Robert Dentico's Journal

I have wanted a GT since I was in High School.. last week I brought home a '74 B GT. It is a runner, needs some TLC and I already like it a bunch. I enjoy projects, working on several motorcycle rebuilds or restorations concurrently. I keep a good journal of progress..

I have yet to fully evaluate the total condition of the latest resident but I'm working on it. Yesterday I started it, moved it through the gears and stopped it... good start.

The car came to me from the original owner that bought the car in Feb of 1975... new... ! He never removed the Sabrinas which I found funny, they pop right off and I'll replace them with '73 over-riders....

The Harvest Gold paint is very faded but it is uniform and has very little in the way of body rust issues. There is a spot on the right floor pan that needs attention, no structural components, just the pan, I'll patch, glass and POR that most likely.

The interior is really sad... it's the quasi corduroy, vinyl fabric stuff that came out that year and it is falling to threads... deteriorated badly, It's horrible... I'll need seat covers for a start and possibly leather covers when I finish one of the m/c projects...

This is a great stable mate for the '73 B we have and love to drive around with the top down. With the GT we can prolong the cold weather riding...

I started the GT for the first time today also... runs fine, idles a tad high but I'll investigate that...


More later,
Rob

I did some cleaning on the GT this afternoon, popped the hood to power wash that thick coat of crud that had built up over the years... Man, I thought, what kind of dusty roads and dirty conditions has this poor car seen...? Put the washer to the fender wells and area around the grille and oil cooler... this stuff is not coming off...! Looks like, oh for gawd sake, it's undercoating, all over the friggin place... sure enough, little yellow plugs here and there and a sticker in the window.. Zeibart...!! Great, I'll be detailing this thing for years... or just keep the hood closed...
rd

Update on how it's running... runs better with fresh-er gas in it... idles high, I'll play tomorrow..

Making room in the Bahn for the GT, VeeDub, Sue's car and motorcycles.. going to use one of those quanset hut garages for the truck for the Winter... Space problem solved...

Well the color I thought was Ochre I believe now to be Autumn Leaf... it is darker than the photos of the Ochre trim in Clausager's... It is of the same nylon material as the other had been described as... So, that's fine, there is still the body and trim color combination that has me scratchin' me 'ead...?? This way also the Autumn Leaf covers will be an easy fix...

I drove the car up to the garage this afternoon with the intend to re-attach the exhaust that I had caught on the trailer while loading the car to bring it home.. cute. The angle of the trailer ramps were just a bit steered than an MG likes to be rolled up on.. coming off was better, I was able to use a slope in the drive to make less of an angle. I have it on ramps in the area in front of one bay and I'll crawl under it tomorrow and do the repair. The hit must have done some moving and I hope not too much damage elsewhere as the entire exhaust was new recently... The rear mount has been ripped away from it's clamp... I look at it tomorrow.

I also was NOT going to touch the badly faded Harvest Gold paint as I did not want to get involved in trying to make it shine right now... It's a time thing really. There are other things that need attention. Well, late this afternoon I thought, Oh, what can a little DuPont compound do on this oxidized paint.. ? Holy cow..!! That cleans up very easily and makes a very nice shine....!! Great, just what I wanted to do, shine the car up... I will use that for the rainy day, in the Bahn type projects... right after I do this one section...

Every time I start the car is seems to run better, old gas getting moved through the system and replaced with new... It still seems to idle a bit high but I have yet to even pop the filters off and have a look or inspect teh cable for free play.... soon.

I started in looking at the underside of the GT last night... To begin with I had to reattach the broken exhaust hangers that I broke while loading the car onto the trailer to bring it home..!! The exhaust is so new that it still has the stickers on the pipes, not burned off yet... and I dislodged the entire system loading it... the muffler hung up on the trailer bed for a nano-second and then kept going... breaking two hangers and moving the system forward ( I was backing the car up onto the trailer using a winch) great. The rear resilient hanger is severed and the intermediate hanger has a broken through bolt. I started by pulling the entire system back and reclamping the rear hanger, not like original but it will do. The mid clamp I will need to drill out the broken bolt and rebolt it. The part that really bums me out is that it was all new sans the front pipe, the one down from the header... Well when the entire exhaust moved something had to give, the front pipe is now buckled and I fear will need to be replaced... Oh well, live and learn... at least ALL of it will be new now..
rd

I took a real close look at the areas that need repair on the GT, first the right/front floor pan, a small area that will patch very easily after cleaning and grinding. The other is just ahead of the right leaf spring perch and that should repair nicely with a patch but I will clean it up and have a detailed look.
I will need a welder for these repairs and I will use this project as an excuse to purchase a MIG welder... I still need to research them and figure which one will best serve my needs.

I also know I will be rebuilding the front brake calipers and fitting new pads, possibly hoses and hopefully just turning the rotors... if they are at the minimum thickness, then new ones and repack the wheel bearings while I'm in there.

The car starts and runs great although the very first thing I am going to do is investigate the high idle... I'll bet that the throttle cable is in need of lubrication or something simple like that, if not I'll get to learn about SU adjustments... The choke cable is very free so I'm thinking that it not the reason...
More later...
Rob

Well I thought the color of the GT to be Harvest Gold when I first brought it home.. I had nothing else to go by other than I thought that was what Harvest Gold would look like... lbcnut posted a shot of his newly acquired '70 roadster and called it Bronze Yellow and I thought to be closer to the shade of my GT and started looking around for other examples of the color using Google's "Images" option... In so doing I came across still another possible color.... Bracken. I had initially discounted this choice due to the description in a reference Clausager's book, "Original MGB" that referred to that color as a brownish tone.... Another reference I found on the net (http://www.teglerizer.com/mgcolors/) calls it a muddy-orange, no joke... So now I now think the actual color is Bracken which was used from '74-'76... and this goes along with the reference to Autumn Leaf trim fitted to '74 GTs as mentioned in Clausager's.
Mystery solved... Now, gotta go get to work on that faded paint...!
rd