car. How so? Well, the LED’s that I installed in the Spring quit working due to a ground issue and when I fixed that, I must have pushed the speedometer light in too far which has fouled the speedo needle. Good news/bad news kinda thing. The lights work but the speedo doesn’t. It’s a bit of a Catch-22 when you are trying to discern how much fuel you are using based on your mileage when your odometer isn’t functioning…

So now I have a couple things to attend to when the weather and the mood strikes me. I’ll start by slowly draining the fuel into a catch pan until I know it’s empty. I can only hope it’s just a few gallons…

Driving the GT has been an absolute joy since I got the HS4’s dialed in and I’m finding every possible reason to take it out. I had the front end alignment checked and adjusted recently which I had put off until it was running reliably. The young guy at the shop looked a bit anxious when he got behind the wheel so I wandered out to check on him. I think we were both equally apprehensive. Me because no one else has driven it since I resurrected it and him, because the car was so narrow and the flat deck alignment area had little room for error with the pit looming large beneath the deck. He was relieved to have me drive it as he guided me forward. I was relieved that he wasn’t doing it. When I came back from my walk to grab a coffee, the car was parked in the shade all ready to go and when I went in to settle the bill, he had a big smile on his face and said the test drive was a real pleasure and he was hoping to find a sports car of a similar era. It was weird having someone else drive it and was glad I wasn’t around to see it but maybe it was inspiration to convert a young person to join the LBC family.