Kate's MG, Part 3

Just a quick post, with more good news! I ended Part 2 with a list of work to do next, and the very first thing was to installed the roller wheels on my EZCarlift so I could rotate the MG 180 degrees. John Zimmerman was once again available and willing to help, so off we went. You have to remove the wheels and tires from the car, which required a BIG breaker bar - some garage monkey had really hammered the front wheels on. But eventually, the car was ready to rotate:

I was glad that John was there, because that rotation is definitely a two-person task. Not because it's difficult, but because it's too easy! The car needs two "drivers" to guide and stop it. We put its butt right against the door, so the fumes would have a fighting chance to exit the building.

The good news is that the draining of the bad fuel wasn't the trial I expected. Instead of traditional draining and removing of the tank, I decided to try to do it in-place first. John offered his siphon hose, and with the car in its new position, it was easy to get the outlet lower than the car. I bought a 5-gallon gas can, and the half-tank of gas just fit into it.

The short green hose was an earlier attempt that we were unable to get to work, and the water hose was out to prime the siphon hose. It took a few tries, but then physics did its work and the gas flowed and did not stop. We even had time to deliver the old gas to the Lancaster Waste Management household hazardous waste facility, where they quickly and cheerfully disposed of it.

We dumped a couple of gallons of fresh gas into the tank, added some STP carb cleaner treatment for good measure, and then used the car's electric fuel pump to purge the gas lines into a handy jug. It was time to try it, and it was still a trial! The car would run for a second or two on starter fluid, and then stall. We knew the fuel pump was working - we just had used it to purge the lines. We knew the car would run on fresh gas - it had worked well enough with my weird funnel arrangement detailed in Part 2. We decided we were fighting the bad gas still in the carburetors, and we just needed to burn through it.

After 6 or 8 tries with the starter fluid, the car would run for several seconds, bucking and popping all the way. We kept trying, and a couple of minutes later the bad gas was finally clear, and it started running cleanly. It would even idle without the choke engaged. 

We ran it several minutes, and were gratified to see that all the gauges worked. The clutch worked well enough to get it into gear with the hubs spinning in the air, and we took it up to an indicated 60 MPH just for fun. 

I was using a digital non-contact thermometer to check the engine temperature, and it was obvious that the car has a 170 degree thermostat in perfect working order. Of course, there's always something, so once that thermostat opened, then the radiator starting spitting antifreeze on the floor:

Once it cooled, I checked the cap, because it seemed to be flowing from around the overflow vent. Sure enough, the rubber seal on the cap was perished. I ordered another cap for $7, and it should arrive tomorrow at the local Autozone.

This has been quite a learning experience. The substance in the gas tank looked like gas and smelled like gas, but the car absolutely would not run on it. We added another four gallons of gas to take the car to half a tank, and added a whole bottle of the STP carb cleaner to it. Once I get the cooling system sealed, I'm going to run the car 15 or 20 minutes at a time, allowing the mild solvent in that cleaner to dissolve the rest of the dried gunk in the carb.

Next up: brakes. I'm pretty sure the pistons in the left front caliper are seized in the bores. I'll pull both calipers and check them out, and make sure the rear drum brakes are working as well.

Continue on to Part 4...