Things to look for? Common problems? Et cetera…?
my dad owned a 70 something mgb when i was little. one day we went for a cruise and the road getting outta my house is a steep hill and we had to stop on it and the car didn’t have enough trq to fuckin pull out, it would either stall or bake the clutch hahaha. we had to take another run at it. I also remember seeing an add for one down in the garage that my dad had hung up and it said 0-60 in 11.x sec OMFG hahaha so weak.
power won’t be an issue.
i’m talking about places that rust out, parts that are a bitch to find, et cetera
This was years ago and i was young and not to into cars but I remember him having a hard time finding parts for it.
I think rockers rust on those pretty well, and maybe an area in the rear, like right behind the seats.
I have a 69 mgb here at the shop ‘in resto’. the floors have been done once, but its waving goodbye inside the rockers/innerfender type areas. usually you can pop the hood and it look beautiful, but around the front uni-rails to the body seem (inside out) will go. I dont think i have much of the battery boxes left either…
the whole car…
lol
its hard to find a good one!
If you have any questions or need to know best places to get parts, you know my #.
I just acquired a '67 myself.
wiring is sketchy. old british cars are notorius for shit wiring. cars themselves will rust on fender heels and the 1/4 doglegs. check the trunk and under the battery. floor pan too. i’d advise you put the car on a lift if you can.
engine wise, underpowered but nothing really fails. of course that can be debatable pending what carb setup is on the car now. trannys are fairly dependable, the overdrive units are pretty scarce to come by. if car is is solid body, i can hook you up w/ all the mechanicals and some interior pending what year you have.
for most part, they are fun cars. they have their glitches though. i prefer the old metal bumper cars. biggest thing really is the body shape. the rest is easy and fairly inexpensive
what year car are you looking at?
i’m starting to look for a GT.
we just had my dads 79 restored. we didnt do the body work, but did everything else. sailor sumed it up pretty good. the wiring is scary. but yet its very dependable tho. his runs really good, did the better carb to it and a couple other things.
figuring it is a gt, 65 to 73/74? i forget the exact year they stopped bringing them into the us. your good on the engine, 5 mains as opposed to older engines w/ 3 mains. not the most powerful, but wont blow up. mid 60’s was the switch on the mains, if you were to “hot rod” it, find a rover v8, which was actually found in buicks/oldsmobiles. all aluminium heads/block. the v8 actually weighs less than the 4 cylinder engine. mg did make a run of this engine in a roadster.
for a gt, i could help you find mechanical and interior pieces. i know where there is a shit load of old mg parts. once again, thing to look for is rot on the car itself.
seeing that you are on a old car kick, give any thought to a datsun 1600/2000 roadster?
Sailor got everything right except the V8 was offered in the GT’s, not the roadsters. It was simply called the MGB GT V8. Rover bought all the tooling for the 3.5 aluminum V8’s from Buick in the sixties and put them into a lot of their models. It’s the same V8 used in Land Rovers/ Range Rovers up until a couple of years ago.
i haven’t really been looking at softtops, but if i found a great deal on a convertible i’d consider it.
my dad an i just restored his 79 rubber bumper. he bought it new in 79 drove it for 25k, then the head cracked (b/c the rad. was leaking unknowingly). its a very good car to have if you know how to take care of it, but you really have to know your stuff. small problems can balloon pretty quickly. things to look for: rust, bad wiring, and compression i think are the biggest. check on the doors right behind the triangle door window for cracks. they usually develop on the edge of the triangle because of stresses when shutting the door. other than that, good hunting!
I use 2 work on mg’s all day and night. There not hard 2 find parts. There’s a few shops that have everything u can ask for. Ill get the names if you want them pm me. We use 2 order parts every day. They still make reman parts. Rust happens floor boards and rocker panals. Few things u gotta take off of them or they start to back fire Remove few air lines and insert bolts but If taken care of run good