The MGA With An Attitude
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MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (May 16, 2015 - May 31, 2015)

Saturday May 16, 2015:
Long day, about 10 hours of shop time, but I got a lot done. Not long to pull the tail housing off the gearbox. Set that up in the bench vice, fixtured a propane torch under the rear bushing area for about 10 minutes to soften the Loctite adhesive, and pulled the large bushing out with Vice-Grip (and a little tap with a hammer). The older worn bushing was smaller OD and free slip in the housing, so I used that one as a drift to push the shorter section new bushing farther into the housing (to the proper seating position). Spent a little time with water and a rag to cool it down to casual touch temperature. Then I prep'd a new 2-inch long bushing with Loctite 620, and pressed that one into the housing. Loctite instructions say 30 minutes fixture time and 24 hours full strength, but trust me this stuff won't move after two minutes. The early OEM type external rear seal with leather and felt seal (NOS in service two months ago) was in excellent condition, so I reinstalled the same seal.

Not long to slap it back together, rear housing, interlock arm, top cover, shifter intermediate plate, speedometer drive, and a new rubber boot for the clutch release arm. Stuffed it back into the chassis, one bolt for rear mount, two bolts for clutch slave cylinder, four bolt for the propshaft, and connect the speedometer cable. Also stuff a temporary 2x4 between the bellhousing and frame cross tube to bring the unit hard up against top of tunnel.

Inside the car, install the shift remote extension with 4 bolts, followed by the dreaded one hour toil to install eight screws in the tunnel top cover. Having pushed myself through this task many times before, it was time to make life easier, so I enlarged the holes in the cover to make it easier to align the screws and start the threads. After that the task was done in ten minutes (score one for the good guys). Not long then to install a new rubber shift boot and reinstall center carpet and shift knob.

Then an hour or so of grunt work to mate engine with gearbox, install bellhousing bolts and engine mount bolts, remove engine hoist. Install valve cover, starter motor, oil cooler hoses, oil pressure hose, heater hose, and heater valve control cable.

On the left side a few special strokes for the exhaust manifold. Install three proper studs in the bottom flange (replacing temporary bolts installed two months earlier). Also rat tail file the two end holes for manifold top studs where the iron exhaust manifold keeps growing shorter from heat cycling (so it can be reassembled). Installed J-pipe, manifolds, last few bellhousing bolts, connected the exhaust pipe.

Then another small task on the left side. While I had easy access to the steering U-joint, fix the loose splines on the bottom (forward) end. Notice a prior saw cut in the top end to allow more flexibility so the coupling so it can be tightened on the splines, Now the other end has the same problem, loose splines. More than one way to skin a cat. This time I used the factory specified method (Confidential Service Memorandum MG/214) drilling a 5/16-inch hole at a slight angle through the coupling wall and saw cutting to extend the original slot. Reassemble steering U-joint and tachometer cable,

Then I have another opportunity to install a few new parts in the carburetor linkage. The front choke arm was long since worn through at the pivot point for the fast idle link, so the fast idle has not worked for a long time. A new choke arm was installed along with a new pivot trunnion pin for the fast idle link (and I moved the link from hole #3 to hole #2 in the fast idle cam). Note to self, order a new rear arm, as that one also has a worn hole that should be fixed soon. Then the carbs were installed in short order.

Time for a dinner break but after dinner I installed the radiator with pipes and hoses, coolant, fan shroud, alternator and the bonnet. Did I mention I never removed the inverted spin-on oil filter or engine oil? Put oil in the gearbox and fired it up for a test run. What you see is what you get empty garage. This was to be followed by a lot of computer work, so I got to toddle off to sleep in the small hours of the morning (not particularly unusual).

Sunday May 17, 2015:
Monday May 18, 2015:
Two days to recuperate after a week of repairs, catching up email & BBS and beginning to re-schedule appointments.

Tuesday May 19, 2015:
We started today with a mid day visit to Mel's Auto Repair (Mel & Tina Muzio) in San Marcos, CA. The first British vehicle that caught my eye was a Daimler Ferret armored fighting vehicle (Scout car) with Rolls Royce B60 engine. Governored to 50-mph top speed, if you defeat the governor it may do about 80-mph. Not bad for a street legal armored fighting vehicle.

The attractive prize today was a 1937 VA Tourer. Very nice.

Also in the shop, two Jaguar E-types, a Jaguar XK-140 (project), a Metropolitan, late model MGB and Triumph TR6. Outdoors a Rover T2000 backed up by a Riley Elf and a Datsun Fairlady/Sports 1600.


Then we cruised down to Jim Alcorn at Auto Vintagery in San Diego. I hadn't seen Jim in 26 years, but he still has the same friendly grin. Mostly MGA Twin Cams here. Jim recons he has owned about 50 of them over the years, and a bunch of separate Twin Cam engines as well. Today there is a finished engine preparing to ship. Before we got too carried away with old times, Jim conjured up a new starter switch to replace the one in my car that had "given up the ghost".

I believe there are seven Twin Cams (including a couple bare chassis) in this room. There are two in Ash Green almost ready to roll out and a rolling chassis on the right.

Two more project cars hiding under the low shelf, and one more chassis on the shelf on left. Additionally there is a MG PA (I think) on the shelf in center (more parts to the right), and a MG TC (sans windscreen) under the shelf on right.

The blue one is Jim's regular driver car. I have a fond memory of one just like it that he had last time I came to visit. This one has Weber carburetors (good for an addition 10-HP or so) with very simple throttle linkage in the center.


On toward evening we were fighting traffic again about 50 minutes in rush hour to do a 20 minute run down I-805 through the middle of San Diego. We were a bit late for dinner at Marie Callender’s restaurant (been here before), but in plenty of time for food and a business meeting with San Diego MG T Register. There were 29 people here, at least a few l vintage MGs outside. By end of meeting I did a 10 minute expo on our travels (and purpose). Several people were intrigued enough to hang around later for extended chat. Then we were off to find WiFI for late night work (to be carried over next day).

Wednesday May 20, 2015:
A lot of WiFi catch up today, but I took a break in mid day to change out a failed starter switch on my MGA. I will be looking forward to doing the autopsy on the 58 year old switch to discover the failure mode. Meanwhile I have a few "delicate' comments to make about the replacement part. Jim Alcorn told me he gets all of his parts from Moss Motors (and this one fairly recent). I will guess it was Chinese manufacture (although there are no markings at all on the part).

First issue is the threaded barrel on the back end was loose so it would rotate in the shell (not crimped tight enough?). This required holding the exposed part of the thread with pliers while tightening the mounting nut. To aggravate this problem, the mounting nut was thinner (hard to wrench) and very loose fit in the threads causing some concern that it might strip when tightening. The relief groove in the pull rod was too narrow, meaning the set screw in the pull coupling would not seat in the groove. Make it tight as possible, and hope it will not work loose in use.

Next is flat ends on the electrical studs with little or no lead in for the threads, so it was easy to get the nut cross threaded. And they are plated steel nuts rather than brass. The studs were also somewhat loose in the insulator block, wanting to turn, requiring holding the cables with pliers while tightening the nuts. I am pretty sure these were originally keyed internally so they could not turn. The electrical nuts have 12-mm hex size rather than 7/16-inch, and I don't carry metric tools in my traveling tool kit. I didn't measure the threads, but they appear to be different pitch (likely something metric).

These niggly little problems are typical quality issues with modern replacement parts, seldom as nice as OEM parts. It appears to be an exercise in making it as cheaply as possible with little regard to quality or convenience. This one actually works when installed (so far), but there have been reports of early failure of this part, so I will have to keep an eye on it. I really hate the inconveniences during installation, and I really hate having to worry about reliability of replacement parts.

Finally caught up with the computer stuff, we did some late night cruising heading north up I-5 and US-101. Now very happy with the starter switch that works (if I pull hard enough on the makeshift throttle cable), the gearbox tail bushing repair being done, the propshaft that no longer vibrates, and precise steering without backlash. On the road is good again, and we landed in Carpinteria CA in the small hours of the morning.

Thursday May 21, 2015:
A quick email check and another half hour run to Goleta CA to visit Kelvin Dodd at Moss Motors.

We had a nice chat for a couple of hours about fixing some problem parts. Also took the opportunity to pick up a few more parts, the starter pull cable, a new screen washer pump, and a few more small bits.

With a fresh tank of fuel we headed farther up the coast, making brief stop at Arroyo Grande to call ahead. A tentative appointment in San Luis Obispo fell through (for now), so we pressed on to Paso Rubels, then inland on CA-46. Lots of wine country here (miles of grapes and other berries and wineries) passing through some interesting mountains at dusk, followed by 50 miles flat up CA-41 in the dark to Fresno.


Friday May 22, 2015:
First stop today is a visit to Rick Rogers (on left in photo) at British Steel Restorations in Fresno CA. At his elbow is Jay Newsome from nearby Clovis CA (more on him later). Rick's shop services some interesting cars (mostly British). A cigar if you can spot the one that isn't British.

Below is an Austin A55 (Cambridge) Mark II, one year only with the large tail fins before they were reduced in stature for the A60 model. It is the first of the Farina body cars (Pininfarina design). This one uses the Austin B-series 1500cc engine with single carburetor. This would be a sister car to the MG Magnette MK-III. The car body is so large that the B-series engine may look like an A-series at first glance.

Now the one that wasn't British, a 1968 Siata Spring. Considering the nice looking sports cars previously produced by Siata, I don't know how this one got past the drawing board. It is based on the Fiat 850 rear engine chassis.

Outside we had a new arrival, Larry Zerwig from Fresno with his MGA with 1800 MGB engine and HS type carburetors. It was not running well. After a curb side carburetor adjustment it was running okay at low speed, but a test drive had it misfiring on two cylinders above 2700 rpm. Good fuel flow from fuel pump to carburetors, so I suspect restricted fuel flow in one of the carbs between the float chamber and main jet. Time restraint here, so will have to look into that later. I do like his original cell core radiator.

Then we followed Jay Newsome home to have a look at his MGA 1500. It has a few tricks like fan shroud and electric fan, just the ticket to survive in the desert in the central valley of California.

Another trick is the solution for a vent on a non-vented aluminum valve cover. Jay simply drilled a hole in the oil filler cap and installed a hose Ell with a rubber grommet. It was running rich with rough idle, but a casual tuning of the carbs had it purring, and a test drive had the owner grinning. All set for tomorrow's tour.

About that time Larry Zerwig (also from Fresno) dropped in for a chat. We spent a little time tuning the carbs on his MGA, lift the pin adjust the mixture. Yes, I really can reach the rear mixture nut while it's running. This one runs well at idle and slow speed,but misfires consistently above 2700 RPM regardless of throttle setting. I suspect obstructed fuel flow between the float chamber and main jet in one of the carbs. Larry has no time to disassemble it now, but he will take care of that later. Just keep it under 45 MPH until it gets fixed.


Saturday May 23, 2015:
Today we were off for a tour with Valley British Auto Club. We had at least 12 cars for start in Fresno. We drove 50 miles directly down CA-59 (casual but boring). I missed a photo of the signs stating "No water no jobs, solve the water problem". These signs are all over the valley. I don't know the solution.

We stopped for lunch at Richard's Lunchbox in Tulare, an old airplane converted to a diner. A 15 minute line to order, and 20 minutes to prepare burgers, but very good for advertised "not fast food" being broiled to order.

Across the street was a nicely restored vintage house, and a wedding entourage taking pictures there. In due time the MG TD (photo on right) was recruited for the photo-op, and to drive the bride to the church.

1959 Ford Prefect On the way back we stopped at Simonian Farms (Old Town) on the southeast corner of Fresno. This "store" with fruit, nuts, grapes berries, wine, also has a museum to tell the history of Fresno. The car at right is a 1959 English Fort Prefect. On display is an assortment of old farm machinery, including a large array of antique tractors. See a following page for more photos of the antique machinery.
1921 Case 12-20 1927 Holt 2 Ton 1919 Fordson
Then we rolled on back to Jay's place and walked across the street. There's that Jay guy again, and his across the street neighbor with another MGA project car. This one had some dents, but was mostly rust free. It is going very well, but no bets on a completion date.



Sunday May 24, 2015:
Not a big thing, but I finally got the new starter pull cable installed today to go with the new stater switch. Had to dismount the heater control and safety gauge for wrench access. Also had to shorten the center pull wire a bit. It works, so no more yanking on the makeshift throttle cable to start the engine. Log it into the MG service list, and wait to see how long the replacement switch may last.

Then we wandered a half hour up the road to Madera CA (actually Modera Ranchero) to visit Paul Hatter.

Right off it appears he has too many toys, but the good stuff is kept inside the shop. Start with an AH 3000 MK-I side curtain car (nice regular driver fast road car with poor handling), three MGB GT, a Datsun 1500 (on the market a year before MGB) and a Datsun 2000 with OHC engine (which is obscenely fast for a cheap low-tech car but expensive for restoration parts).

The real reason for our visit is the MGA project car (with MGB engine). The new grille doesn't fit on the body nose, too tall in the center and not enough curvature on top. But the real answer is incorrect shape of the body nose, being munched downward just above the grille opening. This makes the nose too flat from left to right and too low (resulting in too small aperture). Paul will have to jack this one up considerably in the center of the grille opening.

On 6/2/2015, Paul Hatter wrote:
.... I cut a 2x2 the width of the nose of the bracket of my A. Cut and shaped a 2x4 to fit across the frame mounts. Placed a bottle jack between the two. I was able to straighten and lift the support and nose. Grill now fits quite well. I had a vertical gap on the passenger side which I was able to pull out with my hands. A little hammer and dolly work and I may be good to go. .... Thanks, Paul Hatter

Log in a little WiFi time then head back west through the valley and over the mountains to the coast, the south a bit to Santa Maria, arriving late night to get a jump on next day's appointment.

Monday May 25, 2015:
Today we have a visit with Larry Long in Santa Maria, California. We are here in short notice but Larry has a knack for making phone calls to rustle up friends for dinner. Then we get the grand tour of his yard and sheds containing a number of interesting cars.
Start with his late model MGB daily driver (beater) car, and the late model Jaguar.

His 1938 MG NB current restoration project (the only "modern Midget" with the doors opening the "right way").

His 1933 MG J2.

His 1951 MG TD.

His 1948 MG TC. And a friend's 1972 MG Midget (needing a some carburetor tuning). Follow that with more friends and chat and dinner for 12, and a good time was had by all. By midnight we were sitting very close to Goleta.


Tuesday May 26, 2015:
Trying to catch up With WiFi today, and picking up a few parts at Moss (again). We did a mid day visit to Mark Benson in Topanga CA to check out his factory built Twin Cam race car. I had the pleasure of tinkering with the starting circuit to get the starter working when it was otherwise dead. Then I had a nice chat with Mark and took some new pictures. For more photos and notes on this fantastic car see mgtech/twincam/tc107-526.htm.

Autopsy of a starter switch failure (after 57 years of faithful service). See SS-106 - Stater Switches, Original Quality.

Installed new pedal covers (quick and easy).

We met with TC Motoring Guild in Montrose CA, about 20 people for dinner at a pizza house, and maybe 30 people for the club meeting in bank center. Considering this is for MG TC owners only, it is an active bunch. Among other things they were chatting about an upcoming visit to Mount Wilson Observatory.


This was followed by late night cruise south to Ensinitas.

Wednesday May 27, 2015:
Early morning pick up of "lost" parts in Ensinitas, followed by a short trip north, followed by an impromptu alternator wiring repair.

Email check reveals a note from Larry Zerwig in Fresno, re carburetors Friday May 22. He got the dirt out of the carburetors, and his MGA runs like a champ. Score one for the good guys.

We traveled north around the east side of Los Angeles, then west through Pasadena. Appointments cancelled by the time we arrived. So we continued on post-haste north a bit then west on the north side of the mountains then back west through the mountains. We have been enjoying the twisty hilly roads in these mountains, lots of 3rd gear hills and 2nd gear turns. I think we drove 750 miles in the last two days. This evening we arrived in San Luis Obispo (by 5:15 pm) to visit Peter Jurgins at British Sports Cars. I had been here before in 1980 when we were both somewhat (26 years) younger. We had good fun reminiscing.

Well, they are not all British cars these days:

Show room cars ready for sale:

A Citron in the showroom?

Cars in the shop:

The British built Citroen, loaded with Lucas electrical parts:

More British stuff outside:

Late night WiFi session. Still not caught up.

Thursday May 28, 2015:
Morning WiFi work was followed by a short stop at a parts store. The first item of interest here is a turned down tip for the MGA exhaust pipe. I have hopes this will direct some of the exhaust noise under the trailer rather than echoing off the front of the trailer. I won't know until we run with the top down again (which we will not do today under the killer bright sun).
Then we had a delightful trip back east over the mountains again on CA-58. This included hundreds (or perhaps thousands) of acres of California Valley Solar Ranch and tons of weightless tumble weed.

A six mile diversion onto Reward Road gave us a view of hundreds of oil well pumpers and miles of pipeline and oil collection and shipping facilities. Once back in the Central Valley we were passing endless acres of fruit trees new and old, and lots of vegetable farms.


This may be a good time to report that the plastic cooling fan installed a few weeks ago seems to work. It has been doing a good job keeping coolant temperature about ten degrees lower than previous with the original steel fan. Seems like now the car runs comfortably cooler than the passengers in very hot weather.

Arriving late afternoon in Bakersfield we had a short stint on WiFi during a "personal cool down cycle", followed by an evening dinner meeting with Bakersfield British Car Club. The crisp shadows may give you some idea of the intense overbearing sun today. There were 14 people in attendance here, a bit shy of their average turn out I think, a cheerful bunch. And I made another appointment for the morning requiring overnight stay in town.

The club meeting was to be followed by a late night WiFi session. When we got "turned out" I had the opportunity (out of necessity) to reconnect the trailer cable connector (again). This time it had somehow become unplugged, dragging the trailer connector on the road to destruction. The quick fix this time was to cut and strip the wires on the trailer side, stick a wire into the car connector socket, and jam it in place with a bullet connector. Repeat for three pins, and connect the fourth one (the ground wire) with a small metal sleeve retrieved from the damaged connector. Then tape the assembly onto the the hitch bar as a strain relief, which should keep it safe until we have to disconnect the trailer again (which happens about as often as oil changes). Too many appointments, too much driving not enough sleep (but still having fun).

Friday May 29, 2015:
A quick trip to the west side of Bakersfield today to visit Geoff Kimler. He has a nice MG TD 1500-MK-II with optional redundant Andrex friction shock absorbers.


The car was in need of a bit of personal attention. The carburetor "chokes" (main jets) were sticking badly in the "on" (lowered) position. This was causing overly rich running. Pressing the jets upward to the normal rest position I was able to give it a standard tune up so it is running well. Geoff will have to attend to free up the jets later.

We also moved to the other side to investigate why the tachometer was not working. This turned out to be a broken screw and a broken coupling where the speed reducer attaches to the rear of the generator. These parts may be available as parts of the coupling kit from Moss Motors, but removing the broken bit of the tiny screw from the reducer input shaft will be a real trick. It appears that this problem was caused by installation of a too-short fan belt that put the tach drive hard up against the side of the distributor causing severe misalignment of the tach drive gearbox input connector.


All done there we were soon on our way, heading nor-by-nor-west for a 150 mile express run up the inner valley on CA-99 to Merced. Can you say "cooking hot"? The car kept its cool while the passengers complained about the desert heat. Then we took a cool down lunch break before turning directly north into the mountains on CA-59 to Keystone then CA-108 to Jamestown, then CA-49 to Angels Camp, then CA-4 to Murphys. These twisty mountain roads turned blissfully cooler as we gained altitude, finishing at 3300 feet in some quiet woods a few miles north of Murphys. We were here to visit Stuart Mast at his Brice Station Winery.

Stuart has a nice "California" MGA, heater delete, mostly original, very little rust, couple of repaints, lots of patina, good daily driver car, but with very low mileage. There is another MGA with a bit of damage on a rear corner, not much rust, a good candidate for a restoration project.

Tucked away indoors he has a nice MG TF with a 5-speed (daughter's car), and a Datsun Z race car (sorry not British, belongs to a friend). Then back outside there an example of another common vintage British vehicle, the Ford Ferguson. After dark dinner in the woods, and we will take this up in the morning (after much WiFi).


Saturday May 30, 2015:
Bad news is, not much sleep as the chickens were crowing while I was still doing WiFi work. Good news is, I got caught up with WiFi, email, BBS, photos and notes, and I got a few hours of sleep before noon. And now back to the real world with a daylight tour of the various enterprises running here, starting wtih the Brice Station Winery. Here we have wine tasting and the gift shop. More than just gifts, most of the pottery in this shop is manufactured on site.

The machine here (below left) is the second oldest all iron printing press in North America (most of the early presses being wood), and it is still being used for printing. Center below is part of the pottery manufacturing shop. Then the wood working shop.

Add a metal working shop,

A blacksmith shop (classes taught here), how many hammers and tongs can you count?

Clay manufacturing for internal use and for sale to other potters and schools.

There are a variety of old printing presses here which are still used regularly.
And then it was maintenance day for my MGA, starting with an oil change and lube job (somewhat overdue).

I finally got around to repacking the leaky master cylinder (also overdue). Photo below right is comparison of the new (standard) main pressure seal cup (which has given me trouble in the past) and a generic 7/8" seal cup from NAPA (which has served me well as the alternative).

. Then I got to tinker a bit with Stuart's MGA 1600 (the red a few lines above). We took it for a test drive, runing extremely rich, almost like the chokes were stuck. Also noticing a whine from the gearbox implying a worn layshaft, and a rather irritating ticking noise when accelerating in first gear implying a chipped tooth on the straight tooth bull gear in the transmission. We had just enough time to tune the carburetors to make it purr before dinner. Gearbox repairs will have to wait for a better opportunity.

Now you might remember these stub stack parts that I received back in late January? Well I finally got around to installing them after dinner. Open the air cleaners, clean the backing plates, apply a bit of silicone sealer to the new parts,

Stick the new parts in place, re-fit the air cleaners, and button it all up. I will be very interested to see if these things make some significant improvement in performance (as has been reported by others).

Still going with maintenance, I got to install a new door latch pull cable. This required removal of the door trim panel and door latch, otherwise a simple chore.

There are always a few more maintenance items pending, but after 10 pm it is time for the WiFi work, and needing a bit more sleep (wishful thinking) before the next long business day.

Sunday May 31, 2015:
Only two hours sleep but I got caught up with the WiFi stuff (finally). 6:45 am roll out today to make an 8:00 am club breakfast date in Modesto. It was fun rolling down the mountain out of Murphys from 3300 feet through the twisty roads on Murphys Grade Road and CA-4. We could have driven most of the first 30 miles to Telegraph City with engine off, absolutely delightful roads. Breakfast meeting in Modesto was a no-go. The designated restaurant location was a different name, closed Sunday morning. Apparently Central Valley British Car Club had changed location and date for the meeting, and their web site was not properly updated. Put them back on the Friends list for a visit some other time. We didn't have much time to spare here anyway.

Almost on schedule, 10-am arrival in Danville for an all-MG car show "MGs By The Bay" presented by MG Owners Club Northern California. Start with a dozen MGA, 9 roadsters and 3 coupes. The red Coupe in the center (below) was immaculate, freshly restored, first trip out of the shop, just registered the day before so it could go to the car show. It did not win its class because it has painted wire wheels and other things as original. Parked between chrome wires and a Twin Cam it lost out to popular vote and bling. The car belongs to Matthew Kelleher. He used to work at British Sports Cars in San Francisco back in the day when EX186 (photo at right, car not at this show) was spirited away from the factory in the night before it could go to the crusher. He used to drive EX-186 when it was new, wishing he could own it now.

Two Coupes have original type auxiliary seals for the door (this correct part available from MacGregor in Canada), but both in the wrong position, and both missing another auxiliary seal.

The green roadster was oddly accessorized. The air scoop leads to a large port in center of the bonnet (very heavy with lots of Bondo). The MGB air intake grill at rear end of the bonnet resides in the high pressure zone ahead of the windscreen, so it will introduce air into the engine bay rather than exhaust it. I was concerned that the extra pressure created in the engine bay might interfere with air flow through the radiator. Extra cowl vents on the front valance may (maybe) help cool the brakes, but pretty sure more for show than for function. The suitcase on the luggage rack blocks view in the dash mirror.


The blue car parked with the Magnettes is a 1953 Arnolt MG, a secondary market variant built on a MG TD chassis with XPAG 54hp engine. There were 103 of these cars built, 67 Coupes and 36 convertibles. The Arnolt MG was commissioned by "Wacky" Arnolt in Chicago, Illinois, USA, designed by Giovanni Bertone, his son Nuccio, and Giovanni Michelotti (Italian), and built in Indiana, USA (a registered USA automobile manufacturer).





After the show we traveled about 30 miles south (smile and wave to a MG TD on the expressway). We were then in Fremont CA to visit Simon Matthews (a different Matthew). Here we found the BGT that is his daughter's daily driver car and Simon's MGA. This one didn't make it to the car show due to a broken bolt in a brake slave cylinder. After lots of MG chat and a nice dinner we headed an hour east through the mountains stopping in Manteca CA, staged for the next day's planned run.

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