Happy Holidays!

Fudge values and bearings

• Correct bearing tightening instructions

• Brakes work again, even when turning
• No wheel wobble at high speeds
• Greatly reduced chances of dying
  

I strongly believe in the value of fudging values from time to time. 5 ft/lbs? Finger tight! 0.05mm tolerance? Finger tight! 32 PSI? Yup, finger tight!! Please note that I am not an accountant, and do not work in the finance industry (where a lot of 'value fudging' goes on as well, I imagine...).

Unfortunately this does not always work. Bearings, for example, are an example of one of these situations. I learned that this week when the brakes on my XJS stopped working every time I made a hard left or right.

I recently changed the bearings on the XJS, but followed my usual method of tightening the end nut: finger tight plus a turn of the wrench. Generally that's good enough (as it seems to be for the MG). Tightening too much leads to premature wear of the bearings, and that lovely grinding noise you sometimes hear on old cars. Too loose has never been much of a problem, so I didn't think too much of it.

Well, I was wrong. Turns out the XJS needs a full 25 ft/lbs on the end nut (as pictured above, on the MGB, before pin removal), backed off one flat (and more if necessary to fit the pin back in). After adjusting this the brakes returned to normal, and high-speed driving stabilised a bit. Turns out the nut was loose enough to let the rotors move around enough to push back the brake pads, but only when the wheels were turning. So really the brakes were working fine, it's just that they had to be reset each time I made a turn.

So:
Here are my general bearings instructions (for the MGB and most cars that aren't Jaguars):

• Tighten the end nut to 5 ft/lbs while turning the wheel. If you hear grinding or anything like that your bearings may be bad, or some dirt may have entered the hub. Clean the hub and make sure you pack it with (clean) grease.
  
• Loosen if necessary to enter holding pin
• Reassemble the wheel (keep it jacked up).
  
• Check for wobble by holding the wheel on the top and bottom and try to make it wobble. Then hold the wheel on the left and right, and do the same. If you feel any wobble or anything that seems too loose, tighten the end nut a bit, and recheck.
• If everything seems right, take your MG out for a ride. If you do not notice the same or better performance, something is wrong (duh, this counts for anything I guess...). The best speed, in my opinion, to find problems is around 70 mph. Good luck.

Mind you, despite the bad braking and wheel wobble I still did a 400 mile road trip at 80+ mph speeds....

My new toy

Regular readers will have noticed that I haven't been posting much lately. I can now reveal why, which I will do with the following video:



Initially I tried to make something that looked as exciting as a Top Gear segment, unfortunately it turned out as drab and dreary as a MotorWeek episode. Probably mostly due to my anything but engaging tone of voice, and due to my budget for this being on par with a typical MotorWeek episode. I hope you did notice that, unlike Motorweek, I actually had cool cars, and dared to make negative comments (that didn't refer to daily driving issues).

So that's what's been keeping me busy for the past month.

Carburettor Madness Part III (bright orange exhaust)

• Further fine-tuning of the Weber DGV carburettor
• Adjusted timing at the same time
• Removed air-intake heating

• Exhaust manifold does not glow orange anymore
• No more vapour-lock

There are many sceptics on the performance of the Weber DGV (in fact, only hours after posting this I already got a nasty comment, see the comments section for this entry). It's often called inefficient, not performance-driven, needlessly complicated. Many 'other' MG owners swear by their SU's. I think I've even heard of someone liking their Zenith!

Well, they're all wrong. Completely wrong, in fact. The Weber DGV is a fantastic carburettor. It was not specifically designed for this car, so odds of it working right out of the box are often tiny (versus an SU that would probably work right away). However, online retailers are selling kits specifically tuned for your MG (Moss, Brittek, etc., see links on right) that make tuning much easier. You may even be able to take your MG for a spin the same day you install it!

For others, such as myself, who bought an MG with a Weber already fitted, you may find yourself in a bit of a bind, trying to figure out how to undo what others did. My Weber was set to over-rich, compensating for bad plugs and a clogged exhaust. My horrible rebuild attempt did nothing to improve the situation; throw in the new Peco exhaust and you've got a recipe for disaster I only overcame yesterday, about 4 months later (on and off, mind you).

That's where the internet comes in handy: through fora and blogs such as this one, we try to make owning an MG pleasant for other people so they don't have to deal with the same non-sense we had to. (Unlike Jaguar owners, I might add, who for whatever reason are part of some tightly knit club. How do I know this? Stay tuned...) So when in trouble, my recommendation is to search the internet.

Update 3/11/2010: OK, so I was being a bit harsh on the Jag people. Though I still think they are a very different breed to MG people, most are very willing to help newcomers. Being a Jag/MG person myself I am always ready to help a fellow Brit-car enthusiast.

My main point today is that it is crucial to set the timing right (about 14 BTDC for a Weber DGV) to make everything come together. Bad timing could be one cause of misfiring or backfiring (where the explosion happens too late, and ends up in the exhaust manifold). The mixture on my DGV was set properly, but the exhaust manifold glowed orange. Checking the timing, I noticed it was set to 5 BTDC. Resetting it to 14 fixed the exhaust problem.

Another problem I've been having lately is that after running for a while and stopping, the car would not start up again. All signs pointed to not enough fuel reaching the carb. The pump was working and the filter was full (one of those stupid clear Lucas filters actually came in handy for once), but the fuel kept evaporating when it hit the bowl. Without manifold vacuum that vapour was going nowhere. My solution was to get rid of the hoses used for intake heating (plugged them up with a bolt), which dramatically reduced the temperature in the bowl so fuel would stay liquid. The intake heater is a fuel-economy thing that I do not think really necessary. I may attach it again in the heart of winter.

So:

Bright red exhaust manifold?

• Mixture too rich
• Timing too retarded (advance to 10-14 BTDC)
  

Misfiring?

• Mixture too lean
• Timing too advanced (retard to 10-14 BTDC)

It's that simple. Please see my other posts (click 'carburettor' on the right) on fine-tuning the Weber DGV.

Also I passed my qualifier exam!

Wait, what's this??? :
More very soon...

Cracked radiator

I'm right in the middle of my qualifier exams at the moment -the exams every PhD student has to take in order to keep receiving funding, and to stay in the programme. It's a two week gruelling event ended by an hour-long presentation on a topic you've only known for two weeks, during which professors get to grill the hell out of you asking everything from 'what does that electron do' to 'why are my pants blue?' It's murder.

Anyway, car stuff doesn't stop for anything. So I thought I'd share some recently acquired experience with you so you don't have to pay $60 to be towed 15 miles:

When your radiator starts leaking, PATCH THE LEAK OR REPLACE THE RADIATOR!!

Here's what the radiator (in my Altima) was doing one day:

In the video you'll notice a small bubbling leak coming from the top plastic part of the radiator, right where the Nissan logo is. I didn't think too much of it and just patched it up with some tape. I figured I'd replace it eventually.

I drove up to Jersey and back (4 hours each way), but on the return trip noticed that my AC wasn't working too well. Looking down at the gauges I saw a needle way past H, and eventually saw smoke coming out of the hood. So I turned off the engine, pulled over (without power steering - quite difficult in this car), and waited for AAA. Here's what the radiator looked like afterwards:
Note that this crack spans from the centre till way into the left side of the radiator (sorry, cell-phone pic). Thinking about this for a second, you can understand why: a radiator at high temperatures does generate some steam inside. Steam builds up, leading to pressure which was trying to vent through the pinhole. At one point it just got so hot and the pressure was so high the radiator gave way and cracked. Not bad, actually, for a 16 year old radiator.

The radiator was very easy to take out (collect your coolant properly! I let it run and later found squirrels drinking from it. If you don't want to chase squirrels all day collect it properly.) All-in all it would have taken me about an hour to replace.

Not a huge deal, RockAuto was willing to ship a new radiator to me for $95 (everything included). But time was of the essence, so I decided to go to Advance instead. Their website said a new radiator was $127, but the in-store price was $137 ("Yup, that's the store price" the sales associate told me when I asked why the bill was so high). I guess I was willing to pay $30 more, but $40 was starting to push it, especially if you consider the $60 towing charge. Also the principle of the matter didn't sit well with me. I contacted Advance about this (to bring it to their attention, not to demand a refund) and they got back to me on this, apologising for the incident and offering a gift card. Oh, and make sure you get the right radiator for your car (manual vs automatic, not the same!!), which set me back another day (plug any extra holes with silicone).

You should know this is unlikely to happen in an MG radiator, mainly because it's entirely metal. Though pin-hole leaks can happen, pressure will not build up the same way it did in my Altima. A good radiator cap should prevent any explosions, which should also be minor seeing as metal is much stronger than plastic (and a pin-hole will remain as such for much longer).

They really don't make things the way they used to.

A Sad Day for MG Enthusiasts

I was very shocked to find out yesterday that University Motors, known for its excellent MG self-help videos, is shutting down. To quote the website:

University Motors will cease fulltime business on Wednesday, July 1 st , 2009 , after 34+ years of service to the MG community. When our Governess promised in her 2006 State of the State Address that "In five years, you're going to be blown away by the strength and diversity of Michigan 's transformed economy," little did we imagine that it would be our own business that would be demolished in the ensuing economic storm.

John Twist's videos proved invaluable during those shaky first months when I really had no idea what I was doing. (This MGB is the first car I've ever really worked on.) It's a sad day and a real shame that we have to see something so wonderful go away. It's odd, because I always figured it'd be there. At some point I even planned on going to Ada, Michigan, to get something done, just to say I went there.

Luckily the videos will always be there, thanks to Youtube. Mr Twist always uploaded his videos to Youtube, that will keep a permanent record of it. I'm not too sure about how long the website will stay in existence, so I've copied the technical videos portion and put it on my server as the video organisation goes lost on Youtube: The original is here, mine is here.

Though there are many MG help guides online, very few are as clear as the University Motors videos. Most give general instructions but don't actually stop to give a good explanation of how things work. And, much to my annoyance at first, many are written in technical jargon or with details left out (such as, where's spark plug 1?) which rendered them useless for me. Haynes manuals and such are convoluted with too much information, unless you know exactly where to look. University Motors was a great place for a beginner like me to start.

The goal of this blog was to help other people in my situation get started by speaking in a very non-technical manner, which I hope I've somewhat accomplished. John Twist has accomplished this with his excellent series of MG technical videos.

Oil warning

I just found this article online about automotive oils. If you own an old car, you should care a lot about this:

http://www.mgtoronto.com/pdf/Tech/Oil.pdf

Apparently not just our fuel has become more environmentally friendly, but also our lubrication oils. Unfortunately, as with the added ethanol (that's not exactly environmentally friendly either...), the new oils also do significant damage to your car, more specifically to your camshaft and lifters. The oils lack certain 'pollutants', and the new materials replacing them seem to eat away at our cam shafts. This affects pretty much all oils, except certain brands. Redline Oil still makes racing oil (non-EPA approved, which is why it's still good) that you can find in the 10W20 etc. varieties. Castrol 20W50 is still OK as well, but not their other oils, which I have been using.

Here's a list from the article linked above:

• Castrol: GTX 20W-50, GTX Diesel 15W-40, GTX High Mileage 20W-50, HD 30, HD 40,
• Syntec Blent TRUCK 1 5W-40 (Semi-synthetic), Tection Extra 1 5W-40, Hypuron S 1
• 5W-40, TWS Motor sport 10W-60 (Synthetic).
• Redline: 10W-40, 10W-40 (Synthetic oils)
• Valvoline: Racing 20W-50

People should also know that the addition of ethanol in fuel results in gaskets and rubber being eaten away prematurely, as well as a higher running temperature (which results in poor mpg's and early engine wear). If anyone knows a place that sells ethanol-free gas please let me know.

Once again I'm pissed at treehuggers that won't let me drive my car, when the real demons are:

1. The energy industry (coal, gas for power? seriously? are we still in the 19th century??)
   
2. The commercial transportation industry (diesel trucks with NO emissions regulations driving hundreds of miles daily,diesel trains, a giant presidential limo that gets less mpg than a 70s Buick)
3. Agriculture (cows farting is more polluting than beltway traffic. I dunno, stick a cat conv. on their backs or something...)
4. Real clunkers that are still on the road (but hell, I'll defend their right to drive till I die)

Anyway, enough politics. I'll be getting back to MG stuff soon. In the meanwhile I'm trying to get some body work done.

And feel free to check out my twitter account for more ramblings such as the one above: mgFreak