The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (September 16 - September 30, 2019)
Monday September 16, 2019:
We blundered into another car shop today, Integrity Motors, right on Main Street in Lisle, Illinois. Noticed a Triumph Spitfire parked in front, so stopped in to ask. They have about a dozen regular customers with vintage British cars, happy to see more, new customers welcome, mechanical and electrical service, no body and paint work. The owner likes carburetors, tends to rebuild them rather than replacing them. That would be a plus in my book. Current backlog is a couple of weeks, but might squeak someone in quicker for emergency work.
Evening club meeting with Chicagoland MG Club in Elmhurst, IL. Navigator declared this to be laundry day, but waited too late in the day to do it, making us late for the club meeting (and dinner). Drop off navigator, pick up youngest daughter and get back to the restaurant. About 35 people at the club meeting, got to chat with a few old friends. After the meeting reassemble is the reverse of disassembly, return daughter home and get back to the restaurant to pick up navigator. There were a few more MGs in the parking lot, but too dark for photos, mostly flash reflections from license plates.
Tuesday September 17, 2019:
Stationary day for navigator to spend time with his friends, and driver to do email and tech stuff.
Wednesday September 18, 2019:
Couple hours travel got us to an evening meeting with British Boots and Bonnets in Rockford, IL. We were apparently on the early side for this one, only a few people there when we arrived, and no LBCs that we could find in the parking lot. With time the dining room filled with about 40 people before the business meeting. We got a nice introduction, I got to do several minutes what we have been doing for the past five years, and a good time was had by all.
We stepped out in time to catch several LBCs out back. I think I have to learn to turn off the flash to take pictures in the dark. Head southwest and south 50 miles late night.
Thursday September 19, 2019:
Start off the morning with another flat tire, flat as pancake this time. Must have picked up the screw when driving in last night. Fifteen minutes to plug it and get it back on the car, and we were on the road again.
Posted up a new tech page for making drip rails for an MGA hardtop. That should be useful.
Wait patiently for evening, then meet older daughter and friend for dinner in Sandwich, IL. Nice chat. What's tomorrow? Friday?
Friday September 20, 2019:
Not much happening today, just a few tech questions.
Saturday September 21, 2019:
This should be a banner day. We have a CMGC home garage tech session scheduled in Arlington Heights, IL. I should have some small hope that this might re-seed the regular home garage tech session tradition that has been mostly missing for several years. We were slated to disassemble a 1971 MGB, and there would be 9 club members getting hands dirty today. Story started with a couple people getting a head start on this on Thursday removing the cylinder head and associated parts, starter and generator, but they were not here today.
The car had sat here for 14 years, now having flat tires and the rear brakes seized (and we don't know if the engine would turn). We began by moving (towing) the car forward a few feet to have access space to move around the car, and maybe jack it up from the rear if needed. The car was pretty rusty. There was an attempt at removing the doors, primarily to save the hinges, but I think that was abandoned after some work with an impact driver. The seats came out, some parts of which may be useful, and the convertible top frame.
Note to self: Next time we do a home garage tech session, ask the resident what kind of tools he has (or doesn't have). I hauled the aluminum floor jack out of the magic trailer, and a few larger wrenches. We managed to remove the oil cooler and hoses after fighting with mismatched threads where a pipe elbow had been screwed onto a straight thread hose fitting (and sealed with some kind of mastic goo). That was the norm for this car, having been jury rigged in various odd ways over the years (along with paint over Bondo over rust).
The water pump looked like a "save me" part, so that was dropped into the club parts stash (stuff that may turn up at the next swap meet). The master cylinders appeared to be seized, but the pedal assemblies were soon removed and claimed on the spot.
There was some disassembly of the heater in situ, but I don't think it ever made it out of its nest. A nice pair of driving lamps were claimed (previously removed). Trying to remove the pillow dash assembly, the speedometer cable had to be disconnected, and the speedo was removed to have better access to some fasteners. The trip reset worked, and maybe the instrument was serviceable, just needing a new glass lens (cheap part).
After some discussion, and lots of crawling around under the dash, the dash assembly finally gave way mostly in tact, to be claimed immediately. The vinyl cover was shot, but that was destined to be stripped off to use the metal panel for a custom build.
Last operation for the day was removal of the steering shaft U-joint, which meant the collapsible steering column had to come out, but that was just a bit of grunt work.
Lady of the house suggested a break for lunch, which we did, but that was about the end of the work day as the party was gradually breaking up. Nice work day, but may need to schedule another day to do more.
Sunday September 22, 2019:
Day off, used to post up photos and notes and a couple of tech page updates.
Monday September 23, 2019:
Today we decided to be determined and find a service shop that had evaded us two years ago. This is Lindberg Automotive (Import & Domestic) in Lake Zurich, Illinois. The street address turned out to be tricky enough to fool a mapping program, and the Garmin GPS. 20818 N Rand Rd, Lake Zurich, IL 60047 is on the business card, but Between Bing Maps and Garmin GPS we found three different addresses with two different zip codes in four different locations. The Garmin apparently accepted the address in the correct format with the correct zip code, but put us 5.0 miles north in Kildeer, IL. Bing maps came up with three different addresses, the correct address showing 0.7 miles north of the actual location, while the two incorrect addresses were 23 feet apart in the correct location. Go figure! None of it was entirely correct. Good thing the business web site gave us the intersecting streets, or we likely would never have found it. Well, I suppose we would have called them eventually. For the record, SE corner of Rand Rd and Quentin Rd. Here are the mail box and the sign board.
Happy to have finally found the place, they like to work on Corvettes as a specialty, but they also work on other vintage cars, including a good number of vintage British cars. You can source mechanical and electrical work here, but not body or paint work.
Another shop we missed on last pass was Glass Guy Chicago, a mobile auto glass service based in Round Lake, Illinois. Not having fixed location retail store, we called the guy for a little chat to verify the details. He has a nice Facebook page for public interface, he will come to your location to service glass in your car, he likes vintage cars, and he can cut glass for custom applications (like a racing screen for an MGA). All good stuff, and good to know that such service is available.
Tuesday September 24, 2019:
I don't remember. Nursing a headache from yesterday's adventure.
Wednesday September 25, 2019:
We felt like doing something useful today, so we made a call and wandered over to visit Jim Evans in Glen Ellyn, IL. He was working on his rubber bumper V8 MGB with the rear axle cover open, intent on removing the "clunk" in the differential. He thought he had the required thrust washers, but couldn't find them, thinking he may have "lent" them to someone else a while back. My inventory list said I had them in the magic trailer, but still being disorganized I couldn't find them after a 20 minute search. Bummer. In the end we had to place an order for new parts, and will have to wait for delivery.
Thursday September 26, 2019 - Sunday September 29, 2019:
Waiting for parts, and rain, rain, rain. Friday night we headed 50 miles northwest, as it looked like we might get out of the storm in that direction, and it sort of worked. After a day in Sycamore we headed back to Naperville for Saturday, winding up in more rain. Then got a report that the parts had arrived on Friday (surprise), so made a tentative appointment to work on the car on Sunday. More rain Sunday, and Jim's house had sprung a roof leak, so put off another day.
Monday September 30, 2019:
Jim had to be out of town on business in the morning, but we got together again early afternoon. Remove one large nut to get the wheel hub off the spline. Disconnect a brake pipe and parking brake cable, and remove left rear brake backing plate (with complete brake assembly in tact). Reinstall the big nut, and grab the slide hammer with 3-jaw puller, and pull the half shaft out a couple of inches to disengage the halfshaft inboard spline from the differential gear. Inside the housing, drive out the small locking pin to remove the pinion shaft, then orbit the planet gears around to remove those along with spherical brass thrust washers. Pry the large sun gear out of the carrier on the side where the halfshaft had been pulled. And finally pry the other sun gear out, removing it from the remaining halfshaft spline, leaving the empty differential cage.
Parts removed are two large sun gears, two small planet gears, two spherical brass thrust washers, and one flat fiber thrust washer (about half thickness). The other fiber washer was long gone, worn, perished, dissolved in the oil, a common malady for these fiber washers. Just 10 minutes to reassemble it with new thrust washers and a new locking pin, all pretty, having minimized the backlash in the differential bevel gears (removing the clunk). Time to reinstall the halfshaft, engage inboard splines and tap the big baring back into place. Since there had been no prior oil leak, we put it back together with the same oil seal and new paper gasket.
Running out of day, and Jim had other things to do, so we left it to him to reassemble the brakes and rear cover and reload the gear oil later.
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