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MG MGA - ground up resto on 1960 MGA

My brother and myself are restoring my dad's 1600 which had been parked in a field in Pueblo, CO for twenty-some-odd years. We brought the car back to denver about ten years ago where it sat in my dads backyard until just two weeks ago. My dad suffered a very unexpected heart attack at the beginning of the year, which gave the family quite a shock because his overall heath is great. My mom and my two brothers thought it would be a great gift to be able to present him with his perfectly restored MGA, which was the automobile in which he traveled cross country in and drove through so many years of his youth. My mom convinced him that the car was too much of an eyesore to keep in the backyard and told him he needed to junk it or store it somewhere, which is where the youngest of the sons, David, comes in; He works at a fully equipped British car restoration shop where the owner has given us full use of after hours. We trailored the car to the shop (to help my dad's standing with my mom) and we took inventory of the car. The car is 95% complete but in the condition you would expect a car to be in that has sat exposed to the elements for thirty years.

We started the project two weeks ago and have been working after our day jobs almost every day. First things first...we prepped the engine for a rebirth, new plugs new oil, rebuilt the carbs, checked the valves, poured oil on the rockers, new coil and we shot some starting fluid in.........and after a little cranking it fired right up!!! It even idled with out us having to hold the throttle open. quite a pleasant surprise.

After we got the car running again we moved to the hydraulic systems, brakes and clutch, the master cylinder was shot so our first buy was a resleeved MC, the we checked the clutch slave cylinder, and then promptly replaced it. we installed new wheel cylinders and bled the lines, I got the dirty end of the job. After a gallon or so of brake fluid we got the lines to run clear again. The shop mechanics had fashioned a tool out an old Mstr Cyl cap with a tire stem attached so all we had to do was fill the reservoir with brake fluid, screw on the modified cap, and gently allow the air to push the brake fluid...refilling the master as it got low.


As we reassembled the master we sand blasted the cap and upper part of the reservoir in the medium cabinet and wire wheeled the nuts and bolts to a near new patina.

The drums and rotors were still good so we put the wheels back on and fired her up for the maiden voyage.

uh oh engine problems, the car fired right up and ran but was missing on a cylinder (well we thought just one) the damn thing idled just fine but rev it up and it was rough. We checked the plugs and sure enough cylinder one was wet, meaning it wasn't firing, but they were all getting spark. We took off the two plug wires closest to the firing wall and there was no change in the idle, two cylinders out. turns out the float bowl valve was stuck in the su closest to the firewall. we replaced that and all was well again. we drove it around the parking lot while i sat on the fender holding a gravity feed gas can we rigged up. It was weird actually riding in my dad's car under its own power after having played cops and robberson it when i was a young kid.


It was time for the tear down, we decided we were going to rebuild the engine so that it won't crap out on my dad when he gets his shiny toy back. we don't quite know yet how much we're going to rebuild but we'll save that decision for later when we can tear it apart and see where it's at.

We started at the back of the car and worked our way forward, removing everything removable from the main body forward. we ran into a few snags here and there but nothing to stop us dead in our tracks. There is a tool for almost everything, one tool i had never seen before was a hammer drive screw driver which you place like a normal screw driver but when struck by a hammer turns, and can free stuck screws without stripping the head, amazing.

tonight we pulled the engine and encountered a few glitches, First and foremost the biggest problem we had was not splitting the tranny from the engine, we thoiught like many cars that the drive train could be removed from the car as a unit, but we were way off. one and a half inches more and we could have done it. so we endeed up removing the transmission while the forklift suspended the drive train. we placed a jack uder the transmission to relieve pressure as we undid the bell housing bolts.

another problem we encountered was bolting the tilt lift to the valve cover mounting studs instead of the head studs, a 3/8 bolt vs 5/8, we snapped the stud and luckily when the engine fell it was only an inch or so..phew!

broke a stud off of the exhaust manifold pretty deep in the threading that we will have to fix on monday.

Another big oops today was removing the floorboard mounting screws, we started driver's side which had 1/2 inch nut bolt assemblies...no big deal. The passenger side had phillips hed screws up top and 3/8 or 5/16 whitworth nuts on bottom. the heads were totally rusted so we brought out a grinding wheel and chopped them from the top thinking we'd use a drift to hammer them down. well it turns out the nuts are welded to car and now we don't have much material to work with, our plan is to use the oxy/acet torch to heat them till red hot, weakening the spot welds and torquing them off. we'll see how that goes on monday.

I'll keep posting to keep you guys updated and hopefully gain info as we go.

MSB Blaz

I think that it's a great idea for you to do this, and I hope that it works well. Realize that to do a complete restoration, you will probably have to do some frame repairs. This site is a great resource, and you can find a wealth of information from the archives as well as present posts. Get the book, 'Original MGA', it will be invaluable. Take your time with the dismantling as it will pay for the saved labor (captive nuts as an example). To remove the rest of the floorboard screws, it has been suggested that you use a hole saw and cut the wood out around the screws. Then you break the old wood out and use either penetrant and/or heat to remove the screws.
Good luck.
Mike Parker

Hope your dad is doing well now.

Like Mike said, if it has been sitting outside that long, I would expect some frame repair would be necessary. At least some of the floorboard rails will probably need replacing. Anyway, if you have cut the heads off the floorboard screws, you should be able to get the wood out, and then with penetrating oil or heat, use vice grips to turn the screws out.

Also, if all of the brake cylinders were corroded, I would replace the steel brake lines. Mine looked good from the outside, but were totally rusted through on the inside.

Jeff Schultz

This thread was discussed on 10/06/2007

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This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGA BBS is active now.