Phase II Begins

One of the best parts of this journey are the people you meet and the friendships you develop. One of those for me is a gentleman named Jerry who I have been talking to for many years, but only since my project came to life have we begun to trade parts, how to's and how not to's . I talked with Jerry at the recent swap meet at Montgomery Park and he told me that He knew the best aluminum polisher left in Portland. This is important because the windshield surround is aluminum and is in bad need of a good polishing. As part of phase II it is highly recommended to install the new windshield before the dashboard. Since the wiring harness, and thus all of the dash components are part of phase II, I thought I should heed the sage advice and get the windshield in first. This, in turn, led me to Jerry's buddy Paul. I contacted Paul and he was in agreement with Jerry that he is probably the best polisher left in business or still alive in Portland. He said to get the windshield apart, clean it up and bring it over to him. So I did.

 The screws were a lot more difficult than I imagined. I used a lot of penetrating oil and had to easy out two of them. But it finally came apart. The new windshield glass is in the box in the far left part of the picture.

I delivered the fully dismantled parts to Paul. Paul was really fun to talk to as he told me about his long career working in the polishing business and starting his own chrome and polishing shop in Portland. He has been working on his own subcontracting for a few select shops for the last 20 years or so. Everyone else in town ships their work out of state or does a less than professional job according to Paul. I can't wait to see the results.

In the meantime, I have started looking at the wiring restoration. I have the new wiring harness and pulled out the old one to compare them. Long ago, I was really good while taking the car apart to label every wire and leave as many components attached to the old harness as possible to make reassembly easier. There is good news and bad news. The components all look great (for 50 year old parts) but all of the ink on the labels has completely faded. (see the picture below) Fortunately. I have a new color coded wiring diagram to go by. So I think all will be well. Hoping that Dad's lessons will help me with this part as he was the wiring guru.

 

I first laid out the old wiring harness. I can see the whole car when I look closely, just as an anthropologist can see the whole body of T-Rex from a few half buried bones. This view is from the rear, tail lights, then dash components, then engine connections and finally the headlights. Below is the wiring diagram. Note the wiring is the same for MG Midgets. I checked a few of the old wires to see if the colors were the same as the new diagram and they matched up perfectly. So far, so good.

A few closer shots below of the old harness. Note the old plastic bags just falling apart as I they are handled for the first time in many years. Next will be to lay out the new wiring harness and label every connection. One lesson learned, I will not wait 30 years to read the labels this time around. Then plan when to move the existing components onto the new harness. I will show a picture of the newly restored and painted dash in the next post.

Turn signal lever, ignition switch, and a few switches



Fuel gauge



Nice label huh?