The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (February 16 - February 29, 2020)
Sunday February 16, 2020:
Shops not open on the week end, and it was raining, so we sat out most of the day in Boca Raton. In the evening we drove an hour and a half north to stop in Port St Lucie for late dinner. Then drove another hour north before stopping near Mims for the night.
Monday February 17, 2020:
Killed the morning with email, but got moving early afternoon. First stop was a visit to Ellenwood Motors Inc in
Holly Hill, FL. Say hello to Colt Ellenwood. He is a specialist with air cooled Porsche 911 and VW cars, as well as European restoration and repair and vintage racing services (but he likes to work on vintage British cars as well). He referred us to the next shop.
Then we were off to visit Christopher John, Ltd in Daytona Beach, FL. Christopher B. Sylvestri is an agent (dealer) for Morgan, Caterham, Intermeccanica, Raptor, and Crossie racing cars. Here he was putting his Elva Courior MK-III race car back on its trailer. The 1622cc engine has been changed to 1800+, and really sounds the business when running.
Several cars in the front show room, all very nice. Turn the corner and there are more.
On the hoist is the last Morgan 4-4 to ever be produced. A guy was touring the Morgan factory when this car was being built, and he was informed that it would be the last 4-4. It was to be shipped to the dealer in Daytona Beach, Florida. The guy lived in Daytona Beach, and he wanted the car. Arrangements were made for him to purchase the car from the dealer in Florida (while the car was still in the factory). So here it is for final dealer prep before delivery to the new owner.
The last picture is a new Morgan V6 Roadster with 3.7-liter Ford engine, 6-speed gearbox and limited slip differential. Think 300-bhp per tonne. North American spec headlamps still to be installed.
Tuesday-Wednesday February 18-19, 2020:
Scratch a couple of tentative appointments up the east coast and near Orlando for lack of communication. Otherwise kind of killing a couple of days. Another complaint about faulty replacement rebound straps.
Thursday February 20, 2020:
Found a friendly '57 Chevy at breakfast. Heading to Saint Petersburg, FL for the BMTA convention. Early this morning there was an electrical fire at the host hotel, and everyone was evacuated. This should be interesting.
Mid afternoon doing the two-step with a side-step. Host hotel for BMTA conference still without electric, so they were scrambling to find rooms elsewhere as well as a conference room. First alternate hotel they sent us to was the wrong place. Couple of phone calls later got us routed several miles away to the Magnuson Hotel, Marina Cove. Right place, no one there, but we did get verification and an updated print out of the conference agenda, and also the street address for the evening BBQ (so much for car pooling). After all the run around we still had an hour to spare for a cold soda.
 In the evening we were off to Glen Lenhard's home, Glen of Glen's MG (and British Car) Service. The clan from British Motor Trade Association was gathering here for BBQ and social. Lots of cars parked on the street. The walk-up look was good, MGB GT outside and MGA inside, love the stainless steel wing piping.
About 25 people early on, and a few more to come later. Pretty good turn out for the Thursday evening hello and social. By now nearly everyone in this group knows me. We got into the barbecue immediately. Had a chance to
chat for a while with Kelvin Dodd from Moss Motors about a few parts quality issues. The primary topic tonight was the MGA 1500 turn signal relay (also used on some other cars). Had reports of two different parts in the past week where the right side relay would not actuate. Statistically that's a 1 in 4 chance of bad relays, and 3 in 4 chance of something else, like a circuit board problem, or the way the right side relay was assemled to the board (like a bent pin maybe). Kelvin already had a head start on this issue having seen the reports a few days earlier.
Two and a half hours down people began to trickle way, some car pooling back to their hotels. By quarter to nine we were off to find a WiFi spot to post the photos and notes.
Friday February 21, 2020:
First full day of the BMTA conference, pulling people out of their substitute hotel rooms to meet in a substitute conference room in the substitute hotel. About 50 people on hand with Carl Heideman from Eclectic Motorworks talking about the benefits and goals of being a member of BMTA. This was followed by Robert Medynsky from British Vacuum Unit chatting about the importance of keeping the ignition system in good repair. We followed this with a buffet lunch.
Then we were off to visit Tampa Bay Automobile Museum to check out the most eclectic collection of cars I have ever seen. Many of these cars are French one dating back to 1770 (self-propelled, steam, 3-mph speed deamon). All of the cars in this collection are something unique, many of them one of kind or the only remaining specimen.
I had more pictures, but not much about vintage British cars. If you are still interested, visit the museum web site.
Saturday February 22, 2020:
Second and final full day of the BMTA convention. Reports from the night before say some of the guys who went back to the primary host hotel got checked in by 8-pm, but the rooms were not "made up" until 10 or 11 pm. At least they kept the hotel bar open late.
Still using the conference room at the substitute hotel this morning, we got started with a presentation from Jonathan Stein from Haggerty Insurance. The the theme was "Keeping it fun", with emphasis on the fact that these British car service businesses are not actually in the car service business, but are in the entertainment business. These vintage British cars are a hobby for most of the customers, so we have to compete with vacation expenses, camera buffs, coin collections and the like. If we want the cars and owners and businesses to continue, we need to make the hobby pleasant and enjoyable.
The next presentation was a discussion about car club involvement with representatives from several of the national car clubs giving brief presentations, followed by open forum questions. I suspect this is leading up to BMTA wanting to promote itself as a "brand", to maybe place BMTA ads in the national club newsletters, and having the member shops add the BMTA logo to their business cards. My web site North American Shops list already includes all of the BMTA member shops with each one being noted as a BMTA member.
After a lunch buffet most of the folks piled into a bus heading for Glenn's MG & British Car Repair in St Petersburg. If you haven't been there, this is going to be impressive. Folks on the left are Glenn's MG staff, 14 I think. Folks on the right are many of the BMTA visitors. Center of the first picture is the primary shop building, which is a lot larger that it appears (just looking at the front office).
Building on the left is primarily for parts storage, floor to ceiling. I got a cylinder head out of here a few years ago, and a pair of coil springs just couple months back.
Cars lined up three deep in front (about 50 cars) are primarily customer cars in for service (yeah, its a bunch). The back corner where most of these cars are currently parked is about to get another building that may hold up to 40 cars, intended to protect customer cars in process, and maybe a few for longer term storage.
Anyone want to play "guess the chassis" on the blue car? The red sport sedan is an MG 1100 (mid 60's). I get tickled with this one because I bought an Austin America new in late 1969 with 1275 engine and automatic gearbox. The small box on wheels in front of the car is the manual vacuum and hydraulic pump used to service the Hydrolastic suspension. We do not see this tool very often.
They have been cleaning up the property recently removing a lot of trees and a lot of parts cars. The blue trailer,
being used to store body panels, was moved around behind the shop building. Rear corner of the lot temporarily holds rear axles and front suspension assemblies from some of the 50 cars that were disassembled for parts and scrap.
Okay, I walked in the back door this time to check out the body and paint shop and the restoration assembly bay. Pretty sure this was an addition on the back of the shop building not many years ago.
A few steps farther into the back of the shop gets into an in-process parts rack and tire stores. This is a quick reminder that this is a full service shop, and that they do almost everything in house. They may be acquiring a wheel straightening machine sometime soon.
Several more service bays up front. There was an MGA 1600-MK-II "Deluxe" set up to demonstrate 4-wheel alignment with the laser scanning machine. A couple of MGB inside, one with a supercharger removed for service. A few empty bays cleared out for visitor's day.
After a lot of carousing about, some guided tours with plenty of answers from the techs, and lots of networking
among the BMTA folks, it was time for a final assembly under the portico out back. There was a presentation from David S. Wallens from Classic Motorsports magazine, and some final notes from Alan Dahlman from Eclectic Motorworks. After many thanks to Glenn Lenhard for hosting this event, it was time to clear out. The bus was heading to the primary host hotel. No formal business activities scheduled tonight, just dinner on your own and maybe networking in the hotel bar late night. So we headed to a local WiFi spot to catch up two days worth of photos and notes.
Sunday February 23, 2020:
Catching up lots of clerical work, and checking future contacts. Cell phone has been getting more and more cantankerous for a long time, being difficult to make a cable connection for charging the battery. Today was the day it called quits, no way to connect, no charging, so that's on the agenda first thing tomorrow.
Monday February 24, 2020:
Along with breakfast and email and BBS, made some phone calls for tentative appointments.
Next stop was Best Buy for a few incidentals. I was looking for a back-up hard drive to replace the second one to fail (at about 2-year intervals). I have been using a (cheap) flash thumb drive for the past year, but decided it was too slow and tossed it out. As fate would have it, this was to be the second time a Walmart wouldn't have the little hard drive in stock. This time the sales clerk would talk me into another thumb drive, claiming that USB 3.0 type would be several times faster than the prior 2.0 type, so I got suckered into trying another flash drive (and expect to be kicking myself the first time I use it).
Then to see about solving the Verizon cell phone problem. Best Buy (where I bought the thing) claimed not to handle exchanges, only new accounts, so I should go to a Verizon store. That idea really wrenches my gut the wrong way, but it seems I may have run out of options. First Verizon store was closed and gone. Some distance on we found another one still open. Story is exactly what I thought, they tell me my phone has a bent pin on the power connector, and it can't be fixed for less than the cost of a new phone, so I need a new phone.
My first dumb phone in 2014 (at Best Buy) was $10, and given a $10 rebate on my first monthly bill, so it was free. A replacement phone in 2016 (at Best Buy) was $15, now having the damaged power connector. So what do you suppose the Verizon store wants for a new one now? $4.16 per month on a two year service contract, just pay the sales tax up front (which means you just paid $100 for it up front and financed it for two years). Yes, we could pay up front for the purchase, but sorry no discount, still $100. You know what they're really after is to tie you into the two year contract (with a 100% prepayment penalty) so you aren't so likely to skip off to another service provider. Did I really sign the contract for $4.16 per month? Well, yes I did (and I expect to be kicking myself later for that as well).
The new dumb phone is supposedly 4G compatible, but I suspect it will be throttled back to 3G speeds (because they're discontinuing 2G service), not that it makes any difference at all for voice and text. And it is Orbic rather then Samsung, more than a little different on keyboard and buttons and logic of the functions, so of course it screwed up the rest of the day doing set-up and learning how to use it. And it's 25% bigger in three dimensions, (twice the volume), so not so easy to fit in my pocket. One reason it's larger is because the battery is significantly larger, which means it will require longer charging time (but will likely run down just a fast due to performance upgrade). Oh well, get over it and get on with life.
We did have one programmed "business" stop today. By mid afternoon we were off to visit Hye-Dra-Cyl LLC in Brooksville, Florida. This guy (company) makes brake cylinders for the Dunlop disc brakes used on all four wheels of the MGA Twin Cam (and "Deluxe") cars (among other things). We tried to visit his shop in Saint Louis, Missouri last spring. No one home at the time, so we missed a personal visit, but did get him on the phone for an interview. We were informed that he was moving and would be in Florida by early 2020.
So here we are in Florida, putting this visit off until it is time to leave the state, and there's the new shop. Or at least this is where it should be. We did get the owner on the phone. Like any respectable new home under construction, it is way behind schedule, now expected to be habitable by June or July (don't hold your breath waiting). Going to be a nice place though, 3000 sq-ft home plus 2000 sq-ft garage plus 3000 sq-ft shop space behind (all attached 8000 sq-ft). We will put this on the planning sheet for another visit when we return next December.
Tuesday February 25, 2020:
Nursing the (new) replacement cell phone to get preferences set up. Charging the little camera with battery that goes flat in less than two days when not being used. Replacement batteries are not local retail items, but need to be special ordered and shipped in (not happening yet). Much of the day spent painfully waiting for back-up copy of hard drive. Still pretty sure the thumb drive was a mistake. Good thing there was nothing urgent today.
Wednesday February 26, 2020:
Today we had a visit with Burt Golub from New Port Richey, FL. We had seen him before in 2016, checking out his restored MGA and restored AH Sprite. I recon the cars didn't need anything, so this time we met for lunch in Dade City, FL near where he works (sometimes). After lunch we cruised around the block to visit the Pioneer Museum where he manages the historical blacksmith shop. While there we also took a short tour of the rest of the place, including lots of old farm machinery.
The blacksmith shop.
A new "barn" with old machinery.
I kind of understand the old truck and the John Deere tractor. But the the small steam tractor was confusing me because of the pneumatic rubber tires.
The Ford was recently donated, complete and it runs. Back up to earlier times with horse drawn carriages and hand pushed implements (real pioneers).
Nice wood working shop, and I'm old enough to remember using most of those tools.
Thursday February 27, 2020:
Had a morning appointment with Eric Levitt in Gulfport, FL. His TR6 had brake problems, and he was intending to bleed the brakes (again).
He had replaced a leaking plastic reservoir on the master cylinder, and now had to do it again. These seem to split and leak at the waist line bonding joint.
Suck out the old brake fluid, undo four screws underneath to remove the reservoir, and clean up the mating surfaces on the master cylinder. Nice that it didn't lose any fluid from the master cylinder or pipes, so it went back together without needing to bleed the brakes.
Eric was wondering about an "odd" feeling of the brake pedal. We also found very hard old rubber vacuum hose and loose connection at the booster. I talked him into plugging the vacuum hose and giving it a test drive as manual brakes without the booster. Have to see how that goes. Once we got the air cleaners back together it was time for lunch, so the TR6 got the test drive on the way to a local bistro. It got there without incident, but the jury is still out on driving it without power assist.
Later in the evening we attended the monthly meeting of Tampa Bay British Car Club at the Paradise Restaurant in Safety Harbor, FL. Must have been 50 people squeezed into the patio dining room. Last time we were here was 2016, about two years into this road trip after we had done one lap around the country visiting clubs and working on a couple hundred cars.
Now four years later we have a lot more news about having visited more clubs in Canada and 1100 shops in North America that provide parts and services for LBC's, and some chat about the affects of aging in vintage car clubs, all jolly good fun. We also got a contact for another shop in Florida, Classic Brit Auto in Largo, FL, soon to be moving to Holiday, FL after the passing of prior owner Dennis Day. Say hello the new owner, (prior partner) Richie Scalise. We intend to visit the new location when we return to Florida next December.
Friday February 28, 2020:
Catching up recent photos and notes. Added a new tech page on removing and replacing (re-using) an MGA convertible top. For a couple tentative appointments, one appears to be a permanent disconnect, while another reports "busy" but please keep on list to visit later. So we will now be heading North. And we managed to get out of Florida into Georgia before midnight. Have an appointment for Sunday morning in Columbus, Georgia.
Saturday February 29, 2020:
Email, BBS and travel day. Happy leap day. Noticing we had missed a few incoming phone calls, figured out the ringer and buzzer were not working, so navigator spent some time mucking around with "Settings" to get that working. This was apparently going to come back to haunt us a couple days later.
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