Greg passed away earlier this month, gonna miss him, was a great friend. His MGB was passed along to his nephew, Gene. So thought I'd document the last two projects we did on Greg's car.
First was installation of a kit converting to a Mazda Miata five speed transmission. All went well except for the spigot bearing being too thick. This caused the transmission input shaft to bind up when the transmission was bolted down to the engine. Moss Motors, supplier, worked with the British engineering firm, Vitesse, subsupplier, to get a lower profile spigot bushing to eliminate this interference. Unfortunately I can't find a picture of the interference on the spigot bushing.
Then we installed a new windshield. The used one we had previously installed had a whitish defect around it's perimeter, probably from moisture getting between the layers of the safety glass. We got a new windshield and took the frame assembly to a local auto glass shop for installation. After several weeks of trying and several rubber trim pieces, the auto glass shop gave up and gave us back all the parts. Here's a picture of the glass, frame, and rubber trim at the glass shop:
As you can see, the rubber is "relieved" in places to make it fit. Turns out the actual glass was too wide to fit into the frame, despite the "relief" in the rubber. We found out you can belt sand safety glass if you go slow, so we had to reduce the overall width of the glass in one location by about 1/8 inch on each side. Then we got the frame to install around the glass. Six months later, still no cracks, so I think we did alright.
Greg had also installed chrome wire wheels and LED headlights on his own. This is a very nice early MGB, and we wish Gene many years of enjoyment of this car.
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