Back from the body shop and Rear suspension out

Lady got back from the body shop a few weeks ago. She looks amazing. The body shop was the restoration shop for America's Car Museum. Uncle Lewis used to work there - so we have an in.

We took the body back to Lewis's shop - he has a 4 post lift. We're going to do the suspension work and engine compartment prep - then come back home for dropping in the engine and interior work.

Today (Mar 8, 2019) - Went out to Aunt Rebbeca and Uncle Louis' place and dropped the rear suspension.

An Ode to higher skilled family members

An Ode to higher skilled family members.

My Brother In Law - Louie is awesome beyond words. He's much better working on cars than I am and he's very giving of his time. He and my sister live about an hour away. During the summer - he came and helped us pull the drive train. After body shop estimates came in too high for us to afford - he said he was willing to power wash the entire thing, wire wheel and rattle can the rust spots in the interior and engine bay all in exchange for a small sum. He's a great guy.

Pictures of the man himself (and his truck):

Power washing like a Baws!

Showing Orion how to use the lift

Towing Lady off for body work

A few days later - Lewis calls - he has a friend that has a full body shop that can do the media blasting, prime, and paint for a reasonable fee (way less than our other estimates). I figure they'll mask off what we didn't remove from Lady and go to town. We gladly take him up on the offer.

I found out today that Louie has spent the last 2 months getting the body ready for the sand blaster and paint. He is doing this up right. I can't thank him enough. The small sum is, of course, going to go up :)

Left: Small parts he blasted in his shop. 

Center: Glass, window cranks, wiper motors, etc. 

Right: Lady almost ready for the body

8/2019 - Wow I suck at keeping a blog.

Wow! I suck at keeping this blog up to date. Previous post we had the engine out. This post has pictures from August when Uncle Louis came and took the body off to do the power washing, some wire wheel & sand blasting. Paint coming soon.

After a bit of power washing. There is a lot more rust on that back wall than I thought. Thank God for generous and skilled family members

Some of the smaller bits sand blasted. Looking forward to seeing the painted version

7/15 - !ENGINE OUT!

Special thanks to our Uncle Louis who came out, brought his engine lift, and helped us get the engine out.

We had most everything disconnected except the transmission cross member and mounts. We made quick work of those and were done in no time.

Right: I swear Louis and the kids look like they are on the cover of an album.

Left: Orion got to run the hoist for almost the entire time.

Left: Completely out.

Who is doing the rebuild

We loaded the engine, transmission, and carburetors into Louis' truck and took them out to http://autosportseattle.com/. They're going to get me a quote on rebuilding it all and boring the cylinders out so we can get a 10:1 compression. they are thinking they are 4 to 6 weeks out on having it done.

Left: AJ took a picture with me in it. 

We've been getting a lot done lately

• Pulled the dashboard but left all the switches and gauges attached to their wires
• Heater box and vents are all out.
• Electrical harness is completely out (with switches and gauges still attached)
• AJ Pulled all the interior trim panels this afternoon
• I pulled the clutch "Sub" Cylinder
• Hydraulic lines aplenty are completely free of the car.
• I'm ready to have body shops take a look at the shell.

Next to do:

• Drop the gas tank and find a radiator shop that will clean it and the radiator up.
• Get a couple of estimates on the body work
• Take the panels and the seats to an upholstery shop
• Take delivery of a scissor lift in the next week or two.

Progress report June 22, 2019

Small progress update.

I'm getting out to work on "Lady" every few days sometimes with the kids, sometimes on my own. I'm enjoying this time.

In the last several days, we've dropped the exhaust line and pulled out the exhaust header.

This morning we shipped the calipers and a new set of brake drums off to https://www.goldlinebrakes.com/ - a local shop that will rebuild the calipers and bake on a finish.

Today we spent time pulling out the hydraulic lines, brake light switch, starter solenoid, fuse block, and electrical block. My eldest son, AJ, pulled the front grill. I've decided to replace the entire electrical harness. We want the engine bay to be gorgeous. I'm shopping for a four post lift.

This time with 4 part harmony and feeling??

So I keep trying to start on the car and failing utterly, but you know - if at first you don't succeed...


This most recent spurt of effort was initiated by my, now 16 year old son, AJ talking smack about me in front of my brother in law, Louis. AJ was saying that the car was covered in dust and we never worked on it and could Louis come fix it. Instead of letting Louis fix it, he and I set a date in June for him to come help me pull the engine & transmission. Since then, I've been cleaning out the garage again & "puttering" on the car (small bits of work here and there).

To the left are 2 pictures. The first is one of my youngest, Orion, pulling one of the spark plugs (he wanted to help). The other is me pulling back the exhaust manifold. to show that it's at least loose. I can't get it off the engine due to how close it is to the steering shaft.

Today the two older brothers and I went out and drained the transmission, and removed the front brake calipers so I can ship them off to get them rebuilt and painted. I'm thinking gloss black on the coat.

Of chickens & Radiators

Measureable progress!

My wife has been sporting a new mantra and "15 minutes a day" for any large project. She means it in regards to our family's goal of getting the back yard ready for chickens and expanding the garden. Only we're not doing 15 minutes, we're doing a bit more :). Fortunately we're all on board and things are going fast.

Last week, on the yard front, we measured out and marked where fences for the chicken run and garden will be. We also cleared out all the briar & 3 stumps from shrubs we previously removed.

After the garden work,  A.J. & I drained the oil & coolant then pulled the radiator and cowl.

Today the girls went to a class on chicks while I spent time with my youngest. After the class, I took 10 minutes to go unhook the oil cooler and was able to actually remove the radiator cowl from the car. I then took a few more minutes to remove the thermostat cover. This gives a great view of the front of the engine now. Pardon the grainy images, I'm working with my camera phone which is several years old.

It's been a while

Wow. It's been a while and it's currently quite late. In the previous post I was getting ready to spin up Lady after I got the rear breaks done. When I crawled back under to fasten the line back in place, I noticed just how badly the seals on the drive line, engine and transmission were leaking so I gave up the ghost on the "rolling rebuild" and the project fell by the wayside again. I wound up buying a '98 Mini Cooper with a full sun roof (The convertible flexed way too much at speed). I call her "Lilith" (she's all in black and misunderstood). In the last few weeks, I've made another pass on the garage to start getting back to Lady. My hope is to pull the Engine & Tranny this Summer.

Right rear break drum finally re assembled

Finally! I've got the right rear breaks back together. I don't think I've mentioned it in this blog yet, but what caused Lady to sit for so long was that the slave cylinder on this wheel died while it was sitting for a winter and I didn't make time to repair it. Before you get judgmental, I had just had a new baby and time was tight :-)

 

Right rear breaks finally assembled

I got the parts for my birthday back in May but the wheel cylinder wouldn't screw onto the end of the break line. Turns out this was due to what I've come to understand is normal flaring on the end of the nut. This flare prevents the nut from going into the hole in the cylinder far enough for the threads to meet up. To make sure that the threads weren't ruined, I pulled the entire line from the splitter above the rear differential. This exposed another flared nut that wouldn't go back into the splitter :-). It appeared that what I needed to do was replace the line. I don't have the tools to bend the lines or flare the nuts so I called around to various brake shops to see if they could do it for me if I brought them the old line to base the new shape on. One of them very kindly informed me that what I needed to do was to simply get some emery cloth and sand down the ends of the nuts until they fit. I spent 90 minutes in my easy chair sanding the nuts and testing them against one of my new cylinders. Wow. I got some serious blisters on my thumb and fore finger spinning the facets of the nuts. This last Thursday I was able to put the line and cylinder back in. Finally Friday night I was able to put in the pads, springs, retaining clips and bleeder screw. One down. I'm currently sanding down the nut on the brake line on the car. There's not a lot of clearance while it's on the car. Hopefully I'll have the other side done within a week or two. Then I can bleed the system and try spinning the engine.

Cleaning out the garage..

I've been wanting a new car for a while now. Something fun to drive while I spend years rebuilding my MGB. I even got within striking distance of having the money ready to go, but I've decided to get my B ("Lady") back on the road and enjoy her instead. The thing is, she's actually in great shape and I can do what I'm calling a "rolling rebuild" over a number of years (enjoy her spring, summer & fall) then rebuild something during the winter.

First step, however, is getting to her. She's in the garage up on jack stands and covered in dust, surrounded by stuff... crap... boxes... bikes and … <SIGH>… I've been slowly working on this first step for the last 2 months. Last weekend I finally got my rolling tool boxes into their intended spots and cleaned off. I even got one of them organized. A part of this was gathering all my tools from various places in the house. At this point if someone asked me for a specific tool, I could go right to it and grab it. I don't think I have adequate words to express how good that feels.

Today's mission was to empty and break down about 13 linear feet of shelving that are 1/2 of the divider between our two garage bays. That will make working on her much easier (less crowded). I managed to get it done by throwing a bunch of down right garbage out, shifting some storage stuff to high shelves in our garden shed and putting together a large pile destined for good will. With the shelves gone, I can comfortably sit in front of her passenger side rear break drum and work on it. No picture because it's currently dark, with no light in the front of the garage and the phone only takes grainy pictures with its flash.

Next plans are to get some ceiling mounted shelves to put the rest of the storage stuff on to so I can take down the remainder of the shelves and then start work on the car. First step there is new rear breaks.  AJ & I are going to paint the drums (they look much nicer through the wire wheels). He and I are both excited.

Lego Set 8039 (Venator-class Republic Attack Cruiser) - Finished build

Whew. My son, AJ, finished his build of the StarWars Venator-class Republic Attack Cruiser (8039) the other day. It took him about 7 - 30 minute sessions over about 30 days. He got the set for Yule. The long build time was due to his two smaller brothers who come running when they hear the unmistakable sound of a person digging through the parts pile looking for a piece. Haven, the 5 year old wants to help build and says "I'll do the next step". Orion, the 2 1/2 year old simply comes running chanting "GUY! GUY! GUY!", meaning he wants to play with the Lego mini-figures. Both of which, elicit groans and grumblings from AJ as he tries desperately to keep his pieces from being absconded with and lost. He's really good with his brothers and rarely looses his temper completely. I wish we could say the same for the pieces :-). We had to go to the bigger box of Lego pieces several times for this build to find replacement parts for bits that Orion wandered off with.


In the end it's a very satisfying build. It's rather sturdy for a play model. Having a fold out handle helps a lot. Some of the bits of trim on the side wings do fall off from time to time but he manages to put them back on. Pardon the grainy images, I took them with my phone in a hurry (It was past bed time) and my hands weren't as steady as they might have been otherwise.

I love building Lego with the boys (and my daughters too, when they want to). It gives us a chance to talk about fun things without the normal parent "stop doing that" or "do your chores" voices coming out. I get to watch them grow in their understanding of spatial awareness and following directions (two very important abilities). It's a very satisfying way to spend time together.

This set comes with a lot of neat details: An escape pod, a blaster turrent and bomb bay which drops bombs when you turn the crank. I'm sure you can find that out by reading the Amazon details section (link above), but they are AJ's favorite bits so I figured I would call them out. I would highly recommend this set for a family build due to the length of time it takes.

TTFN
D

Very cool lego sorter built out of legos.

Getting started

Wow. A blog. Um okay.
First post stuff: I'm a software developer with 5 kids and too many hobbies. My main goal in life has always been to be a good person and resultantantly a good dad, beyond that I'm into classic British cars and building Legos. My other hobbies and interests are too many to bother listing.

I have a long range dream to rebuild my 1965 MGB with my kids over a span of years, hopefully starting in 2 years. I have to clean out the garage and the smallest kid is still 2 & 1/2, so we don't have time or space for the project, yet. I figured a blog would be a good way to chronicle the journey.

Lego. I love building and the kids have fun building with and without dad. A friend pointed out there are a lot of builders out there who keep blogs on their creations, I'll probably do some of that here, too.

Blogging on a tablet is a less than ideal paradigm.