Out Of Paint And Into The Workshop

Our 1970 MGB Roadster has come to the end of its time in the Bridge Classic Cars paint shop. It recently moved into the main workshop where classic car technician Jonn has been giving it some attention.

After removing the old coil, Jonn turned the engine over and aligned the timing marks. He then removed the old distributor and swapped over the distributor clamp to the new distributor.

Jon cut the wires to length and taped them up before soldering the new terminals and connecting them to the coil.

While following the setup instructions for the distributor, Jonn found that the engine code is 18GB and is not listed in the paperwork for the distributor, so he was unable to select the correct torque curve from the list.

Jonn set it to number 3 on the list – timing static at 7 btdc, stroboscopic timing at 17btdc. He swapped the HT leads to a new cap and connected. During a road test, Jonn stopped to adjust the timing a few times and to tighten the distributor clamp.

He then cable-tied the wiring before removing the rocker cover and adjusting the tappets. Number 7 appeared to have wear and valve clearance was large.

Further investigation is needed.