1980 MGB Repair

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Background

In April of 2024 I purchased a 1980 MGB with about 47,000 miles for a little less than $4,000 USD. The car ran and drove when I bought it, but I noticed a few things at time of purchase and while I first started driving it around: braking input was treated as more of a suggestion than a requirement; the catalytic converter was held to the exhaust manifold with a wing nut, socket cap screw, and some band clamps; the rear axle shaft seals appeared to be leaking on both sides; the rear axle cover gasket was leaking; the exhaust was held in place with bailing wire; a number of hoses and wires underhood were left disconnected and flapping in the breeze; damage to the paint was visible in many places, including some botched Bondo repair jobs; the parking brake wasn't very effective; etc.

Many mistakes were made in the process of repairing this car, but I believe that I was able to restore it to a much improved state of functioning than when I bought it.

Replacing the manifold

As mentioned above, the catalytic converter exhaust manifold was held to the exhaust manifold with a wing nut, socket cap screw, and some band clamps. One ear of the manifold was clearly broken off, and I initially thought I might be able to remove the manifold and repair it by welding.

Photos of the exhaust manifold showing the socket cap screw and wingnut holding the catalytic converter in place. Unfortunately these blurry photos are all that I have as evidence of the condition I bought the car in.

Cast iron is typically repaired by brazing, SMAW (aka arc, MMA, or stick welding) with specialized nickel-based alloys (and some non-machinable, non-nickel alloys specifically designed for the purpose, such as Nomacast), or AC GTAW (TIG) welded with aluminum bronze (ERCuAl-A2). All of these processes require preheating the casting prior to welding/brazing, maintaining said temperature during welding/brazing, and then cooling the casting over a very long period of time, on the order of many hours.

All of that said, MIG (or FCAW) welding with ER60S-2 is not among the list of possible ways of repairing cast iron, but this is what either a previous owner or a shop attempted, as evidenced by small lengths of filler wire sticking out of the weld.

It appears as though the individual who attempted this repair may have attempted to remove a nut from one of the exhaust studs, broke the stud, then attempted to drill out the stud, but missed the center of the stud grossly. At some point, this individual also broke the ear off of the manifold. It looks as though because of the troubles they had with this stud, they elected to use a cut-off wheel to create a slot to remove another of the studs. I am not sure why, but they appear to have also cut entirely through the manifold in one spot, and attempted MIG welding the cut closed.

Botched repair attempts by a previous owner or repair technician.

This manifold seemed too far gone, so I ordered a replacement (used) manifold off of eBay and, after removing the existing (damaged) studs, bead blasted off the rust as prep for paint. I then painted the manifold first with VHT white primer (P/N SP118) followed by VHT black (SP102).

Intake/exhaust manifold prepped.	Intake/exhaust manifold primed.	Intake/exhaust manifold painted.

Prior to installing the new manifold, I made sure to clean the manifold mating surface as well as I could. I did this manually using a razor scraper followed by some wire brushing (particularly around the base of the studs) and a final wipe-down with rags soaked in brake parts cleaner.

The head exhaust manifold mating surface, cleaned and ready for the manifold to be installed.

It is worth noting that someone had stripped the first few threads out of the left-most tapped hole in the head, and on the rightmost hole, substituted a smaller fine thread (1⁄4″-28) bolt in lieu of a properly sized coarse thread (5⁄16″-18) bolt. I ran a tap through both holes to chase the threads. A Heli-Coil (or other thread repair insert) repair would have been ideal, but I was nervous about trying to drill and tap the head while it was still installed on the car, and didn't want to remove it—I was intent on getting the car moving under its own power again as quickly as possible so as to incentivize myself to work on it further, and removing the head would have added unnecessary complications and delays. I concluded that there were enough threads sufficiently intact in either hole to secure the manifold, at least for the time being.

When reinstalling the manifold, I initially thought that I could attach the manifold to the head, then install the catalytic converter. While it was possible to slip the catalytic converter into place with the manifold installed by undoing some of the exhaust hangers (and allowing the exhaust down-pipe to move down out of the way), I was not able to tighten the nut securing the catalytic converter to the manifold that was closest to the engine block. So, I removed the manifold from the head, secured the cat to the manifold, and installed the manifold and catalytic converter as an assembly.

The manifold and catalytic converter mated and ready for installation.	The manifold and catalytic converter assembly installed in the engine bay.

About a day after installing the manifold (and, fortunately, before starting the car), I had the sinking feeling that I may not have adequately cleaned the inside of the manifold to remove all of the blasting media that may have been left behind, so I used a borescope to look inside the manifold, and lo and behold, I could see blasting media stuck to the inside of the intake portion of the manifold.

Remnants of blasting media inside the intake portion of the manifold.

So, I had no choice but to remove the intake/exhaust manifold from the vehicle and clean the inside. I used brushes and rags with brake parts cleaner as well as compressed air, and verified the cleanliness of the inside of the manifold after cleaning again using the borescope.

If I were to do this again, I would pressure wash the inside of the manifold, perhaps after painting the exterior.

Tools, parts, and consumables used

Supplier	Supplier P/N	Mfg.	Mfg. P/N	Description	Qty.	Unit Price	Sub-total
eBay	N/A	British Leyland	CAM1314	Intake/exhaust manifold	1	$110.00	$110.00
NAPA	DC SP118	VHT	SP118	White primer	1	$18.88	$18.88
Advance Auto	DPL SPL102	VHT	SP102	Black paint	1	$17.29	$17.29
Total

Repainting the air filter housing

The original air filter housing had seen better days, so I decided to repaint it.

Front view.	Back view.

I attempted using a home-grade paint stripper to remove the paint, but had limited success, so I used a die grinder with “cookie wheels” to remove that paint which couldn't be removed chemically. (Paint strippers used to contain methylene chloride and were highly effective, but the EPA phased out its use in paint strippers over the past few years.) I was concerned that some amount of abrasive media might remain inside the housing, so I dunked it in an ultrasonic cleaner filled with Simple Green to try to clean out any which might remain.

After removing the paint, I discovered that someone had managed to nick the outside of the housing with a cutoff wheel in two spots. In one of these spots, the cut went entirely through the housing, allowing unfiltered air to enter the carburetor. I repaired both blemishes by TIG welding, followed by sanding down the welds to be flush with the surface.

Before and after shots of the hole in the air filter housing. Yes, the heat-affected zone (HAZ) is large—I was fairly rusty with TIG when I welded this. Not shown is the final result after sanding down the welds.

Rebuilding the front brakes

Removing the front wheels showed that the front disc brake rotors were very much in need of replacing.

These rotors have seen better days.

Removing the disc brake rotors on the MGB requires removing the axle nuts securing the hub/rotor assemblies to the spindles. With the hubs removed, the rotors were unbolted from the hubs, discarded, and replaced with new.

With the hubs off, I also opted to replace the front axle seals. Removing the axle seals allowed removing both inner and outer roller bearings, which allowed me to clean these ultrasonically and re-pack them with fresh wheel bearing grease.

All of the hub parts laid out after ultrasonic cleaning in mineral spirits.

The previous owner had only recently replaced the front disc brake pads on both sides, so I opted to re-use these. However, I noted that the pistons were oriented incorrectly. The manual very clearly indicates that the pistons should be oriented facing forward, so I used a coupling nut and a bolt as a sort of an impromptu machinist's jack to allow grabbing the inside diameter of the piston. By using the box end of a wrench, I could rotate the piston a fraction of a turn at a time.

The manual quite plainly shows the correct orientation of the caliper pistons.	Re-orienting the pistons a little bit at a time using my impromptu “tool.”

Later when I would go to bleed the brakes, I found an enormous amount of deteriorating rubber bits in the fluid I extracted, so I opted to replace both front brake hoses. The hoses that I purchased (from O'Reilly) did not come with copper gaskets or nuts. The hose was threaded 3⁄8″-24.

The front passenger's side hub and brakes, reassembled. (If you look really carefully you can see that I did not replace the brake hardware yet in this photo.)

Tools and parts used in rebuilding the front brakes

Supplier	Supplier P/N	Mfg.	Mfg. P/N	Description	Qty.	Unit Price	Sub-total
Amazon	B00S0RQIOM	ACDelco	18A1405A	Front disc brake rotor	2	$25.63	$51.26
O'Reilly	BHH BH36948	BrakeBest	BH36948	Front brake hose	2	$20.99	$41.98
O'Reilly	MTM 66250	Dorman	66250	Brake hose gasket assortment	1	$6.99	$6.99
Hardware store	N/A	N/A	N/A	3⁄8″-24 jam nut	2	$0.52	$1.04
eBay	N/A	Lucas	GBK1010L	Brake Pad Fitting Kit	1	$19.95	$19.95
Total

Rebuilding the rear brakes

Removing the rear brake drums revealed a thick layer of what looked like grease covering all surfaces. I suspected that this was gear oil that had leaked from the rear axle. I cleaned both brake backing plates about as well as I could without removing the plates, before deciding to remove the backing plates entirely to allow re-sealing the end of the axle tube—it looked as though gear oil had leaked from the axle tube flange (behind the brake backing plates) as well.

Nasty.

The driver's side rear hub required a little bit of coercion to remove; I used a hub puller that I rented from Advance Auto Parts to do the job. This worked with minimal effort.

Making use of a rented hub puller to yank the hub from the axle.

With the hub removed, I could then remove the four 3⁄8″-24 bolts securing the backing plate to the axle tube. Before re-sealing the axle tube flange, I cleaned all surfaces with a die grinder with a wire wheel. I then sealed the mating surfaces with a thin layer of Permatex 25238 “The Right Stuff” one minute grey RTV gasket maker.

Everything needed to reassemble the rear axle flange and brake backing plate laid out. I used a quick curing (one minute) RTV gasket maker, so having everything neatly arranged helped to move quickly.

In attempting to remove the driver's side rear brake adjuster, I had my ratchet set to “tighten” and not “loosen”, and accidentally snapped off both studs.

Driver's side brake adjuster.	Passenger's side brake adjuster.

Fortunately, replacements were readily available; I was able to find a pair of NOS Powertune BAU2294 adjusters for $33.95. Before installing these, I lubricated the moving parts with Permatex 24125 brake parts lube and the threaded parts (including the adjuster screw) with Permatex copper anti-seize.

Driver's side.	Passenger's side.

(Note that the above photos don't show the cotter pins for the axle castle nuts; I installed these later.)

Before reinstalling the brake drums, I bead blasted and painted them with Dupli-Color black ceramic caliper paint.

The brake drums after painting with black Dupli-Color ceramic caliper paint.

Tools and parts used to repair the rear brakes

Supplier	Supplier P/N	Mfg.	Mfg. P/N	Description	Qty.	Unit price	Total
Parts
NAPA	TS TS437	NAPA	TS TS437	Proformer Brake Shoes	1	$36.98	$36.98
NAPA	NOS 16719	SKF		Axle seal	2	$15.29	$30.58
eBay	N/A	Powertune	BAU2294	Rear brake adjuster	1 (pair)	$33.95	$33.95
eBay	N/A	Lucas	BSK3	Brake spring kit	1 (pair)	$39.95	$39.95
Consumables
		Permatex	24125	Ceramic brake parts lubricant	1
		Permatex		Anti-seize	1
Advance Auto	PER 25238	Permatex	25238	One minute grey RTV gasket maker	1	$19.99	$19.99
Tools
eBay	N/A	Snap-On	B1360	Flex head 1⁄4″ & 5⁄16″ square drive wrench	1	$30.00	$30.00

(Attempting to) bleed the brakes

After reassembly I began vacuum-bleeding the brake system with a hand-held Mityvac vacuum pump. This went fine on the rear driver's side, but I found myself completely unable to draw any fluid out of the rear passenger's side. I initially assumed that the flexible rubber brake hose was to blame, so I bisected the source of the issue by removing the hose and attempting to pull vacuum from the rear passenger's side wheel cylinder bleeder screw. With the flexible hose removed, the wheel cylinder bleeder screw still held vacuum, implying that a kink or clog was present between the brass tee fitting and the wheel cylinder. Closer inspection revealed that the hard line between the tee and the wheel cylinder was crushed in one spot, presumably from an errantly placed tow hook.

Not unlike my spirits when I saw this, the brake line (crushed).

Removing this line was difficult as the steel fitting was seized in the tee fitting. An inductive bolt removal tool may have helped, but I did not have one, and flame-based methods of heating (e.g., a propane torch) would have been risky with the proximity of the gas tank. I was ultimately able to remove the fitting with liberal application of penetrating lubricant and supporting the tee fitting with an adjustable wrench (to prevent bending or even tearing off the support bracket).

A pre-bent replacement hard line was not readily available, so I purchased 25 feet of AGS CNC325 copper-nickel hard line. This also meant purchasing a flaring tool. I ended up purchasing an OTC flaring tool, model 6502. I was tempted to purchase a more expensive kit such as the Eastwood model 25304 bubble flaring tool, but opted for the OTC option due to local availability and price.

A bubble flare made with the OTC master flaring tool kit. Don't forget to install the fitting before making the flare!

I bent the line using a Ridgid model 456 tubing bender as well as a pair of Lisle 44150 3⁄16″ tubing bender pliers, using the original line as a template. (I would not recommend the Lisle pliers as the finish was poor and these left some marks in the tubing as a result.)

The newly installed new brake line.

Bleeding the brakes (successfully this time)

With the pinched line replaced, I could now proceed to bleed the brakes. I initially tried using a Mityvac hand-operated vacuum pump to vacuum bleed the brakes, but I found it very difficult and arduous to bleed the rear brakes, as the small, 1⁄4″-28 bleeder screws fit very sloppily in the wheel cylinders, and even with grease around the base of the threads, a significant amount of outside air was being drawn into the vacuum pump.

To work around this, I initially tried using speed bleeders purchased from NAPA in conjunction with a compressed air powered vacuum bleeder, but found that the vacuum bleeder could not produce sufficient vacuum to open the check valves within the speed bleeders.

Ultimately, I found that by applying a small amount of Permatex 59235 high temperature thread sealant to the bleeder screw threads in conjunction with an air-powered vacuum bleeder system worked the best. I bled from all four corners, checked pedal height and firmness, then bled the system once more and was able to obtain a fairly firm pedal that engaged very close to its rest position.

Tools and parts used in this repair

Supplier	Supplier P/N	Mfg.	Mfg. P/N	Description	Qty.	Unit price	Sub-total
Tools
		OTC	6502	Flaring tool	1
		Eastwood
Amazon		Bilitools
Parts
O'Reilly		AGS	CNC25	3⁄16″ O.D. copper-nickel brake line	1	$59.99	$59.99
O'Reilly		AGS	BLF38	3⁄8″-24 bubble flare brake fitting	2	$3.79	$7.58
Consumables
		Permatex	59235	High temperature thread sealant	1	$16.72	$16.72
		Prestone		DOT3 brake fluid

Replacing the rear exhaust hanger

The rearmost exhaust hanger of the MGB uses rubber isolators with bolts sticking out either end of the isolators. These bolts are bonded to the rubber, but on this car, the bond had failed on one side of each isolator, so someone had tried to jerry-rig the hanger using bailing wire. So, the hanger would have to be replaced. I began by trying to unbolt the hanger, but one of the two 1⁄4″-28 bolts snapped off in the bracket on the car body.

Luckily, I was able to carefully drill and grind out the old bolt without damaging the threads of the weld nut. But, unfortunately, when I went to chase the threads with a tap, I ended up cross-threading and destroying them. Perhaps some day I will replace the bracket; I did at one point find a vendor offering replacement brackets, though at the time I am now writing this, I cannot find the vendor.

I ordered a new replacement rear exhaust hanger off of eBay, but when I went to install the new hanger, I realized that the rear 1 5⁄8″ muffler had been replaced with a larger diameter model, and so the brackets included with the replacement hanger would not fit. I needed a way of fabricating replacement brackets, so I purchased a Harbor Freight compact bender. As it turned out, one of the included dies resulted in nearly the exact diameter required to fit the exhaust pipe.

The top three brackets are the new brackets that I made. The lower bracket is the new bracket included with the exhaust hanger intended for use with the smaller OEM exhaust pipe.

With the replacement clamps made, assembly was fairly straight-forward. It was necessary to loosen the three nuts securing the exhaust downpipe to the catalytic converter to properly align the exhaust.

The new exhaust hanger, complete with custom exhaust pipe clamps, installed on the vehicle.

Going for a test drive and losing fasteners

I took the ‘B for a test drive into the mountains, and while initially the car performed excellently, at some point along the drive I noticed that the exhaust became louder and louder. I pulled over and found that all three of the nuts securing the catalytic converter to the exhaust manifold had come loose. Fortunately, I had a set of wrenches in the boot and was able to tighten one of the three nuts that hadn't fallen off (and was accessible!).

Fixing the catalytic converter

It seemed that the reason that the nuts came loose on the converter was that a previous owner or shop had attempted to repair the weld between the catalytic converter and its own flange. However, whoever attempted this repair clearly struggled to obtain good penetration and fusion into either base metal, and worked around this by welding bad welds on top of other bad welds.

I was hoping that I would be able to grind away these welds and get down to a good base metal layer, but after grinding nearly (or in some spots, actually) all the way through, I could see no such good base metal to work with. Grinding revealed lots of lack of fusion and porosity. It would not surprise me if whomever attempted the repair did not realize that the catalytic converter was probably made of 409 stainless, and attempted welding it using a non-stainless alloy such as ER70S-6.

Would you just look at that lack of fusion.

This left me with no choice but to cut out the bad conical section of exhaust pipe connecting the catalytic converter body to its flange. I started by cutting away the flange (without damaging the flange so that I might be able to re-use it), then using a Dremel with some cut-off wheels to slice the conical pipe section into smaller pieces that could be wrenched away with a pair of pliers.

Carefully…

I then used a die grinder with 2″ sanding discs to sand down what was left of the old weld bead.

Attempting to salvage the old flange

I took the old flange over to the lathe and machined away the remnants of the old conical pipe section and weld bead. This revealed (again) some extremely poor fusion into the base metal.

Machining away the old weld revealed virtually no penetration into the base metal.

Making a new flange

To make a replacement flange, I went to a local industrial surplus supplier and found a piece of stainless steel of unknown alloy, with the hope that this piece might be 304. (303 stainless is neither as corrosion resistant nor as easily welded as 304 stainless.) I used a bandsaw to cut out a small square piece of this plate, then machined the plate square before fly-cutting both sides of the plate to achieve good parallelism and flatness and obtain a good surface finish. I then drilled the plate using successively larger HSS twist drill bits (starting with 1⁄2″ and proceeding up to 1″ in 1⁄16″ or sometimes 1⁄8″ increments). With the plate drilled out to 1″, I set up a boring head in the mill and proceeded to bore out the plate to ???″. Finally, I bored a ???″ step.

With boring complete, I then proceeded to drill for three 5⁄16″-18 clearance holes spaced evenly at a radius of ???″.

Making a new conical pipe section

Next, I needed a way of making a conical section of stainless steel exhaust pipe. The only cheap and easy way I could think of was to machine a conical mandrel to use with a hydraulic press to expand the exhaust pipe. I started with a piece of 2 1⁄2″ 1018 carbon steel bar stock, cut off a 4″ with a portable bandsaw, chucked it in the lathe, turned and faced one end, then flipped it around to turn and face the other end and turn a taper.

The exhaust pipe (bottom) was larger in diameter than the end of the ram, so I put the pipe on the bottom and pressed the mandrel in from the top.	Finished result. Note that this was just a test with steel exhaust pipe.

Welding the new conical pipe section in place

Now comes the tricky part. Welding stainless steel requires an Argon back-purge to prevent “sugaring” from developing on the inside of the exhaust pipe. While argon regulators with dual flow meters are available, I happened to have two regulators, but no way to connect both to an argon tank simultaneously. In addition to a second regulator, some means of directing the argon into the catalytic converter was required. So, I purchased a CGA580 tee fitting and a #10 silicone rubber argon purge plug set off of Amazon for $28.99 and $32.95, respectively.

Near disaster: vanishing drive belts

I pulled the car over immediately and popped the hood to find steam pouring voluminously out of the reservoir tank.

Upon closer inspection, I realized that the belt for the water pump had mysteriously vanished. The only (literal) shred of evidence that I found was a small bit of shredded belt.

Fortunately, I had a spare belt and some wrenches with me, so I was able to replace the belt. However, even after allowing the engine to cool for some time, I noticed that its temperature rose rapidly after starting. I decided to leave for several hours to allow it to cool completely back to ambient. I returned later and drove the car home, but even over a very short distance (~1 mi) the temperature gauge again reached its extreme limit.

Using a thermal camera, I found that the head was nearly as hot as 260°F near the spark plugs.

Very hot.

I removed the brass plug from the thermostat housing and found that no coolant was visible. Removing the upper radiator hose revealed no coolant in said hose, which was worrying—just how low was the coolant level?

As the radiator on this car has no cap, the system must be filled through a brass plug located on the top of the thermostat housing. To complicate matters further, the top of the thermostat housing is ever so slightly lower than the top of the radiator. I worked around this by purchasing a 1⁄2″ NPT to hose barb adapter that I threaded into the top of the thermostat housing, then attached a short (about one foot long) length of vinyl hose to that I then stuck a funnel in. I found that I was able to pour between two and three quarts into the system this way. I was able to get still more coolant into the system by squeezing the upper radiator hose—with each squeeze, more air was expressed from the system, allowing more coolant into it. In total, I was able to add just a tad over 3 quarts of coolant to the system, which is appreciable as the entire system holds only about 5.7 quarts.

Very hot.

Adapter, 1/2 in Insert x MIP, 200 psi, Polypropylene/PVC 1 -$0.99 Adapter, 3/4 in Insert x 1/2 in MIP, 200 psi, Polypropylene/PVC 1 -$3.99 O-Ring, 11/16 in ID, 7/8 in OD, 3/32 in Thick, Nitrile Rubber 1 -$0.70 Vinyl Tubing, 5/8 in, 100 ft L, Clear 1 -$1.49 Vinyl Tubing, 3/4 in, 75 ft L, Clear 1 -$2.29

Supplier	Supplier P/N	Mfg.	Mfg. P/N	Description	Qty.	Unit Price	Sub-total
Advance Auto		Dayco		Waterpump & alternator drive belt	1	$	$
				Upper radiator hose	1	$	$
				Upper radiator hose	1	$	$
				Upper radiator hose	1	$	$
				Upper radiator hose	1	$	$

Replacing the Front Shocks

Sourcing replacements

After taking the 'B on a long cruise on some recently re-paved roads, I was able to appreciate just how worn the front shocks were—the slightest bump on the freshly re-paved road sent the front end bouncing for many seconds afterwards. I also noticed that both of the front shocks were completely covered in a layer of oily dirt, the oil likely having leaked from the shocks. Interestingly, after cleaning off all of the oily dirty mess from the passenger's side shock, I noticed that the screw facing outwards was loose. I considered briefly rebuilding the shocks myself, but decided instead to order professionally rebuilt shocks from World Wide Auto Parts of Madison—their prices were far more reasonable than what Moss Motors offered, and I found many instances of happy customers on the MG Experience forums.

Interestingly, when the shocks arrived, one of the two had a small amount of oil visible on top. Several weeks went by between when I received the shocks and when I finally got around to installing them. In the intervening time, I wiped the top of the shock several times (maybe around once a week) only to find that a small amount of oil would re-appear some days later. I contacted Peter from World Wide and he said this:

Well. The shock must have been upside down in shipping. That turret is only for air expansion. There shouldn't be any oil in there. We try to seal that spot but it really doesn't affect the shock. If you have time just let the shock sit and it will be fine. The drain hole from the turret is very small.... meant for air. But if you want to return it we're ok with that. We will wipe it off with brake cleaner and repaint it. It's up to you. I can send a picture of the inside of the turret tomorrow if you wish.

I never did coordinate with Peter to get a photo of the inside of the turret, but I trusted that he knew what he was talking about and elected to keep the shock that he sent and go ahead and install it on the vehicle. I can report no issues with either shock thus far. In fact, they appear to be performing quite well—the difference between the new and old shocks has been quite remarkable.

Using a jack to support the lower control arm.

Performing the install

Removing the front shocks requires jacking up the vehicle, then using a jack to raise the end of the lower control arm to unload the shock from its bump stops.

Using a jack to support the lower control arm.

With the load removed from the shock, the upper trunnion pin can be removed. Removing the castle nut securing this pin was relatively straight-forward, but removing the pin was another matter as it was fairly well seized in the old bushings. I thought to use an air hammer, but my Harbor Freight Chief air hammer was too long to fit in the wheel well on the passenger's side, at least with the shock still bolted down.

My Harbor Freight Chief air hammer was too long to fit in the passenger's side wheel well.

Removing the four bolts securing the shock allowed pivoting the knuckle far enough forward to allow use of the air hammer. On the driver's side, this wasn't necessary, as the asymmetry of the wheel well provided more than enough room for the air hammer on this side.

Unbolting the passenger's side shock from its mount allowed tilting the knuckle far enough forward to allow using the air hammer to knock out the trunnion pin.

Before installing the new shock, I cleaned the old bolts ultrasonically in a mixture of Simple Green and water, and chased the threads of the mounting flange with a tap.

Chasing the threads.

It wasn't until I was part way through removing the old shocks that I realized that I should have purchased a replacement set of bushings—the originals were in terrible condition and very much in need of replacing. So, I ordered a set of replacement bushings (complete with new trunnion bolt, castle nut, and cotter pin) off of eBay that I would have to later install.

The driver's side shock installed on the vehicle, with the old bushings in place (temporarily).

The replacement bushings arrived some time the following week, so that next weekend I set out to install them. Upon removing the old bushings, I found that the inside of both trunnions were fairly well rusted. Although replacement trunnions are available through Moss, I elected to carefully sand away the rust using a mix of a die grinder outfitted with a small diameter sanding drum and a small flap wheel in a cordless drill.

The inside of the passenger's side trunnion, before and after removing rust by careful sanding.

With the inside of the trunnions cleaned, the new bushings pressed into place with ease. Reassembly was straight-forward. All of the fasteners were torqued to spec.

The driver's side (left) and passenger's side (right) shocks, installed on the vehicle, complete with new trunnion pins, castle nuts, cotter pins, and bushings.

Appendices

MGB Gaskets

EGR	Differential cover (tube-type rear axle)	Carburetor

Laser cutting with the LaserPecker 2

The LaserPecker 2 is a relatively inexpensive ____ nm (type?) laser made by Hingin Technology. It is capable of cutting out gaskets from