My dad bought his chrome-bumper 1974 MGB while he was interning in medical school in 1978. The car had four flat tires, a cracked windshield and no exhaust system. It did come with a solid body and a factory roll-bar though. Price: $1200. Mileage: ~20,000mi. Color was BLVC11 "Mirage" (mauve).
Soon after he drove across Canada to Vancouver, down the pacific coast to San Diego and back.
He also drove to PEI and back after some upgrades...
Around 1980 he bought a 1970 MGB parts-car for its overdrive transmission. The engine went into a friend's MGA.
The car was also painted black (in 1979)
The MG went into storage in the mid-'80s while my dad restored and owned his 1961 Austin Healy 3000 BT7. The MG came out of hibernation in 1994 after selling the Healy.
My dad began using the MG for his downtown commute on nice summer days. In 2003 it was time to repair some minor rust, so the car got its third black paint job and we installed a new soft-top.
The 1974 bumper blocks were also replaced with the more classic looking bumperettes that my dad kept from the parts-car.
We put on a set of ugly, no-name rims which rode much nicer than the original wheels, but the car didn't look quite right.
Shortly after the makeover in 2003, the clutch began to fail. We replaced the slave cylinder of the clutch hydraulics, but it made no difference. Then we replaced the master cylinder, but again it made no difference. After ruling out the hydraulics, we knew it had to be something more serious. We rented an engine hoist and pulled out the engine, together with the transmission. After taking off the transmission and taking apart the clutch, we noticed a crack in the throw-out bearing. We ended up replacing the entire clutch assembly and throw-out bearing and installing a new bushing for the clutch withdrawal lever.
While the engine was out of the car, my dad wanted to get the cylinder head decked and rebuilt. He brought it to a machine shop, but they found multiple cracks that were not worth trying to repair. We ended up installing a rebuilt and decked head from eBay instead.
Once it was all back together, my dad said that he has never felt the clutch that good. It was perfect. And the decked (and crackless) cylinder head gave the engine some more power too. The car looked great and ran great, but I was still too young to drive.
In 2005 we ordered new shocks, bushings and kingpins and I rebuilt the front end.
My dad had been driving the car with dead shocks for many years. He and I occasionally filled them with hydraulic fluid which helped make it bearable to drive, but after this job it felt like a new car again. We also did a bolt-on rear-shock conversion to replace the rear lever arm shocks with modern tube shocks.
In 2007 we got a pair of Pontiac Fiero seats from a junk yard, and fit them into the MG. The roll-bar had to come out, but it can easily be bolted back in any time. We are soon ready to get the original seats rebuilt and reupholstered to revert back to the original interior style, but in the meantime the fiero seats are fine. They have speakers in the headrests which is cool I guess.
Since the no-name rims were not so great looking and they didn't fit perfectly, we ended up ordering a set of Minilite rims which were installed in 2011.
The car was almost 40 years old and it burned some oil at high revs. In winter 2011 I hauled out the engine again, and rebuilt it. I brought the engine block to a machine shop to bore the cylinders, but unfortunately they did a horrible job and I had to get it done again in 2012. It burned oil all summer in 2011 which was a great disappointment after putting so much work into it. I also meticulously detailed the engine compartment and all engine parts which took up most of my time over those four months. In 2012 I went to a better machine shop and they got everything fixed up perfectly. Dynamic Automotive Engine Rebuilders in Toronto did great work. They also rebuilt the cylinder head and decked the engine block. Getting the car back on the road for the season was a challenge, but after getting towed twice (due to ignition timing and electrical problems) and repairing the rad after it sprung a leak, the car started behaving. I also got the carburetors cleaned and rebuilt.
More Winter 2011 Photos
The Pontiac Fiero seats were great, but it was time to get the original seats back in. I had new black vinyl seat skins from eBay sitting in the basement for a few years, and I finally decided to rebuild the original seats in 2013. A friend who owns an upholstery shop knew someone that does automotive seats, so I brought the old seats to them to take a look.
They did an excellent job replacing the worn out support straps, and they even did some custom fitting to match the shape of the headrests (my skins were for different headrests).
With the original seats back in, the factory rollbar will fit again, but first it needs new paint.