The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (June 1 - June 15, 2018)
Friday Jun 1, 2018:
Hanging around northern Illinois for most of the day, catching up on business and looking forward a bit. Headed north late night to land in southern Wisconsin.
Saturday June 2, 2018:
One appointment today, we were in (or near) Waupaca, WI to visit an old friend, Allen Greco. We have been friends since we lived on the same street in Warrenville, IL in 1973, make that 45 years. This is the bloke who sold me the MGA that I currently drive, back in 1977. He is recently retired, and has bought this old farm house, more than 100 years old with a few interesting out buildings. He spent six months refurbishing the interior of the house and moved in a couple months ago. A couple of the smaller buildings may ultimately be torn down, but the solid old barn looks like a keeper. From the front we see left and right drive in side bays. The center enclosed room looks a lot like a man cave with loft above.
In back is another drive-in bay all the way across, length of at least two large cars and more. The place has full cement floor and enough electric for rudimentary lighting and a few outlets (easily expandable). Currently an unlined shell waiting for interior sealing paper, insulation, paneling, and lots more lighting. Thinking five walk-around cars plus workshop and storage space, what's not to like?
Sunday June 3, 2018:
Aside from a social catch-up day, we had a small repair task on the MGA. Intermittent flashers had been bugging us for a long time, rather difficult to diagnose when they were working most of the time. Recently failing more frequently, it was time for the fix. I had some time ago installed a plug-in socket to quick change a heavy duty flasher unit. Figuring the quickie crimp connectors may be the source of the problem, we pulled it part to solder the joints, but that didn't fix it. Poking around with a test light for a few minutes revealed a loose screw terminal on the fuse block affecting both flashers and horn, so tightening the screw solved everything at once. Ah, time for an ale, and easy to kill the rest of the day reminiscing.
Monday June 4, 2018:
Time to be moving on, heading west and north, stopped in Rice Lake, WI for late lunch, stuck there for a while with WiFi work. Moving on late night, but not much farther.
Tuesday June 5, 2018:
Goodbye Wisconsin, hello Minnesota, nice daylight cruising, finally getting cooler as we roll. Cruised into Duluth, MN, spent most of the day there. Needing an oil change, back-tracked 13 miles to Superior, WI where we were turned away by the Walmart auto service. Boo, hiss. Heading north again late night, about 70 miles more.
Wednesday June 6, 2018:
Easily cruised the rest of Minnesota today. Crossed the border and landed in Thunder Bay, Ontario, Canada by mid day. Let my bank know I would be touring Canada for a while (to avoid funny business on my bank card). Made a couple of phone calls to be sure my Canadian cell phone was working okay (604-799-6104 if you want to call me in the next few months). Took a little side trip to visit John Colosimo in Thunder Bay, ON. He has a nice assortment of toys, beginning with the TR6 he drives, and the VW Beetle he has owned since new.
Also a Volvo 1800E (fuel injected), a bug eye Sprite, an MGB, a pretty good assortment of parts to keep things running for a lot longer. Also a couple more P1800 parts cars, just to muddy up the mix.
In the evening we dropped in on a preparation party for the car show to begin tomorrow, "Back To The Bay 2018", 28h Annual Lake Superior Vintage Sports Car Rendezvous, presented by Thunder Bay Vintage Sports Car Club. This is one of a series of get togethers that moves around various states and provinces as it is hosted by four different car clubs. In general, I'm not big on car shows, but these multi-day events commonly offer a lot more than just a shine and show.
Thursday June 7, 2018:
Nothing exciting here. Popped into the Best Western Plus Nor'Wester Hotel in Thunder Bay in mid afternoon to check in and pick up our registration packet. Greeted by a couple of emergency vehicles, nothing to do with us I trust. Generally uneventful registration day with a 8 to 10 Meet and Greet session in the evening, followed by a little tire kicking in the car park while admiring the twilight.
Friday June 8, 2018:
Choice of several tours today, not possible to do all of them, but different strokes for different folks. My choice was a two stop garage tour beginning with a visit to Russ Wnazuk Garage containing a large number of vintage cars (many pre-war vintage) and a larger number of vintage race cars. That would be Russ in the third picture giving us an introduction to what we might find here, after which we were on our own to explore the area.
The first car is apparently Russ' favorite, one of his earlier projects. At the time he wanted a Stutz Bearcat, or one of the early BIG roadster sport cars. But he couldn't afford one, so he built his own beginning with an old truck chassis. I gotta say it is a very convincing period representation.
There was a nice assortment of pre-war vintage cars, some original configuration, some hot rod conversions, and a couple of race cars.
There were plenty of dirt track racers (yes, that's a Gremlin),
A number of dirt track midgets, 3/4 midgets, sprint cars, a few later model NASCAR types, your choice.
Racing memorabilia and loads of collectible vintage car related stuff all over, like not enough space to stow it all.
In the woods there were acres of old cars, never sure if they may be junk or if some might eventually be restored. I finally found something British, a Bedford Vehicles van looking like a decent restoration project.
The Buick, maybe. The Packard, only if someone was really fond of it. The last picture is 740 CID V12 gasoline engine from a cab-over truck, maybe end of an era before most truck engine became diesel. Russ intends to clean it up and paint it to put on display.
Then we were off to visit the Duke Hunt Historical Museum (and Russ Wanzak Automotive Display). Yes, this is the automobile museum spill over from the prior stop. Out front a bit of antique machinery, a road grader and a dump rake.
Indoors, artifacts of American history.
A little farther back we were into the auto museum, beginning with The King's Special, raced from 1924 to 1932, possibly the oldest documented race car in Canada. Farther back was looking like a collection of memorabilia and cars representing all things automotive (but especially favoring race cars).
Behind the auto museum was a rather oversize 100-foot long Quonset building containing a collection of early farm machinery. We found Fordson tractors, a reaper, a threshing machine, a grain drill, and numerous smaller implements and either motorized or hand operated.
Back at the hotel a raised bonnet attracted my attention. There was a late model MGB sporting an SU HIF-6 carburetor in place of the original Z-S carburetor. It would run okay at idle, but a bit of throttle would cause misfire and backfire through the carburetor, not easy to drive. Putting oil in the dashpot helped some, but the damping action felt abnormally soft, so possible something amiss with the damper. Later on it lost the damper oil again, so it needs a replacement O-ring seal (or maybe more).
 In late afternoon (4:00-5:30-pm) I was playing host to a tech session named "Keeping Them On The Road" staring the world renown MGA guru (sounded good for publicity). I was pleasantly met with a well stuffed room of inquisitive car guys, spread about a variety of vintage cars, not just British cars. This was first conceived as me being guest speaker for the convention, but soon changed to a tech session when they discovered I had a lot of experience to share. It started with a bit of history about my early experiences with MGs in the late 60's,restoring my current MGA in the late70's and early 80's, some club activities and long distance touring in the late 80's, leading into competition autocross and road rally, lots of breaking and fixing the car all though the 90's. The web site www.MGAguru.com began to accumulate technical articles in the late 90's, ultimately expanding to hold thousands of tech pages it contains now.
After a half hour of "entertainment" we got more serious about the tech stuff, how to restore and maintain the vintage cars, what works and doesn't work for restoration, fluids, replacement parts, and generally how to make the car reliable and and fun to drive. The final half hour was open to questions and answers, playing "Stump The Guru" if you like. The more we got into this the more tech questions came out. We overshot the finish time a bit, needing to call it quits so people could get to dinner before the evening's programmed entertainment.
After dinner we hopped a courtesy bus to run out to a country farm for a Celtic Barn Dance. This was jolly good fun, except for a sore foot that kept me out of the game. I was curious about how they got the space so clean. This was the hay mow, or hay storage space on the upper deck of a dairy barn. Story is that there was five feet deep loose hay left over when the dairy operations ceased. The hay was eventually pushed outside, baled up and sold, but I still don't know how they got all to nooks and crannies cleaned out. While I was sitting out the fun, people began asking tech questions again, so the afternoon tech session continued into late night.
Saturday June 9, 2018:
After breakfast there was a Fun Rally with staging in the car park. I was drafted to help with staging cars at the photo-op and sending them on their way. Seems like 60 cars to go, taking a minute or more to stage and photograph each one. By the time this was finished the first cars were returning from the rally. I had some desk work pending, so I decided to skip the rally.
Then we were off to the afternoon car show at Thunder Bay Marina on the lake front north of the city.
There were more than 100 cars on display, but I was immediately distracted by friends with stories and tech questions. So the Friday tech session was continuing into Saturday afternoon. In the meantime I got to tweak the carbs on a couple of MGs, but I barely found enough time to snap a few photos before the show was finishing up.
A little break after the car show, social hour at 6-pm, banquet and awards party beginning 7-pm. The little mechanical robot sculpture was intended to be the Hard Luck Award, but there didn't seem to be many mishaps, so it went to the person with the best adventure story (by the wife of a dentist who forgot his floss (on the way to the convention). Good dinner, and good times all around, but too soon late night time to crash.
Sunday June 10, 2018:
Departure day from the Thunder Bay car show, but we didn't go anywhere. Spent the day catching up with photos and notes, email, tech questions, and some planning for upcoming visits to Ontario clubs.
Monday June 11, 2018:
Posted a couple of web pages on vintage rally entries for MGA (back in the day). More planning for future travel. Time out to get an oil change, then heading east in the evening. Ran low on fuel, passed a couple of closed gas stations, then inadvertently woke someone up to open a pump for us. Lesson from the school of hard knocks, when in remote places get your fuel before 9-pm. Stopped in White River, ON (cute little town) around 11-pm.
Tuesday June 12, 2018:
Nice breakfast followed by itermittent dowpours, nice day to stay put, mostly. Got some WiFi work done, and a lot of planning for upcoming clubs and shops visits. Reminiscing about California with multiple clubs having their meetings on second Tuesday of the month, and we just missed them. More than 20 clubs in Ontario on my list, fewer than 20 shops here (strange ratio). Moved on a bit late evening.
Wednesday June 13, 2018:
Arrived in Sault Ste Marie, ON mid morning, looking to be a nicer day, but still a lot of work to do, so sitting still much of the day. Mid afternoon we had a walk-in, a middle age fellow inquiring about the MGA. His father has one, and he just ade the phone call, so father is on his way, sorry got to leave. Half hour later Don Wallenius from Prince, ON arrived, followed bay an hour or more chat about MGs, and agreement to meet later at his place down the rod a bit. Arrival 8-pm end of road on the lake front, there was Don (and wife) waiting for us. We were soon introduced to his late model MGB, MGA 1500 Coupe, and MGA 1600-MK-II roadster.
The coupe had some odd tires I haven't seen before, Hercules 425 Radial (no opinion yet).
And also find an MGB GT and an MG TF, make that five MGs all driveable, don't know how he does it or which one gets a drive on what days, but apparently they all get proper exercise. And a nice original Vanden Plas aluminum hardtop for MGA (just one small dent) not used for many years, no firm plans for it, I'm tempted. Also the required stash of excess (but nower toss anything out) spare parts.
Thursday June 14, 2018:
An hour into Lively, ON this morning, breakfast, WiFI, another tank of fuel, followed by a couple more hours east. Arrived 4-pm in Muskoka, ON to visit Lance Boyce who quickly intoduced us to his 1961 MGA 1600 MKII which his father bought new. Have yet to see the remains of Shorrock supercharger since removed from the car (but maybe later). Replacing brake pads had turned into compete front suspension rebuild, but close to being back on the road. I recon Lance likes to chat as much as I do, so small talk ran into dinner which ran into small talk which ran past midnight (you know how these things happen), so we didn't get to tinker with his MG, but likely will tomorrow.
Friday June 15, 2018:
Late start, but we got some work done on Lance's MGA today. Nice to see an original 57 year old rebound strap
still in serviceable condition, but it was changed out as a matter of preventive maintenance. The replacement single thickness web strap looks a little flimsy to me, but maybe it will work for a few years before it might break. Rear brake drums were off for a reality check. That turned out to be okay, so put the drums back on and bleed the hydraulics all around, including the clutch slave and new master cylinder. Tightening up fuel lines and adjusting linkages on the freshly rebuilt carburetors, to go with new engine mounts. Still needing to re-install the generator and radiator, and get the wheels back on the car. Also need to bolt in the freshly reupholstered seats before it will be ready for the road again. But we have another appointment for tomorrow, so Lance can handle the rest.
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