Clutch Fluid

Just a short note that I topped up the clutch fluid today - it was a little low. I need to keep an eye on that to make sure I don't have a leak. I used Castrol LMA fluid which I found at PepBoys.

Gearbox oil

I thought I would check the level of the gear box oil, and why not. According to the manuals, my late B should have a filler on the side of the box. You check the oil by looking at the level through the filler hole. Well, I don't have a side filler, instead there is a dipstick on the top which is accessible from behind the radio console. This is all a bit puzzling. Was the original gearbox replaced with an earlier model? Who knows, and the only way to find out is to locate the number on the top of the gear box (which realistically can only be done by taking the whole thing out). So I won't worry about it.

The oil level was a little on the low side, so I went ahead and drained and replaced the oil with some fresh Castrol GTX 20W50.

A CB radiator in a RB?

As my car is a 1977 model, it should have electric cooling fans and not a belt driven fan. The cooling fans would be on the front of the radiator in a pair and would be "pushers". The car should also have an expansion bottle for the radiator. Take a look at the pictures and you'll see something is missing.

So what is going on? Well the previous owner told me that the car had been in some front end collision. This resulted in the front end being worked on a little. In the process it looks like the radiator was replaced with an earlier model - one for a chrome bumper (pre 75 car). But it doesn't stop there. In addition the electric cooling fans which are standard on this car were removed and a belt driven cooling fan was added.

The car runs pretty cool which is good although could be due to an overactive thermostat.
I checked the temperature sender by disconnecting the wire and grounding the end of the sensor wire. This should result in the temp going to H, which it did. So at some point I will need to check the thermostat. In the short term though, the current setup seems to do an effective job of cooling the car.

New starter relay

I got a new starter relay today. The old one is on the right, the new one on the left. It cost $3.97 from Advance.
When I went to Advance, they wanted to sell me a $30+ model for the B, and if you look in the Moss or VB catalogs - they also have pretty high priced ones. But it turns out that a relay is a relay and a generic "Bosch" type will do.

It's installed and the engine fires up every time! (well so far).

Starter relay. The case of the missing wires...

Sometimes when I turn the key I can hear the starter solenoid engage, but I just get a click. So I decided to check the relay connections.

This is going to get detailed so grab a coffee..

According to page 78 of Rick Astley’s “MGB Electrical Systems” my late model B should have 4 wires attached to the starter relay.

Brown/White to 30
White/Red to 86
Black to 85
Brown to 87

Here’s what I have:
Brown to 30
Black to 85

White/Red and Brown/White wires connected to each other.

The first picture shows the terminals of the starter relay.

The second picture shows the white/red wires connected (with a headless nail) to the brown/white wires.

The car starts most times, but often it will require several attempts to get past the click.

When I connect the wires according to Rick Astley’s book I get nothing – no clicks, nothing.

My suspicion is that a PO decided that the relay was bad and decided to bypass it. Would the above connections bypass the relay or is there something else going on here? Is it even possible to bypass the relay?? I am guessing I probably should just get a new relay.

I submitted this question to the great folks at mgexeperience.net. I'll see what they say...

Seats...

I'm 6' 2" and when I sit in the B, the sun visor is basically directly in my line of site. I solved this by removing the visors, but they really look sort of cool. I also slouch when I drive. Today I took an alternative approach and removed the clips that hold the webbing under the drivers seat. I let the webbing sag down and I replaced the clips with some wire. It looks pretty tacky but of course you can't see it when the seat cushion is in place.

I kept the clips in case I decide to put them back

Now when I sit in the seat I look squarely through the windscreen. I think it lowered my seat by close to 2 inches. Much better. My hair won't get messed up as much either.