Braking System:
The rear brakes were generally ok, will just need cleaning up and painting. The rears will remain standard, but the fronts will need upgrading.

The rear drums were put in the tub and then wire brushed and painted, they came up like new. 

 

All the books say you should upgrade the front brakes when fitting a V8, easier said than done. The suggested options are, Princess calipers, SD1 calipers, or Triumph 2000 calipers (to make a hybrid with your MGB outers). However, I cant find any of these calipers anywhere, so  I may have to rethink it. 

Update - Jan 2014. Managed to track down some Triumph 2000 mk11 Lockheed calipers, so this will the way forward. 

The MGB caliper is shown on the right and the Triumph 2000 caliper of the left, as you can see, the space for the disc is wider, to enable the MGB V8 discs to be fitted. However the outer section is also wider and will foul the wheel, so I will split the calipers and use the MGB outer on the Triumph inner, this then makes a caliper identical to the factory MGB V8, I can then fit V8 discs and pads. 

The calipers are dismantled and examined. I dont think I can save the pistons as there is some corrosion on the chrome plating, so I will renew the pistons and seals.

 The pads are different, you can see the standard MGB pad on the left compared to the Triumph 2000 / MGB V8 pad on the right. They both interchange with each other, but the V8 pad has a slightly larger area, so heat dispersion etc will be better, so I will use this type in the hybrid caliper.

This is the end result, Hybrid MGB V8 calipers made from the Triumph inners and MGB outers, with new pistons & seals, and a coat of silver paint.

 The calipers were then fitted, and the system filler with DOT5 Silcine brake fluid (paint friendly)

 As the exhaust downpipes run quite close to the brake hoses, I made some heat shields.