How much effort would a 1970's MGb be to maintain as an everyday car?

Answer 1

Should be OK the owners clubs can get the parts cheap enough

Answer 2

There's two potential problems. 1 RUST - a 30+ year old car is certain to have some structural rust, so unless you have a new body shell either fitted or available there's a battle keeping it roadworthy. 2 SERVICE - cars of that vintage still have grease points, probably about a dozen that need a shot of grease every 1000 miles or so, and quite a few undocumented areas that need more frequent attention than the official service schedule. Wear and tear on the old parts will require frequent attention to keep them working well as an alternative to replacement. It can be done, but you need to allow something like a half day per month for fettling it. On the plus side it may well be road tax exempt.
I used to run a Midget of similar vintage

Answer 3

I maintained a pair of 1970's era Triumphs (1973 TR6, 1973 GT6 MK 3) for ten years as daily drivers for my wife and I.
There were two recurring issues;
Parts availability and downtime for repairs. By amassing a store of spare parts and juggling schedules between work and school we managed pretty well.
I was fortunate to be mechanically inclined and performed all my own repairs. I must add that during that decade I had no hobbies other than constantly keeping the beasts alive.
Eventually the time came when we had to part ways, but the value of these cars had risen so high that we were able to move into a newer BMW 325 and Mitsubishi 300GT as replacements

Answer 4

Hi used one of these as an everyday car for a number of years and apart from spending hours every week keeping the body free from rust, retuning the twin SU carbs every 20 or so miles, replacing the electrical fuel pump at least one per week. In addition it used to eat head gaskets, oil coolers and front tyres. The front suspension, and piston rings needed changing one per month and much work was required keeping the oil off the garage floor. Young ladies always complained about getting oil from the front seat on their dress. Other than the above it was good as an every day car, however I changed it for an MX5 and change from a time poor engineer to a person with more money and time.

Answer 5

I agree with the others - if its your hobby, then fine, but if not, you could just end up resenting how long you spend tidying, servicing, changing parts etc. The owners club do good parts but we decided that we wanted more time going places and not under the bonnet! Having said that it was about then that we got our bike licences...

Good luck if you go ahead. I still love the sound.....