The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (May 16 - May 31, 2021)
Sunday May 16, 2021:
A couple more McD's with closed dining rooms, so we just kept driving north through Illinois until we crossed the Mississippi into Le Claire, Iowa where we found a McD attached to a gas station with dining room open until 2-pm, after which we sat on the patio overlooking the Mississippi River for another hour and a half (nice weather for a change, sorry no picture). Then we were off to the scheduled 4-pm meeting with Quad City British Auto Club at Iowa Machine Shed Restaurant in Davenport, IA. Been here many times in the past 50 years. I used to be a regular member of this club (for past 30 years or so), attending a few road rallies, several annual car shows and many dinner meetings. About 16 people present this time, but been so long that I didn't recognize most of them. These days the old folks are mostly an eating club with a car disorder, and not one British car in the car park.
A quick after dinner walk around the building. There used to be a lot more pieces of old machinery here, including a lot of vintage tractors (which may have been not so vintage 30 years ago). Maybe the tractors went to collectors when the parking lot was expanded.
After the dinner meeting we went searching for a WiFi spot and took the royal run around. Next door, no good. 12 miles west on I-80, no good, heading north up US-61 in Iowa, repeated no good multiple times, including Dubuque. Continued north crossing the River into southwest Wisconsin, still no good all the way to Dodgeville. We finally dropped into a Culver's there for sit-down snacks and WiFi until closing at 10-pm. That was pretty far out of our way. Then east to Madison and south 25 miles on I-39 before stopping near Janesville.
Monday May 17, 2021:
The front number plate had been hanging for a couple of days. I thought it was a broken bracket, but turned out to be just a lost fastener, so put a new nut on the loose bolt, and it was good to go again. Note to self, try harder to avoid mashing it on the parking curbs.
 Heading south again, couple of stops on we found a suitable WiFi spot open at Beloit, Wisconsin (just at the Illinois border. Catching up photos and notes for the trip log, Bing Maps says 1675 miles in less than a week since we left SW Florida. That would be 1450 miles between club meetings, about 430 miles in the past 24 hours.
Called a couple of Wisconsin friends this morning, nothing much going on here. A few more calls to friends and family trying to get a feel of current status of the lock down, and it doesn't look good.
Had the CMGC membership monthly Zoom meeting tonight, 7-pm to apout 8:30-pm. This one was surprisingly productive for a change. There were two guest speakers from NAMGBR chatting about how the organization serves the needs of local chapters, and a new chat room for "New Generations", continuation of car ownership with a family and new young club members. Then getting into possible re-opening of in-person membership meetings, and rejuvination of the monthly Natter 'n' Noggins (which have been flagging in recent years), maybe getting back into some car shows an cruise nights, and a few words on progress of the website committee.
A slight change of plans, and a turn back north late night. We now have an appointment in Madison, Wisconsin tomorow. Then a garage tinkering session Wednesday night near Chicago, and an in-person web site committee meeting Thursday night (if we can stand to hang around northern Illinois that long). Tentative plans for a few more meetings and club tours in the next few weeks, but not sure yet if we will stay or flee.
Tuesday May 18, 2021:
Returned north to Madison, Wisconsin today, for a visit to Foreign Car Specialists. We were looking for this shop at a different address in 2017, but they had moved in 2015, and it was some time before we found the new
address. This business has been in operation since 1962. It was passed on to a long term employee several years ago, and relocated to current location. Say hello to the current owner, Aaron Stroud. There is one more full time tech, Doug Hill, and they sometimes have an apprentice on staff. They service most foreign cars, and about 50% of their business is vintage foreign cars (heavy in vintage British). They actually prefer working on the vintage cars, apparently giving a better profit margin than modern stuff. Services are mechanical and electrical, no body or paint work.
Wednesday May 19, 2021:
Added another new shop to the Shops list today. Greetings to Classic British Sports Car Service, which is a mobile mechanical service for the Santa Clarita and San Fernando valleys in California. Phone 661-237-3500 or email Walter Bacall (in Santa Clarita, CA).
In the evening we had a nice visit to the "Wednesday Night Garage Club". in Lagrange Highlands, IL (western suburb of Chicago). This is the home garage of Tom Raddatz (just not at his home), and he invites some friends over to tinker with cars on Wednesday nights. Easily 3 cars deep, and 4-lanes wide with 2 drive on lifts. The first point of attention would be the two red MGB up and down. The bottom one had a V6 engine that is going into the top one, while the 4-cylinder engine from the top car is going into the bottom one. Don't ask me why, but the engine swap is part of a transaction to sell the lower car to Paul Pickley while Tom is keeping the V6 and the top car.
The other car in in hand here is the Green MGB with V6 engine. This one used to be yellow, now dark green on the outside. Since it is still yellow in the engine bay, is getting a few matching yellow accents, like pin stripes and a small MG badge to cover the boot latch release hole. The lock has been removed, and the boot latch will be re-arranged to be released via a draw rod or cable from the cockpit.
The primary chore tonight was to install a battery cut-off switch, and a few body emblems, all done.
Another visitor dropped in mid evening, a nicely restored Morris Minor 1000 convertible. There was a video of this car moving around with a close coupled Allstate caster wheel trailer. The car and matching trailer are currently looking for a new home.
It has a heater and windscreen washer. The seats are an "upgrade" from some early 90's Chevy econobox. Interior colors are a personal choice, but fairly close to some factory colors I believe (quite nice actually).
A hard day's night deserves a bit of relaxation in the left lane club room area. The vintage fridge has an interesting history, as well as some goodies inside.
I got to round out the late evening with an extended chat with Paul Pickley, mostly about car club business, web site updates, and the possible future of Chicagoland MG Club. I'm trying to get him to be Techinical Coordinator for the club so we have get home garage tech sessions going again. I also shocked him a bit by suggesting that I might nominate him to run for club President in the next annual election. Time will tell.
Thursday May 20, 2021:
Added some pictures to a tech page for the rare Competition Oil Cooler sometimes prescribed by the factory for early production MGA (most commonly appearing on Twin Cam cars). Then a fair amount of time spent catching up last evening's tech session photos and notes.
Had another meeting of the CMGC web site committee tonight. Originally planned to be at someone's home, we arrived right on time to be told, "Not here". Last minute change to be an on-line Zoom meeting, so we had to turn around an go back to our WiFi spot. Nothing new here. The committee participants are still playing with the new editing toys trying to manipulate templates and build data bases on the Wild Apricot web site. No one wants to listen or consider the difference between an Internet Service Provider and an Online Service, and why Wild Apricot is not an ISP and cannot upload and display a traditional web page.
You can, with a lot of time and effort, create a new web page within the Wild Apricot web site, but you cannot move existing web pages into the W.A. web site, and you cannot move W.A. template pages to any traditional internet server (because it needs the W.A. software to make those pages work). It they (the committee) make the commitment to create a new club web site within the W.A. web site, then it might take at least a half hour per page (maybe more) to transcribe the existing web pages to the new template format (for 12,000 existing web pages), and of course no one is going to do that. And the W.A. online service does not allow enough data space to accommodate all of our existing web site. Splitting the web site between two servers doesn't work either, because all of the web page addresses would change, which abandons all of the historical date used by internet search engines, so you lose all of the provenance that makes it popular for a web search.
All very frustrating. We may have to tear a few more pages off the calendar while waiting until they either find a long way around this dilemma or get discouraged enough to ask for help and maybe listen to reason.
Friday May 21, 2021:
Uploaded a new wiring diagram for retrofit Yaris electric power steering with speed sensor and manually controlled variable assist. Power steering options are proliferating as electric power steering conversion for MGA gains popularity.
Just booked our reservation for MG International 2021 and a hotel room in Atlantic City, NJ, June 14 to June 19. Seems reasonable, since all the national conventions were cancelled last year. Looking forward to several professional presentation tech sessions, lots of old friends, and hopefully a few new ones.
In the evening, composing a long reply to some questions about web site redesign, and the "oddities" of the Wild Apricot on-line service web site, and why the committee may never get it to do everything they want.
Saturday May 22, 2021:
Some more email discussion on web site design (and intentions), long and boring. Some tech discussion on heater blower (and motor) rotation, which direction is appropriate for what application, and how to reverse motor rotation if needed.
Someone sent me pictures of three MGA clutch covers (pressure plate assemblies), all with the same part number but slightly different physical appearances, which should have all been equally functional. But when measured in assembly they had three significantly different heights for the release plate, with at least one of them so far out of whack that it was not going to work in the car. Too bad I wasn't there to scratch and sniff. This may take a while to diagnose via email.
Sunday May 23, 2021:
Highlight for today was a gimmick rally with Chicagoland MG Club, starting 10-am from Deer Park Mall
(in Deer Park, IL), and ending at club members home in Libertyville IL for a catered chicken dinner. This has a long history of being called the Spring Chicken Rally, but now called Spring Chicken Run (because management is afraid to call anything a rally after having screwed up so may rallies in the past). But it was a gimmick rally anyway. Looked like about 24 cars and 50 people present, pretty good turn out for this club, but then they haven't had a club driving event for nearly two years, so give them credit for getting rolling again.
At the drivers meeting they handed out the Tulip style route instructions and list of questions. No General Instructions for this one, so listen up to hear what the gimmicks are and how they work. The first gimmick was where they tried to wreck my car. The idea was to pull up straight on to a "parking curb" with a vertical stick in the ground beyond the curb, and stop as close to the stick as possible without touching it. Piece of cake, as I have been doing this daily for the past seven years. As I pulled up to the curb my car magically stopped itself before I intended to stop. They measured 9-inches from bumper to stick. Say what? The issue was, my license plate bracket was 1-inch from the curb, just as it was always supposed to be. Pulling forward a bit produced a nasty scraping and grinding sound while the curb was chewing up my front license plate and mounting bracket.
That's all, we were out of there in a flash, not bothering with the other two driving skill tests. The rally might as well be over on the first instruction (and I was so looking forward to backing my trailer up to that stick). We did drive the whole rally route (with the one obligatory error in the route instructions), and pretty sure we answered all the gimmick questions right. Not even honorable mention at the end, maybe disqualified or heavily penalized for skipping two driving tests up front. But we did enjoy what we came for, time to chat with some old friends over drinks and dinner.
Monday May 24, 2021:
I don't remember what else but there was another nice UML John Twist tech session Zoom meeting tonight, 2-1/2 hours plus with over 150 people on line at the height of it. Jolly good fun. -- Oh, yeah, my MG2021 reservation got updated when they were allowed to have more seats for the awards banquet, so now I have a ticket for that along with the rest of the convention.
Tuesday May 25, 2021:
Not much web traffic, so I spend half the day watching videos on using parts from a Tesla Model 3 to electrify a 1950 Jaguar Mark V. That car is big enough to accept the require parts, including double stacking the batteries under the floor between the frame rails. Don't even think about trying this with our little MGA. Too small to fit all that stiff in. For a meager $150,000 or so you can buy one restored and electrified from a shop in the UK.
Wednesday May 26, 2021:
Still not much happening, but I did get to sit in on a Zoom meeting called ROMEO, which is Retired Old Men Eating Out (except not in person these days), with some guys from the Vintage MG Car Club of Chicago. I must still have jet lag, because I dropped in about 1-pm instead of noon, but still had some time to chat before the guys were dropping out. Going to have to try that again sometime. I like to chat with no business obligations.
Thursday May 27, 2021:
Updated a web page for heater air duct hoses with a new picture and a few tips on stretching, forming and enlarging the ends of the hoses for easier installation. Cringing from seeing pictures of another scratched up crankshaft caused by negligence and dirty oil. It happens, so bite the bullet and have it reground. Somone with a bunch of questions about turn signal wiring, turned out he was just wanting to install 4-way hazard flashers, easy and already documented.
In the evening there was another on-line committee meeting for the CMGC wanting to "update" the club web site. It started as expected with a second rep from Wild Apricot fumbling with questions about things their "on line service" cannot do, leading to frustration of the committee members caught in the dead end. After the rep left the meeting, the members finally began asking some of the right questions, like how do we get around this and make things work? While not liking the obvious answers, they at least seemed be accepting reality and considering more reasonable actions. Seems like this turn around is happening a bit sooner than I had anticipated, which is good news. When most of the committee knocked off for the night I got to chat for another hour plus one-on-one with the prime instigator (the younger bloke who may becomne the next Webmaster for the club). He too is beginning to accept reality and talk about reasonable ways to get to his prefered objectives. One prime concern for everyone is "don't screw it up", and retaining the SEO (Search Engine Optimiszation) statistics that put the web site at top of search engine results. Now I'm more optimistic, and we may eventually get there.
Friday May 28, 2021:
Added to a tech page two new pictures of original new old stock factory supplied door seals, the parts that are specific to the MGA Coupe doors. Aside from being interesting, these may be useful as samples if someone would be willing to reproduce these parts for market.
Saturday May 29, 2021:
Quiet day. Just one message of note with a picture showing a standard 4-lobe rotor oil pump, and an aftermarket 5-lobe rotor oil pump. The later is apparently intended for competition, having a much larger pick up tube for less flow restriction. We haven't determined yet the displacement of this one, but I suspect it will be higher output. Stay tuned.
Sunday May 30, 2021:
Uploaded a new 12-MB pdf literature file, "The Glovebox Companion" by Classic Motorsports, a 36 page booklet intended to carry in your glovebox (naturally).
Some messages about adjusting bearing preload in the banjo style differential.
Monday May 31, 2021:
Upgraded a tech page on brake pipe dimensions, adding new length dimensions for the Twin Cam brake pipes. This came as a follow-up to uploading Version 3 of the Twin Cam service parts list.
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