The MGA With An Attitude

MGAguru.com

MGAguru.com

MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (September 1 - September 15, 2023)

Friday, September 1, 2023:
Sleep in, not as late as yesterday, but breakfast was closer to lunch time. Finally a day off, in between chat time, trying to catch up the backlog of BBS and email, and posting photos and notes for the past couple days. A couple more friends dropped in to chat, time flies, and it was soon midnight again. Zzzzz.

Saturday, September 2, 2023:
Another case of someone installing a new Borg & Beck MGA clutch and having the pressure plate grinding against the bellhousing after installation. Really discouraging when you have to R&R the engine again to fix something cause by a faulty replacement psrt. This one has been well known for a long time, but there is apparently no way to get the manufacturer to correct the faulty part design. No estimate available for all the time and money wasted by lots of people dealing with the same problem for many years now.

Sunday, September 3, 2023:
Another disgruntled buyer of a TRW master cylinder with too high residual pressure causing drag on front disc brakes. After a slight modification to fix the bad master cylinder, he couldn't get the brakes to bleed right, no brake action at all with full travel of the pedal, and no fluid flow to help with bleeding. Go bang your head on the wall some more. He tried a vacuum bleeder, no help. Now the guy is going to buy a pressure bleeder.
Bailed out of Rochester, IN, mid morning, stopping shortly in Argos, IN, for lunch and WiFi. Hot weather, so we stayed inside much of the day. Headed north again in the evening, arriving at brother's place in Hana, IN, at dusk. Took a few minutes to R&R the RF wheel to investigate a high speed shake that developed after the brake work last week. I was expecting a loose wheel stud slightly misaligned, but not found, so I don't think we did any good there. Getting close to ordering up two new tires for the front end, so maybe we wait until that's done to see if it improves things.

Monday, September 4, 2023:
Hauled out of brother's place this morning heading west on US-30 to stop in Hobart, IN, for late breakfast and WiFi. Still hot. Not in a rush, so we stayed the day and rolled out at 10-pm, intending to get through the south side of Chicago and then west on I-55. North on I-65, take exit to I-80 west, and everything stopped dead on the exit ramp. Bummer. Sat for one hour before we could move again. Lots of emergency vehicles, but remaining debris on the road was one house trailer on the side with no tow vehicle. We guess the tow vehicle must have been part of the accident and had to be towed away. Brief scheduled stop at a truck stop, but now late and the restaurant was closed, so we drove on. Landed in Naperville, Illinois half past midnight.

Tuesday, September 5, 2023:
Another full day to kill, sitting in Wheaton, IL today. Posted new part number tech pages for a screw securing the fuel level sending unit to the fuel tank. This started with someone asking what the thread might be, then into some research revealing that it has at least three different part numbers with different head styles. It began as a hex head, then changed to slotted pan head, and was finally superseded by Phillips round head after end of production. Functionally it doesn't matter which screw you use, but it will drive the concours enthusiasts up the wall.

Wednesday, September 6, 2023:
Another new tech page today for installing Wheel Well Liners for the MGA. You certainly wouldn't do this for a concours car or for competition. But for a touring car looking for long life and durability, these may be a very good idea.

Okay, Wednesday Night Garage Club in Lagrange Highlands, IL. Two weeks since we have been here, and there has been some notable progress. The CMGC project car has a lot of welding done on the left side body sill.

Two weeks ago this sill was barely tack welded in place awaiting fine tuning of alignment. Last week it was permanently welded in. This week the door joints are spaced and leveled flush, and more patch pieces are being welded in to close all still open panels. Three cheers.

Someone fabricated steel strap mounting brackets and spacers for mounting seats in the MGB (no more rotten wood strips). In primer here, but still needing to drill more holes. And on the bench, fabricating new brake pipes. This is all for the car below.

Tommy's fantastic custom MGB, trying like hell to get it finished enough to drive it to a car show next Sunday. The neat LED headlights are working. Notice the clean body with no parking lights or turn signals or side markers. These functions are all in the new front lights.

The white ring is daytime driving lights. It will flash amber for turn signals and emergency flashers. Spots to left and right of center in the globe are parking lights. Above and below center are larger and brighter head lights high and low beams. I think these lamps should fit in place of standard 7-inch sealed beam bulbs, but they were loose in the standard mountings. The fix was to put sticky rubber pads on the back of the "bulbs" to make them snug.

Real close to running, it will crank over with jumper wires, but won't crank with the key switch. Just a little head scratching and de-bugging I recon. Too many cooks at the moment. We may check back in a day or two to see if we can lend a hand if needed.

Outside the flat bed trailer had good progress with installation of its new fenders.

Sneaking upon barbecue, time for a little social chat and more pictures. Had a dozen people here tonight, but only a few LBC's with some other people haulers.


Thursday, September 7, 2023:
Posting photos and notes from last night (above). Had some strange tech questions to keep me busy half the day. -- Someone having trouble reconciling turns per mile of his speedometer cable related to real world hardware. -- Someone else wanting to know if he can use an MGA Jaeger (magnetic) fuel gauge in an early MGB which used a similar Jaeger (magnetic) fuel gauge. My best guess is yes, but need to know the resistance range of the MGB sender unit. In any case, the face dial will be slightly non-linear in a little different way.

Friday, September 8, 2023:
Now someone wants to use an MGB cooling system expansion tank in their MGA, wanting to know limits of angles for mounting. The tube inside must reach near the lowest point inside when mounted, and you need to be able to see in the top and be able to pour fluid into the neck. I recon that means anything from straight up (as shown here) to tilted back about 60 degrees, so the pressure cap would be somewhere between +/-30 degrees from level on top.

Saturday, September 9, 2023:
Spent some time looking at pictures of a nice MGA for sale, as a favor to a friend who is thinking about buying it. A little more chat about speedometer drive ratios, and how coolant expansion tanks work, and another question on the magnetic fuel gauge.

Sunday, September 10, 2023:
Off to the British Car Festival at Harper College in Palatine, Illinois. By end of day the official count was 426 British cars present, and it took a lot of walking to visit them all. Way much better than last year when it was nearly rained out. This was supposed to be the perfect show day, temperature in the mid to high 70's, somewhat overcast, not too much sun, and no rain. Correct on most counts, but the sun came out full bore with temperature in the 80's,so we needed to run for shade occasionally. At least it made for good pictures, as long as I kept my back to the sun.
It was time consuming and a space hog to post 111 pictures in the Supplemental Photos And Notes Index for BCU 2023. Click the link if you want to see them all. I will post only a few here for general interest Okay. I'll cut it down to 30. I Started with the MGs, because that's where I parked. You may notice is lots of people walking in front of the cars. Tough for pictures, but it makes for a good car show. The red car next to the canopy is Dino Perez's MG RV8. Across the aisle a BGT and a YB.

At least a dozen MGA, dozens of MGB, and a fist full of Midgets.

A red TVR Griffin (I think), followed by a yellow Jensen Healey. A surprising assortment of TVR. A couple of Austin, one really old, and to Jensen 541R, 1957.

I don't recognize the first two, but then a Ford Anglia, an Arnolt Bristol Bolide, and a Morgan Super Sport.

Lots of Healey, Land Raver, Rolls-Royce.

A 1924 Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost I couldn't resist, valve cover racers, and British bikes.

Sunbeam Alpines and Tigers, and lots of Triumphs.

A huge long line of Lotus, and a double fist full of Morgan.
TR7/8, new Mini, vintage Mini, don't miss the Mini Moke in the middle.

A hand full of Morris Minor, and a sea of Jaguar (multiple aisles lined with them). Always pick up more T-shirts.

Back in the MG section I was called to check out this MGB that had spread a lot of oil when it was backing into the parking space. Looked like the oil was running off the front edge of the suspension lower A-arm, right below the rubber boot on the steering rack. The boot looked okay, almost like new. I suspect the oil was leaking from the steering rack input pinion shaft, either the front end cover or the top damper cover. Considering the size of the puddle, I suspect the rack may have been over filled with gear oil. I offered to try some wrenches on it, but someone else was already heading to do that. From a field this large there is always at least one car needing a little personal attention.


Monday, September 11, 2023:
A day to catch up BBS and email, and posting photos and notes from the car show (not quite finished). -- Had a John Twist tech Zoom session tonight. That was good, since I have been busy and missed a few of them in the past several weeks.

Tuesday, September 12, 2023:
Finished posting photos and notes for he past two days (more than 220 photo images).
Finally got two new car tires ordered, but won't get them until next Monday. Do you suppose Nexen SP806 tires are getting rare? Pep Boys says not in any of their normal warehouse sources, go sing. Walmart now refuses to order them for me, says buy them from Walmart-on-line to have them shipped to the local store for installation. That means pay before shipping, which is okay, except they quote 12 days for delivery (for a little too much money). A local tire shop says same thing as Pep Boys, nothing in that size available in the warehouses. But I can buy them through Amazon and have them shipped to the local tire store for installation, so that's what I finally did. Just means we have to hang around town for another week waiting delivery.

Wednesday, September 13, 2023:
Good news, received a message that my new tires should be in Friday rather than Monday. -- Time for another oil change, so we picked up another jug of oil and two oil filters, planning to do the deed this evening. Also picked up a quart of Hydraulic Jack Oil for the front shock absorbers, but I think that's a lost cause, because it leaked out way too fast after the last top-up. -- Also ordered a pair of wheel bearings for the trailer, just for spares, and will pick those up later today.
Solved another tech mystery this morning. About the bloke reporting a wildly optimistic speedometer in his MGA, reading something like 2.4x the actual speed and miles. In the end we found four things wrong with his speedometer drive.
1.) Undersized tires 185/65-25 rather than 165/80-15, error = 1.0482.
2.) Final drive changed from 43/10 to 43/11, error = 0.9091.
3.) Weird gearing in the gearbox, 7/9 ratio rather than 5/12 gears, error = 1.8667.
4.) Wrong speedometer, 1080 TPM rather than 1450, error = 1.3426.
Total error: 1.0482 x 0.9091 x 1.8667 x 1.3426 = 2.3883
So at 60-mph it would display 143-mph on the speedometer, or display 72-mph when doing 30. Tag, you're it.

5:15-pm stop at Napa to pick up spare wheel bearings for the trailer. Then off to Wednesday Night Garage Club in Lagrange Highlands, IL. The CMGC project car was already outside for more welding and grinding as the saga of rust repair continues.

Around 8:30 it was being pushed back into the barn, as it was time for the barbecue burgers and brats.


Meanwhile, early on, Navi and I were doing another oil change on the faithful steed, three months since the last change in the same place. Looks like we haven't been driving so much recently, only 4000 miles in three months. Running again, it got an attitude adjustment, a bit more spark advance and a tweak on the fast idle screw. Nice results, purring like a kitten again.

Dean's MGB was getting a charging fix. The old and failed makeshift Chrysler alternator had to go. A replacement Lucas alternator didn't work, what you get for not testing a used part before installation. The next replacement Lucas alternator did work, but then the left turn indicator dash lamp was constantly illuminated. Curious problem, but I think that was fixed before it went home.

Barbecue burgers and brats were good as Tommy's custom V6 MGB was getting some electrical touches to the 3x2 ignition coil pack. It was all too much left to be done, so the car didn't get to the British Car Festival on Sunday, as they still need to get the dash installed.

. A couple hours left for late night WiFi. Now we have another tracking update saying the new tires should be in tomorrow. Wow. How often do you get notice of earlier delivery twice during transit?

Thursday, September 14, 2023:
Sure enough the tires were delivered this morning. Off to Mavis Tire in Naperville, IL to get them mounted and balanced. That was quick, one more item off the checklist. Did I mention how nice the engine is running after last night's timing adjustment?

Friday, September 15, 2023:
Uploaded a new picture to an old tech page for dash wiring in the MGA. Photo compliments of Mark Hester.
Computer died early morning, dead battery. Took a while to figure out it was a failed charger power plug adapter, where the charger plugs into the computer. Grabbed the spare charger to plug in again. Spent most of the rest of the day power cycling the battery between dead and 100% testing to record charging and discharging time, comparing old 100 watt charger to new 65 watt charger. Seems like the smaller charger does just as well.