1975 MGB project

Long overdue update time.

Finally have some new shoes for the B, and freshly painted wheels to go with them.

It is amazing how much better it looks with the wheels and tires.

I pulled the intake/exhaust manifold off the car to replace the gasket which had burned out. Such a great design for a manifold, all one piece. Pipe to manifold bolts are pretty much frozen to the manifold, probably just going to leave them alone. I do have a buddy with a dual carb setup and exhaust manifold, thinking about changing it out. Depends on how much he wants for it.

Man the engine is quite greasy from years of oil leaks, New gaskets should at least slow them down. Breather was closed off when I got it, which probably caused most of the oil leaks.

Do the swap. It's the easiest possible way to unlock 25 horses on that thing, and it'll also run better, and not have the accidentally-setting-itself-on-fire issue the one-piece manifolds had.

This is not helping my lust for a lbc.

I wish it was just an easy bolt-on for the dual carb swap, darn 75 Bs have the booster/pedal box 1" farther forward and 3/4" closer to the engine (compared to 76-80 Bs). Really interferes with the rear air cleaner. It has been done, but it requires shimming the drivers engine mount, cutting down the spacer thickness between the carbs and intake and running really short/small air cleaners. I have to decide if I want to buy the carbs and then do all the work to get them to fit.

Dusterbd13 wrote: This is not helping my lust for a lbc.

I could help you with that.

Please don't. Too many projects already.

81cpcamaro wrote: I wish it was just an easy bolt-on for the dual carb swap, darn 75 Bs have the booster/pedal box 1" farther forward and 3/4" closer to the engine (compared to 76-80 Bs). Really interferes with the rear air cleaner. It has been done, but it requires shimming the drivers engine mount, cutting down the spacer thickness between the carbs and intake and running really short/small air cleaners. I have to decide if I want to buy the carbs and then do all the work to get them to fit.

MGBs dont really need power brakes. I had to build a custom air box for a guy who ran into this problem.

I have a webber 38/38 downdraft + manifold I'll sell you cheap if you are interested. Definitely more carb than pretty much any B needs, but it will be better than your single SU. I'm going to be going back to my dual SUs once I finish rebuilding the engine.

I don't have pics but can grab one if you want.

I appreciate the offer, but the plan for now is to just get it back on the road and see how it does. Pretty easy to change the intake/carbs later on.

Nohome, I have thought about a custom air box setup if I went with dual carbs. We will see later on what I decide to do, trying not to spend any more than necessary.

Getting somewhere with this B. I did get the dual SU setup after all, it's from a 1969 B according to the carb tag.

Before starting to put it on, I did put in new motor and trans mounts. Leave it to the British to have a Rube Goldberg trans mount setup, that was a bit of a pain. The overdrive makes it harder to get to the mount bolts. The engine mounts were better but still a pain. Engine sits an inch higher approx, old mounts were pretty bad.

Now on to the fun stuff, or at least better than the mounts. Started installing the manifolds, they look way better than the stock setup. The crap load of rain lately seems to have affected the paint on the sheetmetal parts, seen in the valve cover. Waiting for dryer weather to redo it.

Time for an update. MGB has a tag & title now, legal for the road now. Now to get it back together.

Dual carb conversion is coming along, not too much more to do.

Carb and booster clearance, this is with new stock mounts and no mods to carb setup. I plan to fab an airbag for it, just not enough room for a regular air cleaner.

These things seem to work:

But if you ask me the real easy button seems to be a swap to V8 power:

In reply to Nohome, those air filters work if you shorten the plastic spacers between the carbs and intake, along with shimming the LH mount to tilt the engine away from the booster. You can see the difference in thickness of the spacers between your photo and mine. While I may end up shortening the spacers, I want to see if I can make an airbox work first. No V8 swaps in the future, going to stay 4-banger for now.

Yeah...I see that now.

As I mentioned, I once made an airbox for just this purpose. It was a rectangular box affair and when all said and done, not very deep.

Why not just get rid of the booster as the easy way of of this? I don't have power brakes on the GT and it never occurred to me that I would want them.

Power steering on the other hand....

If you MUST keep the L4, then there is always this option:

But where's the fun in just taking stuff off? I always have the option to remove the booster later. For now just working with what I have.

Supercharger is an idea, but $$$$$$$$$. Plus this from Moss Motors site: Note: 1975 cars require 1976-80 pedal box, contact tech. dept. for details

It's always something. 75 is just an odd year.

Hell, gm 3800 supercharger and megasquirt. Under a grand. Just add fab work.

Update time again. So far I have the dual carbs installed, tuned, and have driven it around the neighborhood a bit. I still need air cleaners of some sort, just need to figure out what I want to do there. Picture of setup. But, something is missing?

[URL=http://s967.photobucket.com/user/rjpajer/media/1975%20MGB/IMG_0091_zpsqsdzidx7.jpg.html][/URL]

Yep, the heater core finally gave up the ghost. Luckily I was just running the car in the garage, when it started to leak. I guess after being in there since 1975, it was time. Here is the offending core.

[URL=http://s967.photobucket.com/user/rjpajer/media/1975%20MGB/IMG_0087_zpswao94pbg.jpg.html][/URL]