The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (May 16 - May 31, 2026)
Saturday, May 16 2026:
Up early for a 100 mile drive northwest from Lubbock, Texas. We are time travelers again, taking an hour off the clock by passing from Central time to Mountain time while crossing a state line. We have landed in Clovis, New Mexico in time for breakfast.
 Then we had a little shopping to do. Remember needing another brake light switch, or two? Well, in the past twelve years we had one switch last 4 years, and one switch last 3 years, and we know what those part numbers re and where we purchased them. So while navigator was doing lunch, I headed off to NAPA Auto Parts (before 3-pm closing). Need to order it, can be here Tuesday. No thanks, just passing through. Then I wandered over to Advance Auto Parts to ask. Need to order it, can be here Tuesday. No thanks, just passing through. Strike two, will have to leave that quest for later. Then roll over to Walmart to pick up oil for the next oil change, and anti-freeze-coolant for spare in the trailer, and a few personal bits. With a lot of construction traffic hassle, and a few people wanting to chat about the MGA, I was back to the WiFi spot by 5:30-pm.
Okay, nothing else to do here, so head out again after sun down, 8:30-pm, driving another 90+ miles to 10-pm fuel stop in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Checking oil again, this is the second tine the engine took a quart of oil in a littler over 200 miles. Note to self to check and clean the PCV valve after things cool off. Good time for late dinner, and crash for the night by midnight.
Sunday, May 17 2026:
Slept in to 8:30-am. Time to open the PCV valve for cleaning and a close look (maybe way past due). Found a slightly stiff rubber diaphragm, but more seriously it was cracked, so no wonder it wasn't working. It must have been drawing very high vacuum in the crankcase, passing variable amounts of excess air into the intake manifold, only restricted by a small vent in the oil filler cap. That would certainly explain inconsistent idle speed and the excess oil consumption. I do so want to make the PCV system work, but it will have to wait a while longer.
We still do not have a replacement diaphragm, so remove the PCV valve and revert to open vented crankcase. Fire it up and fine tune the fuel mixture, running decent with the correct MB needles, which we didn't change out the last time we installed the PCV valve. Haul ass west on I-40 with traffic at 70-75 mph into a strong west wind with hills, watching the fuel gauge drop. 90 miles on to Edgewood, NM for late breakfast (near lunch time). -- Half past two, with cool engine, check oil and coolant hitting the road again. Another 109 miles past Albuquerque to Milan, NM for late lunch and fuel stop. Four pumps, eight hoses, five Harleys hogging the spaces with waiting lines, so just park it , and we will fuel it later. -- Looks like this will be an over night stay. A bit less than 1000 miles to go, and five days to get there, should be easy enough.
Monday, May 18 2026:
Good morning in Milan, NM. Fill the fuel tank 10.5 US gallons, note the mileage at 200 even, calculate 19.0-mpg, almost exactly what we expected after 200 miles at 70-75 mph into strong head winds and some moderate hills. Check oil level and top it up exactly to the full mark, only 1/2-quart this time. feeling better about the reduced oil consumption, we can now pay closer attention to future monitoring.
The left side curtain stake socket has been trouble, having recessed downward through the soft/failing 40-year old wood trim rail. The nut had fallen off and lost the large flat washer some time back, resulting in the side curtain pulling out in the wind, and wobbling dramatically in turbulence, threatening to damage the door before flying away. I found the fallen nut caught inside the door liner panel, and screwed it back on a few days ago (without the large flat washer), but with the constant shaking it just unscrews itself short order. So until we can order up some replacement parts, we will resort to tying the side curtain to the grab handle with 1/4-inch rope, and have to untie it to open the door, but press on regardless.
60 mile dash west on I-40, mostly up hills at 70-mph, still windy, but not quite as bad as yesterday. Over the Continental Divide at 7275-feet altitude, then more casual 75-mph cruise down hills to Gallop,New Mexico before breakfast.
First stop at a McD's was a bust, no power outlet and locks on the restroom doors. That goes right along with the guy standing at the exit ramp with the cardboard sign begging "give me money so I can be rich" (or more commonly "help the homeless"). Do I sound pessimistic? It gets old after a while. Obviously this restaurant does not want our kind here, so pack up the toys and take our money somewhere else.
Two exits farther on a Love's Travel Stop is more friendly, power outlets, good WiFi connection, and Subway for breakfast. Car running well, more relaxed and no rush, time to catch up the notes and some email tech questions.
Let the sun go down before heding west again. 70-75 mph into head winds again on I-40. It was a wonderfully clear night, so we stopped for a minute to try for pictures of the crescent moon with a shadow of earth-shine. Digital camera at high resolution and full zoom, and clip the center out of the pictures for a close up image. Last time I tried this I was taking pictures of the solar eclipse. Okay, cruise on to arrive in Joseph City, Arizona a bit after 10-pm.
Gas it up and check the oil on arrival. Just 8.5 gallons for 163 miles, 19.1 mpg seemed reasonable iunder the circumstances. But more important, navigator reports no oil consumption since the last careful top-up in Milan, NM. Really? Check again. Sure enough, the oil was still on the full mark after the day of running without the PCV valve.
I n recent times, the fuel gauge has been spending too much time pegged above the Full mark before dropping with fuel consumption, and not enough time in the lower quadrant of the gauge. We could live with it, but it has been buggiung me. On a bit of a hunch, there is a possibility that dirt accumulated and caked onto thge fuel level sending unit has been shunting a smll signal current to ground. So we jacked it up enough to scrape and wash dirt off of the sending unit signal wire terminal, just to see if it makes any difference.
Tuesday, May 19 2026:
Good morning in Joseph City, AZ. No rush now, so have a long breakfast break before hitting the road around 1-pm. Full fuel, full oil, running well, 220 miles non stop on I-40 west, 70-75mph taking some nice hills in top gear all the way, liking this 1800 engine. The fuel gauge did drop off the top peg down to the Full mark by 90 miles, so that looked like an improvement. And we were getting better fuel mileage, so it never went below about 3/8 on the gauge, maybe not a good test of near empty yet. Fuel stop in Kingman, Arizona took 9.9 gallons for 219 miles. ,22.1-mpg at speed into the wind with a few hills. Not complaining, mind you. Best yet, another report of no oil consumption, still on the Full mark after burning two tanks of fuel. We will keep an eye on this.
Wednesday, May 20 2026:
Off to a good start for a travel day. Rolling out of Kingman, AZ, 10 miles west on I-40, then head north US-93 for 75 miles. Crossing over the spillway at Hoover Dam (at the west end of Lake Mead) from Arizona into Nevada. Here US-93 becomes or follows I-11 for a short while. Just a few miles on we split away from I-11 to run a few more miles into Boulder City, NV to stop at a McD's. No power outlet here, so we jumped back on I-11 again immediately after breakfast. 30 miles later I-11 crosses the Northern Beltway Trail at the northeast corner of Lass Vegas, and becomes US-95. We continued on to Amargosa Valley, NV for a quick fuel stop at Area 51 Alien Travel, which is exactly what it sounds like. Fuel stop, Alien bait museum, a neat 50's style diner, a casino and gentleman's club. You know, typical tourist trap, that failed to trap us. We did finally find the oil level half a mark down,about 1/3-quart low. Good, leave it there, check again later.
Continuing north at 11-am, intending to make 125 miles more to Love's Travel Stop in Tonopah, NV by 2-pm or so. Just enjoying the expressway with lots if desert sagebrush all around, while trying to snap a picture of a white cap mountain from the warm valley below. Then it's amazing how quickly things can change. Waddaya mean we're only doing 60 up this long grade? It's floored and beginning to misfire, and sounds like we're dragging something.
Pull over to check, and find we have a shreaded tariler tire, which also put a healthy kink in the rear edge of the left fender. Okay, no big deal, jack it up to install the spare tire, and use the Papa Wrench to pull out the bent rear edge of the fender. While we have it jacked up, knock off the grease cap to adjust the bearing nut one or two flats to reduce excess bearing clearance, replace the split pin and the grease cap. Back on the road in minutes.
Just a few miles on, while we were discussing where we might find a Harbor Freight to buy another trailer tire, we ran across another unfortunate bloke with a flat tire. He had his Mercedes Benz jacked up (with the emergency only jack) to install the emergency spare tire. But the normal road wheel is thick aluminum, and the emergency spare wheel is thin steel. The spare wheel has printed all over it warnings to not use the original long wheel lug studs, because they screw in too far and will interfere with the internal brake parts. Yeah, they weren't kidding. With two studs installed the wheel was blocked so the car could not move. Which brain child German engineer had this bright idea? There is supposed to be a set of five shorter wheel lug studs included with the emergency spare wheel, but none to be found in this car at this time. We are 30 miles short of Tonopah where there is a NAPA parts store and a tire shop. A phone call to NAPA about the shorter wheel studs was no help at all, and closing time is coming quickly in the small town.
Uh, we got this. Toss the flat tire and wheel on top of the Magic Trailer and tie it down. Relocate navigator to sit in the Mercedes (not going anywhere), while the owner takes over shotgun seat in the MGA, and we head 30 miles into Tonopah to get a new car tire.
205-55-R16 please, and yes they have two to chose from. Not long to buy one and get it mounted and balanced. Tie it back on the Magic Trailer, and high tail it back south 30 miles to put it back on the Mercedes.
There's the wonderful little emergency jack that came with the new Mercedes, go figure. Well, if it wasn't for the missing short wheel studs, it could have worked. Navigator was doing his thing to assure all the lug bolts were properly tightened before we were heading north again to find the Love's Travel Stop a little farther on in Tonopah.
One thing they do have in the desert is lots of space, so there is plenty of parking at the truck stop.
On arrival we found this neat 1967 VW Beetle, belonging to the front counter attendant inside. Nice young guy says his father traded a Camaro for it even up. It has rebuilt original engine, and 35,000 original miles. It looks 59 years old inside and out, but it drives okay. Sweet find.
Fuel up the MG again, 8.43-gallons for 173 miles, 20.5-mpg, okay for all the screwing around we've been doing. Oil level now square on the Low mark, which is 2/3-quart from the Full mark. So 2/3-quart used in 755 miles since top-off in Milan, NM. I'd settle for that, better than 1100 miles per quart. Last time I had an MG engine go 1000 miiles on one quart of oil was a new engine just run in before the Alaska trip in 1997.
Thursday, May 21 2026:
Good morning inTonopah, NV. . The billboard across the street from the truck stop says "McDonald's", but the locals say it has been gone for at least five years. It also says, "Just ahead in Hawthorne", which is 103 miles away and more extra travel distance, so we will stay here for breakfast. Now where will we find another 8-inch trailer tire in the middle of nowhere? Navigator says the tire on the other side is thin and very suspect, hardly good for emergency spare, so we should get two more tires. We could get them delivered in a few days to a week, but we don't want to wait. Lots of searching and phone calls later, our best bet is Harbor Freight in Sonora, CA, which is right on our way, but 254 miles in nearly 5 hours. At least we called to verify they are in stock, and please put my name on them. So we are now going to Sonora, California, with or without the trailer. If we fry another tire on the way, we get to drop the trailer on the side, go get the tire(s), and drive back to the trailer, however far that might be. Okay, check back later.
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