The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (October 1 - October 15, 2026)
Thursday October 1, 2026:
This might be a boring week with no firm appointments until a club meeting next Wednesday. Time spent considering some new part Numbers tech pages for lots of bearings and seals, as most of those are already on "Care And Feeding) tech pages with alternate part number interchange lists. That could kill a week.
Friday October 2, 2026:
Some tech question about parts of the inertia starter pinion gear and Bendix drive. Just a bit of head scratching.
Saturday October 3, 2026:
Posting new Part Numbers tech pages for Water pump bearings and seals six part numbers, 2A457, 1H1153, 8G698, 13H772, AEB156, AEF136, covering all MGA models plus MG TB,TC, TD, TF.
Sunday October 4, 2026:
Moved a bit more west, sitting in Carlisle, PA. Working on a few more Part Numbers pages for timing cover seals, felt and rubber. Three part numbers, 2K7140 felt ring for early MGA, 2A939 rubber seal for late model MGA, AEJ5 oil seal for Twin Cam. Mostly finished, still needing checking and touch-ups before uploading.
Monday October 5, 2026:
Inching a little farther west, sitting in Chambersburg.PA. Finished the new Part Number tech pages for three
engine front cover seals, and uploaded and tested orking. Start with this one: 2A939.
Right in the middle of uploading and testing, my web site server stopped dead and wasted two hours,because the server operating system has changed functions. Finding out the hard way that some of the bookmarks for my Firefox browser won't work any more,because the bookmarked web addresses start with "http:mgaguru", and now the server requires an "s" in the URL, like "https://mgaguru..." So now I have to update all the bookmarks (lots of them).
Headed west again late evening, running through some delightful mountain roads in the dark, stopping in Breezewood, PA for the night.
Tuesday October 6, 2026:
Breakfast in Breezewood, but navigator calls it too cold in this place,so we fueled it up and moved on. Another 73 miles west, winding our way through the mountains (seems like most of Pennsylvania). Keep you on your toes kind of roads on US-30, Up and down the twisty hills commonly 8% grades, and at lest one at 9%. Only problem was one particularly slow truck for a while. Landing in Latrobe, PA in time for or lunch, not sure why we are one day ahead of schedule, think we were supposed to be still in Breezewood.
Someone sent scans of catalog pages for Glacier and Vandervell bearings for MG engines , so I posted those in the Engine Tech section here: MG Engine Tech - General
CS-106G - Crankshaft Bearings for MGs, Glacier -(pdf) -- Glacier_MG1-3.pdf
CS-106V - Crankshaft Bearings for MGs, Vandervell -(pdf) -- Vandervell_MG1-4.pdf
Wednesday October 7, 2026:
Breakfast in Greensburg, PA, most of the day to pass before our evening appointment.
 A little more fuss about errors and omissions in the Glacier and Vandervell bearing listings. They do (did) not list crankshaft bearings for the MGA Twin Cam. They have wrong part number for main bearing set for the MGA1622 engine (ignoring the narrower center main bearing). And most of the BMC cross ref numbers in the Vandervell catalog do not exist in any MGA Service Parts List. Otherwise these catalogs are good for replacement parts and technical dimensions.-- Found a later edition Vandervell catalog that does list bearings for the Twin Cam, all main,rod, and Cam bearings. So more time to update the Part Numbers tech pages.
Off to a club meeting tonight wuth Laural Highlands British Car Club in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. They meet at a place called 814 Lnes n Games, which id just what it sounds like, a large bowling alley and games arcade with traditional bar with kitchen. Also a groups meeting room on the side, and throw in a gambling machine room. I dunno what else is in there, but the place is huge, and they have a web site if you want to check it out.
No other British cars outside. The club was in the meeting room (13 people plus us), supposed to be dinner at -7pm and meeting at 8-pm. We arrived comfortably at :6:30-pm, and most of the people had food on the tables way ahead of us. Sometimes
it doesn't pay to ask in advance? Not always the right answers? Quick enough to order, and I got to say hello to a couple of people. By the time we got our first bites in the meeting was started about 7-pm, and was finished before our food was. By the time we finished eating some people were already leaving, finished at 8-pm, and out the door. At least we got to visit another club. Just a little disappointed to kill a week and drive 200 miles out of our way for dinner.
Heading west on US-117 and I-70, then south on I-79. Heavy traffic and road construction, stop and creep, merging into one lane, at least twice. Getting late fast, so we stopped in Waynesburg, PA, at a 24-hour gas station with McD and WiFi at 9:30-pm. Grab sodas, and take the time to process these photos and notes. -- Late night we pushed south across a state line to stop at the West Virginia Welcome Center.
Thursday October 8, 2026:
Breakfast in Bridgeport, West Virginia. taking a few minutes to consider timing for the next few steps. Made a call fueled up the car, headed south. Two Walmart stops for oil and more becuse we missed getting everything at the first stop. Landed at Loves stop in Bastian, Virginia, for late lunch, half way to somewhere, check back tomorrow.
Friday October 9, 2026:
Mid day, filled with fuel, and headed south from Bastian, VA. Cough, sputter, right out, getting worse as we go. Pull off next exit to re-gap the points, but more of the same. Pulloff the next exit to replace the condenser, and that seems to have fixed it, cruising for the next few hours without incident, fighting our way through stop and creep traffic around Charleston, NC for rmore than an hour, pretty much as expected.
Arriving in rural York, South Carolina just before dusk to visit Bruce Bodenstein. We were here four years earlier to check out his MGA body restoration work, which had lots of misfit issues at the time. But before we get too deep into that, it was time to take advantge of the situation (and timing) to do an engine oil and filter change, and gearbox and differential oil change as well. Only problem here was finishing it up by flashlight after dark, but nothing new there.
Then we were pigging out on pizza and sodas while we sat and chat for another hour. Lots of very expensive new body panels came with the car when he bought it. Unfortunately, most of the stuff had Victoria British part numbers, and none of it fit without lots of fettling.
When it was time for our host to turn in,it was time for me to go to work, processing these photos and notes. We will get more into Bruce's MGA tomorrow.
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