1970 Morris Oxford - 20/9/24 -

Wow, that's dedication with the spark leads. Going all out on this with details like that.

Long time since I've popped into this thread, you have really made some progress Seth - look forward to seeing this out again.

What a great job you are doing with this, that engine bay is looking really good. Much likely!

Beautiful work as always Seth and fabulous attention to detail.

Think I've said it before, but it REALLY is starting to come together now!

Lovely, lovely stuff.

Thank you Em, JP.

Bit of a bits an pieces update from the last few weeks.

Master cylinders both now bolted in which means the pedal box is also now fitted securely.



Having faffed about mocking the engine all up and taking some posh photos of it, it was finally time to drop it off the engine stand. Was quite nice to see it from this perspective, at the height it'll roughly be when in the car.



The main reason for this, and a job I have regretted forgetting before it went on the stand, was to get the spigot bush out of the end of the crank.



The way I have done this before is to 'hydraulic' it out using a punch and grease. I turned a piece of steel at home that was just slightly oversize to go in the bush so improvised a 'lathe' in the dungeon and used a file while spinning it in the drill to reduce the OD a tad.



Then, fill the cavity with grease, insert the punch, whack it and the hydraulic pressure pushes the bush out.



This is where I show you a nice messy photo of the extracted bush and grease everywhere, except I don't because it didn't work. I can only put that down to the crank and bush both being 'new' so haven't suffered any wearing in because it has worked before on older parts. I want to get the bush out intact so I can accurately measure its OD and make a new one with the much smaller bore necessary for my gearbox shaft. Plan B required but annoyingly delayed progress by a week. The ID of that bush is not dissimilar tot eh tapping drill size for a 5/8"BSP thread. I didn't have a 5/8BSP tap so I bought one. Its a common thread for oil cooler plumbing etc so maybe I'll use it more than just this once. Today I got to have a go at the plan. Tap twisted into the bush to cut its thread.



Once it was pretty much through I took it out again and put a couple of scrap smaller nuts in the bore for the tap to press against. Once the tap reached those, continuing to turn it started forcing the bush backwards. Hurrah! The tap shank is smaller than the thread so I was able to wind the bush right the way out.



Having done that in 5 minutes today I decided to tackle mounting the fuel pump which meant getting the car back off the stands and roll it forwards so I could crawl in the boot.



Mounting the pump was a bit of a squeeze in the original location as it is the larger higher flow SU type but I eventually found it a comfortable position and was able to get hoses to/from it.



So that's all the progress on the car but at home I have been carb fiddling. The pair of HS8s I'm using were both the same and I need to make a mirrored pair. This means one needs a different, opposite hand jet. I decided to order a pair of jets from Burlen as I also wanted to get a different size (to match the 'MGB Competition' spec shown in the references). Only problem is they didn't have both in stock, nor the parts to make the one I needed. It then struck me that the only difference is the direction the pipe points when it is assembled to the jet body. I wondered if you could actually convert a RH jet to a LH etc. so decided to attack one of the exisitng, too small jets. With the crimped brass collar removed it was possible to pull out the pipe and reverse the direction.





Only risk would be sealing that join again afterwards but I'm sure it'd be possible. Anyway it is all academic now as I then thought it worthwhile to phone around carb parts suppliers to see if anyone had what I needed in stock and the Carburettor Hospital came up trumps. SO they got the order for the jets and other parts came from Burlen.



Gotta put that lot together but also still need to sort out the choke levers that need making...

Seth, your builds always leave me feeling both inspired and happy.

Great work as always.
Just curious - will the pivot bolt only go in from the bottom? I always try to fit bolts from the top so they won't drop out if the nut works loose

The day today! Here's pretty much how things were left.



I had enlisted help from paulw and Amazosan lent a hand too.

Up we go..



and into the hole



There was a lot of careful jigging, jacking and pumping but we made it in the end.  It is really tight getting the sump over the crossmember and the back of the cylinder head to the bulkhead, trying to level it all off as it drops in.  I've never taken so much care - even all the sheets/blankets around.



I had to get it back of the axle stands and see where laden ride height was going to be.



That's sitting about 1/2" lower than it used to, probably due to the 'dropped spnidle' effect of the MGB uprights.

But I am pretty freaking happy with the way this is looking now and there was only one tiny dink in the bulkhead paint.



Time for a celebratory beer tonight me thinks.