The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (March 16 - March 31, 2020)
Monday March 16, 2020:
CMGC monthly club meeting cancelled due to restaurant closing (that Covid-19 virus thing). So we are heading south, expecting to be in far southern Illinois (or maybe St. Louis, MO) tonight. Likely to be in Memphis, Tennessee tomorrow, and maybe New Orleans, Louisiana by the week end.
 Oops, slight revision. 80 miles south from Naperville, one mile short of Piper City, IL on IL-115, we were on side of road with a dead battery, failed alternator. Reason we were caught by surprise on side of road is because the ignition lamp was not working (since one day after the alternator was installed) due to a fault in the internal regulator in the alternator. Third Lucas alternator failure in two years, this one ran 4-months, 7915 miles. It was likely running dead for the last 100 miles with lights and heater blower on. the amazing thing is, 45 minutes earlier it cranked up just fine after a fuel stop, and the battery must have been quite low then. Of course we carry a spare alternator in the trailer, can't trust a Lucas alternator as far as I could throw it.
Having the new alternator installed, our Lithium battery jumper box didn't work, apparently not recognizing the presence of the car battery when it was so discharged as to be showing 4.5 volts. Fortunately a nice lady in a sport ute happened along at just the right time with jumper cables, so we were back on the road again.
We continued south to Rantoul, IL where we hopped on I-57 south. Two fuel stops, keep on cruising, because all of the restaurants were closed in Illinois due to the virus scare. 332 miles traveled after 3-pm, we stopped just shy of midnight and 27 miles shy of south tip of Illinois.
Tuesday March 17, 2020:
Better perspective today, sunshine and warmer, crossed the Mississippi River and stopped at the first McDonald's at Charleston, Missouri. Time to catch up missed phone calls, text messages, photos & notes, email and BBS. We may just kill the day sitting still.
Received a phone call last night from Don Turner in Roebuck, SC when we were in the middle of changing the alternator (would have to call him back later). That was followed by missing a text message. Time this morning to call him back. We were working on his 1932 Ford Cabriolet last Thursday, leaving him with a few minor items to touch up with we ran out of time. He wanted to report that after re-terminating a few spark wires in the distributor cap and swapping out a leaky carburetor, the flat head engine fired up for the first time since the distributor problems a few months back. He was elated with the results and sent along a 30-second video of the engine running.
The world is getting weird with attempted isolation of the virus by keeping people way from people. This evening we got word that all sit-down dining rooms will be closed until further notice. That takes away our most common form of WiFi connection, as well as stopping most car club meetings and other social gatherings. Scratch plans for Memphis and New Orleans (for now). But we received an invitation from a friend in Ohio for a place to hang out for a while to kill time while we wait to see how all this pans out. Also the weather is about to turn bad again. So late night we headed east out of Charleston, Missouri, across the southern tip of Illinois, and a little way into Kentucky.
Wednesday March 18, 2020:
Simple day in concept, just head east and keep driving to the northeast. We ran 3/4 the length of northern Kentucky (not going through Illinois or Indiana), then skirted around Cincinnati, Ohio, and then a bee-line northeast. 481 miles since last night by the shortest route, a bit more than two tanks of gas, about 8 hours driving time, an hour lost to time zone change, landing in Columbus, Ohio by 7-pm. Did I mention it rained all day? Miserable driving, but we got through it.
We are into a condo (with WiFi) for a while, so one trip to a local grocery store and back, and we were in for the night. Plenty of time now for tech questions and BBS and web site work. Don't be surprised if we don't travel for a little while, but do keep in touch, and keep asking questions.
Thursday March 19, 2020:
Update/addendum to a tech page for adding oil into the steering rack. A rather involved discussion of crankcase ventilation for MG Midget A-series engine.
Disassembled a pair of MGA roadster seats (not mine) in preparation for rebuilding the seats. The frames look good, need wire wheel and repaint. New bottom boards and screens and all rebuild fabric is in hand, but need to procure new backing board from local materials shop.
Friday March 20, 2020:
Posted an addendum to a tech page for aftermarket front sway bar for MGA with more pictures.
Spent a good part of the day catching up a few weeks backlog on the British BBS, since our roving WiFi spots seem to block access to it (no idea why).
Saturday March 21, 2020:
Responding to a tech question about how to build a lead-free cylinder head.
Sunday, March 22, 2020:
Tech question about threads on drain plugs, and part numbers for magnetic drain plugs.
Monday March 23, 2020:
Posted a new tech page detailing the MGA/MGB gearbox and rear axle breather assembly.
Got into a discussion about misfit convertible top. Looks to me like a wide MK-II canopy hung over a narrow MK-I frame.
More tech questions about Crankcase ventilation, PCV valves and flow restrictors.
Tuesday March 24, 2020:
Posted a new tech page for drilling sump bolt access holes in the frame for the early production MGA Twin Cam cars.
Wednesday March 25, 2020:
Got an order out today for a new Lucas alternator (and a few other things). We have to carry a spare at all times when we can't trust the thing to last more than two months.
I finally decided we had enough time to get the magic trailer organized. In the past year we had multiple
parts orders from Moss Motors, maybe as much as 300 line items, with parts from each order still sitting
around in shopping bags. That made it extremely difficult to find any part when we needed it, wasting lots of time searching and sometimes not finding it. So we put all of our tote boxes on the table and began by filing away all of the disorganized parts we had BEFORE the new orders. That took a few hours.
Then we pulled up one bag of new parts at a time, dumped it out next to the computer, and proceeded to ID and file away one part at a time until there were no bags left. We had a rather late start in the evening, and then the whole job took longer than anticipated (of course), until we were finishing up pretty tired at 5-am. Now the tote boxes are overstuffed, so we need to buy one more box to thin it out a bit.
The general idea is that each zip bag represents one page in the parts catalog, so when we need a part we only need to look in one small bag to find it. It works as long as we can keep the inventory list up to date.
Thursday March 26, 2020:
We had good intentions but didn't get very far today, having a very late start after the all-nighter. Did make a trip to Walmart to buy another small tote box, and another large one (like the big one with the yellow lid), and some more quart size zip-lock freezer bags. The big box was needed to replace one in the trailer that was loaded with heavy tools and broke the bottom out when trying to lift it. New baggies were good to replace some old ones that were badly weathered, and to split a couple of overstuffed baggies into two. Having done some obligatory WiFi stuff, it seemed a good idea to get more sleep.
Friday March 27, 2020:
Okay, we nailed it today. Got an order out to McMaster-Carr for an assortment of bearing shims, a fist full of Teflon O-rings for carburetors, and a new high speed steel drill set in 1/64-inch increments. McMaster-Carr is on the ball as usual, same day shipping, and delivery expected for Monday.
Then on with the grunt work, playing musical chairs with the baggies to convert 3 overstuffed tote boxes to 4 comfortably stuffed boxes. Now one more tote box, but we have reorganized a few shopping bags of small parts, tossed out one relatively large cardboard box and one defunct timing light. The large yellow cover box contains a bunch of large flat gaskets, a tackle box size tool box, one alternator (defunct awaiting replacement as a spare) Two used distributors (long story), some larger rubber parts and a large baggie of small specialty tools. There is still a power stapler sitting loose, but I think it will fit in the other large box in the trailer. Now we can find stuff when we need it.
Saturday March 28, 2020:
Spent too much time discussing spark timing and speed of flame front and the progression of pressure and in the cylinder and torque output. That's what happens when we have a day off and everyone in the country is sequestered and bored.
Got another inquiry about too-tall replacement leaf springs, this time in two different heights. Boo, hiss! Measure height of both, contact the vendor, and see if they can send one more that might be same height as one of the parts already in hand.
Reviewing pictures of an MGA in restoration with bad nose full of cracks and holes, likely a result of work hardening while straightening out too many kinks in the sheet metal. Looks like that one is in for a new nose piece.
Just got all of the boxes back in the trailer, nicely packed away, when the Moss parts order showed up with the new alternator. One of the parts in the same shipment was supposed to be a center exhaust hanger for the MGA (the rubber part). It had correct part number on the baggie, but wrong part inside. It looks like the metal rear hanger bracket for late model MGB. Bummer. Will send it back with a bitch note when I return the failed alternator.
Sunday March 29, 2020:
Received a nice little 13-second video of a fuel sender unit hooked up to an ohm meter for test. Put that on the web site.
Notified of a error on a web page (not that's a real crisis needing immediate attention). Lots of time reviewing (again) serial changes to side curtains for MGA (lots of changes), which came first, and where is all ended up by end of production. Did get a few web pages fixed for that issue.
Open the trailer to retrieve the failed alternator and some tools. Extract the pulley and fan from old alternator and install them on the new one. Pack all the stuff back in the trailer. Crap, forgot to fix the stupid metric thread in the new alternator, but need to buy a new Heli-Coil kit first. Also need to ship the old alternator back to Moss, but I understand they are not processing refunds for returns just now, so need to check on the current proposed returns process.
Monday March 30, 2020:
Did an internal links check on my web site, which hadn't been done for several years. While I was correcting some broken links I got side tracked and assembled a 13 page booklet of electrical wiring diagrams for MGA. Just a collection of 11 web pages of simplified wiring diagrams and notes put into a singe PDF print file, but it makes a nice booklet to take to the garage when doing electrical work on the MGA (click for 1-MB pdf file).
Ended up pulling an all-nighter on the web site internal links check, as it was a bit of a mess after several years of accumulated minor errors. Not too many broken links, easy enough to understand and fix. Had a couple dozen image files that were excess (not connected to anything) and could be deleted. The tough swallow was where I post a small image on the web page and link it to a larger image, which makes the page download fast with small images while you can still click for the larger picture. I fairly often goof and put the larger image in the small image window, just missing a small "s" in the file name to designate "small". Must have had hundreds of those to correct, but worth the effort to set it right so that web pages with lots of pictures can download quicker.
Tuesday March 31, 2020:
Received package from McMaster-Carr today, a HSS drill set in 1/32" increments, and a couple packs of Teflon O-rings for sealing carburetor jets, and some more trivial stuff.
More work on broken links in the web site, this time working on external links. These are tough when I don't have any control over who changes or deletes their web pages. It would be a simple shortcut to just delete the link, but a lot of these are car clubs and workshops that I don't want to casually lose track of. "Timed out" or "Not responding" are not reasons for writing it off. "404 Not Found" or "No Such Domain" starts a diligent search for a new home for the old business, like looking for a different domain name or a Facebook page. It gets involved and can kill 5 to 15 minutes for each broken off-site link, so when there may be 100 or more I want to beat my head on the wall. But take it in stride and schedule a couple more days to work on the 6-year backlog.
|
