The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (September 16 - September 30, 2018)
Sunday September 16, 2018:
No appointments, but did some shopping, hopping around the area 10 to 20 miles in various directions. Finally found the NAPA radiator cap we have been searching for months, just one so far, still looking for another one. Replaced three of the trailer marker lights. Still processing pictures from yesterday's car inspection, trouble sending lots of pictures, so finally posted them on my web site. Got a call and lined up an appointment for tomorrow.
Monday September 17, 2018:
Had a visit today with Gary Dixon in Cow Bay, Nova Scotia. Been chasing this guy for a couple weeks, finally caught him home. He used to have an MGA project car, sold it two years ago, so I suppose he has been on our Friends list at least that long. After a long chat he may be in the mood to buy another one, more likely a finished car this time. I thought I spotted a nice workshop out back, and it is. However, it is currently a wood working shop, no space for a car. He is still friends with the guy who bought his last car, and apparently still has a helping hand in the restoration occasionally. We may get to see it yet if contacts follow through.
Tuesday September 18, 2018:
Had a meeting with BATANS South Shore group this evening, meeting at the Bluenose Golf Club in Lunenburg, NS. A bit of a sprinkle when we arrived, no problem counting LBC's, just one AH 3000 in the car park. Inside about 20 people, mostly wimped out and drove something else. Off to a good start, ordered dinner, had the introductions, and a few minutes about what we were doing. Got a good picture out the window of what is touted to be a world famous harbor. Then the lights went out with an area wide power outage, and most of the dinner orders were suddenly off the slate. This turned into an intimate candlelight dinner with packaged sandwiches from the lounge deli down the hall, after which we all settled the tabs in cash when the electronic tricks were dead. Stuff happens.
Wednesday September 19, 2018:
Drove a couple hours in light rain this morning for a lunch time meeting with BATANS Western Valley group in Annapolis Royal, NS. Parking tight on the streets, but found plenty of space to park on the wharf. The impressive brick building had Lola's Cafe on the first floor. Mid day and mid week meeting, figured it would be some retired folk, and it was. Seven club members aside from us, nice intimate group, got to chat with everyone this time.
After lunch, back to the wharf to kick tires for a few minutes. Same Healey we met the day before, but the Austin A55 Cambridge Mk-II saloon (first "Farina" model) was new, 1960 I think. All badges were removed before repaint, so the owner wants you to guess. The Austin Cambridge was a rebadged Morris Oxford Series V and retained the 1.5 liter Austin B-Series engine (but SU carburetor), another variant of MGA, produced in parallel with the MG Magnette Mk-III.
After the club meeting we had an assistance request from one of the members. Right on our planned path anyway, so we cruised an hour east for a visit with Eric Harry in Wilmot, NS to check out his Jensen Healey. He had the car for three years, but never had it running. Reportedly it had not run for several years before that. Since the engine would turn, this didn't look too difficult.
We installed a new battery, reinstalled a coolant hose on top, and put water in the radiator. Pulled a hose off the fuel tank, stuck it in a jug of fresh fuel,
Pulled another hose off the carburetors, pumped fuel through the line until it came out clean, and reconnected the hose to the carbs. Didn't want to go immediately, maybe some stale fuel in the carburetors, so we gave it a brief shot of starting fluid to get it running.
It then fired up okay but ran on three cylinders with loud popping/backfiring noise. We did a compression test to
find very low (30-psi) pressure on #2 cylinder. A little oil in the cylinder brought compression up to 90 implying bad ring seal, not great, but should run. Fired it up again, still running on three cylinders with loud popping on the exhaust side. Hard to see underneath the inclined engine, but I recon it is probably a failed head gasket blowing out the exhaust side. Bummer, but at least it ran, and the owner may now be motivated to at least make a decision about what to do next.
 Running a little late we hustled on southeast another hour and a quarter for a repeat visit Reuben Hatt in Mount Uniacke, NS. This was the guy with the Austin A110 we were inspecting on the 15th. He was having trouble accessing the pictures I had posted on my web site, so we stopped in long enough to get his computer to connect to my web page with the pictures. Then we hit the road again, bounced off the north edge of Halifax, and stopped in Amherst, NS for the night.
Thursday September 20, 2018:
The "D" point is Amherst, NS. We sat here for the day catching up photos and notes, email and tech questions, and doing a little review and planning. Had flaky WiFi connections for a few days, not able to upload anything to the web site, so that will have to wait. Looks like we have done up eastern Canada, so it's time to get out of Nova Scotia and head back east. Moved up to Moncton, New Brunswick late night.
Friday September 21, 2018:
Going to sit in Moncton at least half a day, since I need to do our monthly trip report for the CMGC newsletter. Finally got a lot of photos and notes uploaded so you can see the pictures from the past few days. Counting plastic Canadian currency and coins, intending to spend the last of it before leaving Canada. We expect to be out of New Brunswick and into Maine soon. Got busy looking ahead, got later than expected. We ran as far as St John, NB before stopping for the night.
Saturday September 22, 2018:
Cruising along the Bay of Fundy while enjoying our last morning in Canada. Then crossing out of New Brunswick at Calais, Maine, no hitch with the custom crew. Stopping very close to the border, our Canadian cell phone still works (until we move farther on). Time to recharge the USA cell phone and pay it up for the next month. Ran into a problem here and killed four hours working with tech assist before we figured it out. Turns out we were trying to re-up the cell service while we were sitting in a no service zone, and there was no reserve money on the account to pay a $0.20 roaming charge. Go figure. The provider chucked $10 credit into the account for a test, told us to make a call to verify the service, and it worked.
We would not have been calling a business phone on Saturday evening, but the first line on our Planning list was Tom Lange at MG T Repair in Bar Harbor, ME. I thought we would likely get a message machine, but Tom answered the phone and said, "Come on over", so we did. Must have taken 2-1/2 hours to run from Calais to Bar Harbor. Arriving about 8-pm, Tom and his son were greeting us in the dark with a flashlight. Tom is an MG T-type enthusiast, so his daily driver TD was close at hand. The MGB GT belongs to his son.
Pretty sure I lost count, but there were at least five T-types stuffed into the relatively small work shop.
But the real reason we were here was to celebrate Tom's production of some specialty items for the T-type cars. He makes some silicone rubber gaskets for valve cover and tappet chest cover, high quality threaded studs for cylinder head and main bearing caps, precision fitting brass core plugs, valve cover thumb nuts, and a heavy duty stainless steel cover plate for back end of the cylinder head. The most unique part of all was the stainless steel thermostat housing. Not sure how that was done, but it looks like a casting before all the machining was done. He also supplies special upgrade halfshafts, magnetic drain plugs, head gaskets, and oh yes, a supercharger kit.
Late enough, we headed for the nearest WiFi spot while there was still time to use it. Then heading north to land in Bangor, Maine for the night.
Sunday September 23, 2018:
No appointments, so we used the time to review shops and clubs and friends in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. I recon we have enough there to cover about 1000 miles, hopefully the next week to 10 days.
Monday September 24, 2018:
First hop today was a shot at The M.G. Guys shop in Levant, ME. we got to chat with Robert Brown's widow long enough to find he is deceased, and the shop has been closed six years. Okay, that's why we're here, verifying things and cleaning up the Shops list. The photo here is the building that used to be the workshop.
Then we were off to visit a friend Rick Cabot who has a farm in Sangerville, a rather remote part of central Maine. Most of the roads up here are paved, until we got close to our destination and had to crawl up some gravel roads to get there. But the treat was worth the drive. When was the last time you knew someone who built their own "log cabin"? Well, not your typical log cabin. The buildings you will see in these pictures were built from hewing the wood from trees on their own property, beginning with the house. All I can say is, wow.
Next up was the barn, which looks like something built 100 years ago but is relatively new, and I suspect it will still be here 100 years from now. The large timbers were hewn from Hemlock, which you pretty much can't find any more. Some of the queen posts are 30 feet tall. The smaller building is a wood shop, built with similar construction from the local timber.
There was a lot of heavy equipment sitting around, very little of it showing in these pictures, like an excavator, bulldozer, dump truck, end loader, none of it new, most of it fairly old and refurbished (like our vintage cars). Such equipment seems to be necessary here, just to clear rocks from the ground to clear space for farm land. If all of this sounds labor intensive, it is.
The large building below is an arena with internal corrals for a dozen horses (among other things) and a large exercise area. Yes they built this too, but obviously not from the local timber. The lady likes horses, and it is tough to ride them outside during the severe winters in Maine.
Okay, this has not much to do with MGs, other than my own, and this web site. But some time ago Rick had contacted me about some electrical problems with, of all things, a Man Lift. I'm sure this machine was quite helpful in construction of the buildings here. It is powered by a rugged 4-cylinder engine and a hydraulic pump. Recently it has been having some problems with the electrical controls related to the engine. Sometimes when switched on nothing happens, but off and on a couple more times and it usually works. They have replaced the key switch and chased various electrical circuits, all to no avail. No electrical diagrams available, so it would be a time consuming chore to trace the wires to determine how everything is connected. Since it kind of works most of the time, we decided not to spend any more time on it.
After some personal chat we all had other commitments, so we were soon heading for the nearest WiFi spot. On the way back through town we spotted an MG Midget for sale, stopped just long enough for the picture, but no information on the owner. The local WiFi spot was being renovated and not available for us, so we eventually ended up in Newport for the grunt work. Late night we rolled a bit farther south to Westbrook, staging for the day.
Tuesday September 25, 2018:
Our first stop today would be Gordy's Repair Shop in Bowdoinham, ME. Interesting sign, MGs and TVs? Meet Gordon Perry. He does service and restoration wotk on MGs (and maybe other vintage British cars as well).
Next stop was for Steve Neil of Skyhook Engineering in Brunswick, ME. Sorry, not here, the current resident had never heard of Skyhook Engineering, and the phone number was disconnected. However, I heard later by the grapevine that Steve and Skyhook had moved and may still be in business, so we are not writing this off just yet. -- Got a new phone number and called later to find the man is retired, no more parts available, so remove this one from the Shops list.
Then we were off to visit Maine Auto Radiator in Lewiston, ME. There was a recent business
name change to "Maine Radiator", because they do a lot of work for industrial machinery and not so much for autos in recent years. The important bit here is that they manufacture original style cellular cores for our MGA radiators. They do not install the parts, and they do not sell to the general public, so you have to get your local radiator shop to order the part from Maine Radiator and re-core your original radiator.
Next up was Penn Ridge Motors in Norway, ME. Meet the owner Tim Hutchisen who works on all British marques and specializes in Triumph and MG. In his home garage (to the right of the truck) is his daily driver TR3. In the work shop (to the left) was a very nice TR7, along with some other toys. He is heavy into soapbox racers. The bike is his son's vintage Triumph. Under the covers out front were a Triumph Stag and a Spitfire.
On the lower level of the same shop were a few more cars, starting with a TR6, a beautiful black TR3 show car under the cover, and an orphan wedgeling TR7 in the back (possibly looking for a new home).
Last stop for the day would be New England Imports in Portland, ME. This is a family business with father and two sons. They work on almost any imported cars, but the father in particular likes the vintage British stuff. In the shop today were a nice AH Sprite (or maybe it was a MG Midget masquerading as a Sprite), another Midget for parts, and a Volvo P1800 sport wagon (shooting brake to the Brits). In the back was a MG Midget in early stages of restoration. 25 years in service leaves them with lots of experience in vintage British cars.
Wednesday September 26, 2018:
Lots of catch-up work from yesterdays encounters, followed by more email and phone calls for upcoming activities, so we got a late travel start in mid afternoon. We deferred a couple out-of-the-way appointments for later and made a 55 mile B-line (slowly) down the coast for a visit to Brit Bits in Rye, NH. Called ahead to be sure they wouldn't lock us out at closing time, arriving barely shy of 5-pm.
Walked across the street looking for a decent vantage point, but still had a problem getting the while place into the wide angle photo shot. They may have about 40 cars in inventory (some of them on consignment). Starting in the show room, then more in the service bays.
Nice visit, but after a half hour of eye candy we had to get moving again. Sucking air, so a quick stop of gas, then another hour and quarter to make 37 miles southwest to visit Geoff Bird in Atkinson, NH. Officially into fall with shorter days, needing to get used to dark at 7 pm, that's Geoff on the left with another friend. The car is an MGA 1500 with MGB 3-main bearing 1800 engine and MGB flywheel and clutch. A variety of body reconstruction issues here, like the left side B-pillar leaning forward 3/8-inch at the top, needing to be realigned and rewelded, and badly shaped "new" rocker panels that need to to be dramatically reworked or replaced.
Played with the starter switch for a while before getting the engine to crank over, dramatically surprising the owner who thought it would never turn (as the engine has not run yet). More time spent discussing the electronic ignition module, and recommendation to reverse the battery from positive to negative ground. So far no idea if the ignition module is supposed to be positive or negative polarity, have to look for a part number on the module. Also hard to identify wire colors on the original harness with early style rubber insulated wires and (dirty) color coded over wraps. Recommend a soap/detergent wash and good scrubbing to clean the harness to make wire identification easier. Comparing old and new shutface plates, I was pleasantly surprised to find the new one looks pretty good.
Having done some good in just an hour (or two), we hauled out for dinner, got re-routed by a closed road, and settled for a different restaurant. As we were closing the place at 11-pm we were being soused by a downpour, but what the heck, it's a British car, so perfectly normal.
Thursday September 27, 2018:
Got an early start, but got nuttin done (so to speak). Spent the morning processing photos and notes, checking email and BBS, and answering a couple tech questions. About time for a late lunch got a call from Illinois and spent nearly two hours on the phone helping fix MG Midget. All about diagnostics, found and fixed a bad connection on battery ground cable, another bad connection on ignition coil supply wire, a stuck choke, and a faulty cut-out relay in a new control box (send the junk back).
P.S. Looks like we have been "found out" again. Another news article was published (September 20th) in The Packet, news release in Clarenville, Newfound and Labrador, Canada, about our visit there on August 27. Read about:
"Life on the road: The MGA Guru makes pit stop in Clarenville".
It is a pretty good summary on the purpose and scope of this road trip.
Friday September 28, 2018:
Going to be a busy day, beginning with a mid-morning stop at SNG Barratt USA in Manchester, New Hampshire. We call it SNG Jaguar Parts, because they stopped doing service work and are now only selling parts. They are primarily Jaguar specialists, but do handle some parts for other British cars, mostly MG and Triumph.
Yeah, this is the way I remember New Hampshire, tree lined twisty asphalt roads, sometimes dribbly rain, and figure on 35-mph average speeds because there are very few expressways here.
Then off to visit Brit-Tek Ltd in Deerfield, NH. The good news is, we got to meet the owner. The bad news is, he has retired and the business has been deactivated. So we will move him from the Shops list to our Friends list. We had time for a look as his daily driver MGB GT with Weber carburetor, No fuel vapor recovery, no anti-run-on valve, and no positive crankcase ventilation, but it still runs well.
Next stop was Hillside Garage in Washington, NH. Nice place. Meet John Dakowicz. Oh yea, nice hill we came up in 1st gear. Too busy climbing to take a picture on the way up, but did get the picture on the way back down.
Specialty here is service and restoration of Land Rovers, but they do work on pretty much any vintage British cars, or sometimes almost anything else in need (like the dunp truck in the back bay). The Land Rover on the right is about to be rebuilt on the brand new frame on the left.
Next stop was a visit to a friend Alan Fisher in Keene, NH. He is a Sprite and Midget enthusiast. The green
Midget is a later model with disc brakes, but is sporting a Bug-eye front clip. Interesting seeing a Bug-eye Sprite with roll-up windows and a boot lid. And there was a nice MGB. Alan moved here a few years ago from Rhode Island, and has just recently been cleaning out his stuff from RI trucking it up here to NH. Yesterday he had a temporary distraction when someone else called him to haul away some MGA parts from their place when they were moving out, in lieu of tossing the stuff in the trash. So we spent some time identifying parts to see what he actually had in hand.
Allan then recommended that we should go check out G&R Autoworks in Keene, New Hampshire, less than a mile away, because they work on some British cars, so we got the directions and wandered over. There were immediate signs of redeeming social value with a big Healey and a vintage Jaguar on hand.
Turns out we were here a couple years ago in October 2016, but that time we were looking for Sports Car Services (which is the second half of the business sign on the front of the building). But it was nice to come back and see all the new toys.
One more programmed stop for the day. We were heading west to visit Flood Plain Sports Cars in Westminster, Vermont. Wait a minute, that address sounds familiar. Turns out it is the same shop as the former home of Sports Car Services (above) which was moved to the G&R Autoworks facility in New Hampshire four years ago (2014). So now for historical purposes we get to go by the old place to snap a few pictures. Flood Plain Sports Cars is run by David Clark, former owner of Sports Car Services. That means when SCS was sold and moved, David didn't move. He still has about 40 British cars tucked away here, and loads of parts still for sale.
Saturday September 29, 2018:
Weekend, and time for some fun. We spotted a car club cruise event not too far away, so rolled out of Brattleboro, VT early morning 24 miles over to the Kitzhof Inn in West Dover, VT. The route out of Brattleboro began with six miles of twisty gravel road through the hills (which seemed to irritate navigator a little). I was busy driving and missed the opportunity to photograph a covered bridge, but a few miles later there was another one to snap on the way through.
The cruise today was advertised as The Speckled Hen Run. Some years ago it was first devised by the Connecticut MG Club. Then some other clubs got involved. Eventually it came to be "presented by" the Kitzhof Inn, presumably to drum up business for the Inn during the off season (no ski business with no snow). Participants arrive Friday to stay at the Inn for two nights, consume breakfast, dinner, and breakfast again. On Saturday in between they do a nice cruise of some sort through the hills of Vermont.
By now you can likely identify most of the car models yourself. The "Big Cat" immediately caught my eye. It was a Jaguar 4.2 sedan, and big is almost an understatement. It can easily hold at least 6 adults in comfort, maybe more with just a little squeeze. There was also a mid size cat (Jaguar XK150), a nice TVR 2500M, and an Aston Martin BB7 Vantage (think V12).
This time there were two clubs involved, British Cars of New Hampshire, and Connecticut MG Club. Most of the cars were from BCoNH, but we had visited that club before, to this time we hooked up with two MGBs from CtMGC. First stop was intended to be the Hemmings Motor News publishing offices and car museum in Bennington, VT, but they were slightly derailed by road construction and begged off. Just as well, because we have visited there before (see June 14, 2014). I think the women got second choice this time when we wandered a few blocks away to visit Bennington Potters. While they were shopping up front the guys were checking the pottery factory out back.
Then we rolled on a little farther west for lunch at Man of Kent Tavern in Hoosick Falls, NY. Story here is that MOK was the first establishment in North America to feature Guinness on tap. Bit of a wait for a table, but the food was good. The we found a fully dresses new Cooper Works Mini in the car park. Very impressive (at least in appearance) with very large disc brakes.
Then we were off again for the real driving leg of the day, shortly finding another covered bridge.
The (intentionally) chosen route took us 22 miles north and the east through Kelly Stand Road. This involved about 12 miles of steep hilly, twisty, gravel road traveling most of the way in 2nd gear. Before and after they were taking every available side road to stay away from the main highways, so of course it was a most delightful tour. You could never pull this off as a programmed club tour route.
We and the two Connecticut MG Club cars finally landed back at the Kitzhof Inn with grins all around, and all was well with the world. Had a little more time to chat with some of the folks from the other club, British Cars of New Hampshire. Then it was time to find a WiFi spot to catch up notes from the past couple days.
Sunday September 30 2018:
Today we paid a visit to Blair Weiss in rural Peterborough, NH. We have been corresponding with him for quite some time, but have not been in this area for a couple years. The story is that he has an MG TD, and his girl friend has an MGA, which was kind of an engagement gift. There is also a workshop. Now that we are here the story has changed. Some time ago the shop burned down taking the MG TD and MGA along with it, all being a total write-off. Oops. The TD has a special professionally built engine including a roller cam. And the engine appears to be salvageable. Bully! As the dust is settling the world goes on. The shop foundation work is finished, and the shop is about to be rebuilt. Another MG TD "project car" has been procured to donate a good chassis and body shell for reconstruction. Another MGA has also been procured, but is also a project car, not currently as nice as the one they were driving. But with some determination and persistence, it is intended that one day soon they will have both cars back on the road again.
So we hopped into his "new" (24 hours old) 1997 Jaguar and headed a few minutes down the road to check out his new toys. There was a new trailer, purchased specifically to haul home the two cars from the more arid part of Colorado. There was a mezzanine deck built in the front quarter of the trailer for hauling loose parts. When first loaded it was carrying these two cars, the full drive line for the MGA with another spare engine, the TD with boxes of parts, and five motorcycles (don't ask).
The MGA had a lot of bare but clean sheet metal as purchased, so it got a coat of primer paint before being loaded for the trip back to New Hampshire.
The TD is amazingly clean with almost no rust, vary solid chassis and good body. When the car was partially disassembled the parts removed were wrapped in newspaper, and the papers are dated Feb 2, 1969, so the car appears as it was preserved in a low humidity environment when it was only 20 years old with low mileage.
I gotta keep in touch with this guy, as he is off and running in the right direction in short order. He might have two finished cars before I'm finished with this road trip. (Well, it's all relative).
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