Matt Drayer's Journal

After months of meticulous, anxiety-ridden work, it's finally time to take a deep breath and reconnect the engine and transmission. This isn't just about bolting two mechanical components together; it's about bringing back to life the very essence of the car, the source of its performance.

The process of reassembling the powertrain requires precision and patience. Every bolt, every seal, every connection point must be carefully inspected and prepared, and the engine and transmission must align perfectly. I'm intrigued by the ideas and designs (some brilliant, some awful) that went into creating these machines within machines. Entire careers were spent designing and developing each component, and the fact that it all works together, in synchrony, is amazing.

This really feels like a symbolic moment, a sign that the car is finally coming back to life. It's a reminder of why we embarked on this journey in the first place: to breathe new life into a piece of history, to restore a machine back to its former glory. The journey isn't over yet, but today, we're one step closer.

<br/>Marblehead MG - Episode 33: Powertrain Assembly

We're soooo close to reinstalling this engine! The block is prepped, and the top-end is assembled. We're now attaching all of the "other stuff", and for this installment it's the manifolds.

The exhaust manifold appears to be the original unit for the car. It even had a semi-functioning EGR valve that looked like a UFO. I was able to remove it without destroying any of the componentry, along with the weird little elbow wrapped in flame-resistant material. The hole was easily plugged with a 1/2" flange nut from Home Depot -- yet another quick tip/hack picked up from our wonderful MG Experience community. We've coated the exhaust manifold with POR-15 High Temperature paint, in Manifold Gray, of course!

Along with the refreshed exhaust manifold is a new Pierce intake manifold and barely-used Weber 32/36 manual choke carburetor, purchased from our own @tmessenger. It seems that half the community thinks the Weber is just fine, and the other half thinks it's atrocious. I'm optimistic about it, but I have our original ZS carb sitting on the shelf, just in case. Like most of us I'm daydreaming about a dual-SU setup, but that's not in the cards for this car. At least not for us. At least not this year.

<br/>Marblehead MG - Episode 32: Manifolds

The cylinder head has been calling out, pleading for attention. It's been ready to go for months. Will I get it right? What if the gasket doesn't fit? What if I don't torque the bolts correctly? What if it leaks? So many what-ifs -- but you can't let them stop you. The project must continue!

I'm glad that I labeled all of the pushrods with their numbers when I removed them. Definitely helps to scare off the gremlins. TBH there didn't appear to be anything different from one pushrod to the next, but as any subscriber to Chaos Theory can attest, small differences can trigger large events down the road. Changing out tappets and pushrods is easy enough to do, anyway, so maybe that's something to consider doing over the winter.

The pace is quickly quickening. I'm throwing every possible spare minute into the car. No romance for the wife, no hugs for the kids, no walks for the dog, no exercise for the body -- I'm way-too-deep at this point and loving every frustrating, exhausting, brilliant moment. The car MUST LIVE!!!

<br/>Marblehead MG - Episode 31: Top-End Engine Reassembly

It's finally time to reassemble the engine. It's been sitting on its stand for long enough, and I've basically done everything I can at this point on the project to get the car ready for its reinstallation, so there's no other choice now but to put it back together.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't intimidated about reassembly. I'm particularly anxious about getting the camshaft timing right. Not only is this a critical function of the engine, but getting it wrong isn't 100% evident until you actually start the engine -- that's when you determine if it all needs to be torn down again. Part of my anxiety stems from the fact that I didn't make any reference marks on the timing gear during disassembly, which was a total newbie mistake -- so this really feels like a gamble although I've been reading and watching as much as possible to increase my chances of getting it right.

I'm additionally terrified of oil leaks. The entire engine bay was absolutely coated when we brought the car home. It wasn't really clear where the leak was coming from because we couldn't get it running. The logical culprit was the timing cover, or maybe the cover's oil seal. But what if it was something else? Something more...structural?

I wish I'd tried a bit harder to start the car back on Day 1. Even if we got it running for just a few minutes it would have been good information to work with. However, I was excited to get into the project and I simply rolled up my sleeves and quickly got to work. Another newbie mistake. Life lessons!

<br/>Marblehead MG - Episode 30: Timing Chain and Cover

I'm trying to stay positive about this project but it's getting harder and harder to do. It feels like we are so close...but now it's mid-June and the car still isn't drivable. Heck, the car isn't even runnable at this point. I'm making progress, but we're now way past our original goal to attempt a first-fire by the end of April and get it inspected by the end of May. Sure, the goal was an arbitrary one, but even with throwing every available minute I have into the project we're still not getting there quickly enough.

I'm also having a hard time motivating myself to record the work and produce the YouTubes. However, I really think it's important to document as much of the project as possible. It's actually not the recording part that is such a drag, it's the editing part. It takes a long time to review and whittle down hours of footage to an 8-12 minute video, on top of the hours spent actually working on the car. Double whammy

Anyway, enough with the pity party! We'll get this thing done soon enough. It's only a matter of time. Just keep swimming. Just keep swimming.

<br/>Marblehead MG - Episode 29: Handbrake

The starter was the first item removed from the car back in the beginning. Pretty sure it was the original unit. I'd never seen a bendix starter, and as I learned about how it worked, and further that ours was dead, I decided we'd be replacing it with a nifty new gear reduction starter.

The Classic Car Performance / BritishStarters.com GRS arrived quickly and sat in the box, in the corner, for months before I got around to installing it on the engine in the Spring. And of course, you all know what happened -- it wouldn't clear the mechanical fuel pump...

So there I was sitting in the garage at midnight, reading MGExp.com threads on my phone and trying to figure out if there was a way that I could make this situation work. Maybe THIS project would be different than everybody else's project. Maybe I could get it to fit. Well, after two hours of futzing and a ruined mechanical fuel pump from a botched Dremel experiment, I was ordering a new electronic fuel pump and a blanking plate, just like everyone else!

<br/>Marblehad MG - Episode 28 - Electronic Fuel Pump