Alan & Pat's MGB Roadster

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A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE CAR

The car was bought in 2003 following a visit to Malcolm C. Elder’s premises in Middle Aston, near Bicester, which had been arranged for my son to have a look at a Brooklands Green MGB Roadster (incidentally a most interesting place to visit). 
It turned out that there happened to be two very similar cars on sale there, and the end result was that I bought one of them and my son bought the other.  Unfortunately, as is often the case with cars bought from a dealer, there was no past history supplied with the car apart from the bare details on the V5 document, stating four previous owners.
The car appealed mainly because its bodywork and interior were in very good condition, and it appeared to run quite nicely.  (due to a lack of patience and skill my interest has always been the driving of the car rather than restoration).
During 2006 the car underwent considerable changes.  The engine was beginning to shoe signs of general tiredness, with occasional oiling-up of plugs (though surprisingly not excessive oil consumption), plus a distinct characteristic little-end tapping sound.  It was decided rather than going through the general aggro of an engine rebuild to buy a reconditioned engine from Midland Sports and Classics.  The service from them was excellent.  The new engine was dropped off at the appointed date, and the few auxiliaries were changed over.  The old engine was collected, and then all that remained was to fit the new engine.  The one thing that proved in the long run to be a winner was the decision to pay the small amount extra and have a dynamically balanced engine.  Even at quite high revs the engine is very smooth.

Later the same year the car underwent a sex-change operation, and emerged from this as a chrome-bumper model; the excellently-performed operation having been carried out by Guy Eastwood.  It was quite surprising how much work this entailed, but the finished result was very pleasing.

The front end during the chrome bumper conversion.  The old mountings for the rubber bumper had to be amputated.		Rear view showing the areas below the rear light which had to be modified.

Before and after!  Not quite, but the view gives a good idea of the extent of the change.

Since all of this work, the car has had a very active life, with two trips to France in 2007, to the Circuit Historique de Laon, and to the Historic races meeting at Angouleme, plus numerous other UK trips and club events.

The picture attached was taken near the largest dunes in Europe “Dune du Pilat” on a trip from Northern Spain to the UK that Diane I made in July 2005 on one of our continental trips with Brian and Margaret.

A little bit of History on the car.

I acquired the car in March 2001 and used it on the London to Brighton run in May of that year, unfortunately the head gaskets failed before we got there 50 miles short. Diane and I managed to drive the car back home with Brian and Margaret’s help. The cylinder heads were removed and sent to a local machine shop to be skimmed and checked. Unfortunately they were found to be scrap due to porosity. Two new Rover V8 4.6 cylinder heads were located on E-bay that had been polished and ported  which had been removed of a development Range Rover test vehicle. During the rebuild a Piper Sport cam was fitted with and a Holley 500 CMF Carburettor and Mallory distributor with two sets of points. The front brakes were upgraded with thicker discs and four pot callipers as fitted on the old Ambassador Wedge shaped vehicles. The back-axle was also changed from the standard 3.7 Ratio as on the 1.8 MGB to the MGC 3.3 Ratio wire wheel axle. 15 inch wire wheels with low 195x60 profile tyres with 72 spoked wheels were fitted. Engine improvements performance has gone from 135 BHP to around 190 BHP.

If driven properly 27 mpg can be achieved if you want to smile you can just about get into double figures . (0-60 mph  6 seconds aprox new clutch required) Recent modification new twin exhaust fitted to produce the V8 burrble.

Job to do later this year is to fit a performance clutch the one fitted in the car has seen better days.