The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (July 1 - July 15, 2020)
Wednesday July 1, 2020:
Posted a significant addendum to a tech page on electric power steering for the MGA with a bracket drawing more pictures, a wiring diagram, and installation instructions.
Thursday July 2, 2020:
We think our Moss parts did not ship yet, but we do like to do something useful. So today I ran over to friend Marc Chapman's place to borrow his front drive in the shade, and some buffing tools. We spent a couple of hours buffing dirt and rust and paint off of my front bumper brackets, and license plate fixtures. After a wash down with lacquer thinner, a quick coat of etching primer front and back, and a half hour later black enamel all around (with a half hour break for drying time before roll over). Tuck it inside just before dark, and maybe some assembly work tomorrow.
Friday July 3, 2020:
Kind of late 2-pm start again today, back at Marc's place to work on my car again. Jacked it up to remove front wheels for access to front wiring. Finally got the LF headlight and the new LF parking lights wired up and working. Also installed new RF parking lamp assembly (way overdue). The rusty one was a Moss Motors part installed in 2001, so this is that makes the second set of corner lamps that have died from serious rust in 34 years since finish of first restoration in 1986. I can only hope the plating on these will be better (wishful thinking of course).
 Then I finally did something I have been recommending to others for decades, Cut off all the bullet
connectors, strip the wires and reconnect with gas tight crimp on butt connectors, then tape up the whole assembly for strain relief. I had done this with the rear wiring about 20 years ago, and have since never had a failed connection there, so I feel very good about doing the same up front. If you ever need to R&R a lamp assembly, simply unwrap the harness, cut the wires near the connectors, splice the wires back together with the new parts, and wrap it up again. Over the past 20 years or so this has been a lot less trouble than periodically dealing with failed snap connectors.
The next chore was to reinstall the freshly repaired and repainted Fiberglas front valance panel. This turned out to be a royal pain, as the guys who repainted the car five years earlier has had reassembled it with a bunch of irregular fasteners and damaged cage nuts. This time we had all new and correct fasteners up front, but had to remove several damaged cage nuts and use flat washers and hex nuts behind. Having spent hours dealing with those issues, we called it a day, and will leave front bumper installation for later.
Another side note. After the the work was done we were double checking all the lighting functions. We knew the LF turn signal was intermittent, which I have been dealing with by way of a jumper wire on the failed relay. That just makes the LF lamp light up when I step on the brake pedal (when not using the turn signal). Not a big deal, as I noticed some MG TC were wired that way from the factory. But now the Left side brake light quit working. Now the 4-way flashers work, and both rear turn signals work, but the LR brake light does not work. Funny, because then all use the same wires and bulb filaments. This means there is now a second failed contact in the same relay. Rats! Okay, new relays to repair this just ran all the way up the priorities flag pole.
Saturday July 4, 2020:
Laundry day. Has to happen occasionally. Happy Independence Day in the USA. Took a break from working on the car, so didn't get the bumper on yet.
Another message about tie rod end ball joints being too long and needing a field modification to be done by every customer. This is not a coincidence. It has been going on for may years, and the supplier has been re-ordering the same bum part from the same source, even when the whole world knows it is a bad part.
Sunday-Thursday July 5-9, 2020:
Pretty sure we didn't get out of the hotel. Parts order form Moss finally arrived Thursday, after a week delay before shipping. In the mean time I've been working late nights on the MGA part numbers index. It can be found here: http://MGAguru.com/mgtech/parts/part_nos.htm -- It may not look like much yet, only through Page 11 of section R of the MGA 1500 SPL. The last upload was a couple days earlier. I think there will be another upload late Friday night, finished through page 30 of section R (dang that's a big section of the SPL).
Friday July 10, 2020:
Finally got to play outside today. After a sudden shock thunderstorm and flooding around mid day, I got out to borrow Marc Chapman's garage again, and finally got the new front bumper installed on my car, which should complete the accident damage repairs.
Now the turn signal relay has totally crapped out. It started to miss the LF turn signal sporadically a few months ago. After installing all new front lights and re-doing the harness a week ago, all the lamp fixtures and wiring work, but the relay still had no output for LF turn, and then no left side brake light (although 4-way flashers worked, and turn signals worked as long as I jumpered front to rear on the left side). Today the 4-way's no longer work, no brake lights, and the electronic flasher unit ticks, but its output goes nowhere. Pretty PO'd about no brake lights. Time to get serious about finding the replacement relays so I can rebuild the relay box (again).
The mayor of Columbus a few days ago proclaimed the entire Columbus, Ohio metropolitan area to be a formal mask zone. So we are supposed to wear a mask anywhere in public, including inside the hotel if we go out of our room. Well, I have nice multi-layer cloth painter's mask that should do okay, maybe overkill for this application. Have to look for some minimum standard masks at Walmart I suppose.
Saturday July 11, 2020:
Not sure what else I did today, but there was an eight hour phone call from a bloke in southern Alabama working hard to get a 1958 Elva Courier back on the road. Good thing we are both retired, as neither one of us could run a business like that.
Sunday July 12, 2020:
Up early, but appointments were delayed a couple times. I finally got back over to Marc Chapman's place again by mid afternoon, this time to work on his MGA project. The task today was to disassemble the front suspension on the rolling chassis, with no engine for ballast. This turned out to be a lot simpler than one might think. There was a gearbox sitting right over there, one bolt for the rear mount please. And there was also an engine complete with engine mounts, sitting a roller dolly. Four hex nuts and six bolts out, it was soon strapped to the hoist to be boosted into the chassis. Two bolts in the bellhousing, and just set it down on the engine mount pedestals. Lift the front end, set it down on two jack stands aft of the front suspension, remove the front wheels, and get the floor jack under the coil spring to unload the front suspension joints.
On each side, two nuts to remove the brake hose brace, and two large studs to remove brake calipers. One split pin and one large castellated nut with washer, then a couple of pry bars to pull off the rotor and bearing hub assembly. Left side came off with not much fuss at all. The right side gave us some frustration, but at least we didn't need the slide hammer, as it finally gave way to serious levering, leaving the inboard bearing and grease seal in situ. A bearing splitter in hand was to small to work, so we were thinking to use a substantial gear puller on the bearing. For space behind we pried the grease seal up, cut the seal shell with dykes and peeled it out of the way. Then as it turned out, two levers behind the bearing pulled it off okay, and we were home free.
The left side tie rod end was finger tight, just remove the nut and lift it out. Right side rod end was being a b**ch, resisting all forms of hard prying and heavy hammering on the steering arm eye, but no release. It looked like a good original ball end, only needing a new rubber cover, so we thought to work around it until we could find a proper ball end puller tool.
Proceeding to remove the trunnion bolts, pull out the swivel pin assembly, unscrew the swivel links and check out the threads and bronze bushings. Smile here as a couple of the distance tubes were a bit rusty, but the bronze bushings were all good to go without needing replacement (zero wiggle when the load bearing tube was greased). Short lunch break while we celebrate.
Remove floor jack, press down lower A-arm, and lift out coil spring. Repeat all on the other side, measure height of coil springs, both equal at 8-7/8-inches, so good to clean, paint, and return to service.
Left side shock absorber with free travel up and down, but filling with hydraulic oil made it work good as new. No immediate drip at all, but hard to know how long it may take to lose the oil past the shaft seals. Decide later if it wants a rebuild. Right side shock with lots of shaft wiggle in badly worn housing journals, obviously shot, so not even going to try putting oil in that one. Only thing good there was not frozen, so should be good for a rebuild core.
Both brake rotors were scored and too thin to re-cut, so toss those. Good fortune says there are a pair of new ones previously procured from a retiring bloke's purchased inventory (good move there). We did notice that the front and rear brackets on the lower A-arms were all early style with no hole for the sway bar link, not the right parts for this 1600 type chassis, so those had been replaced sometime in a past life. They may be good to use anyway, as Marc is planning on buying an Addco sway bar kit that wants a drilled hole in different location.
We finally unscrewed the right side tie rod from the tie rod end, leaving the ball joint attached to the steering arm (for now). Then we lifted the engine out and put it back on the roller dolly. All the tricky stuff finished, and some parts added to the next order list. What remains is simple disassembly of A-arms and lower pivots, cleaning and painting, which Marc can do at his leisure.
And we ran out of daylight, so it was a good time to call it quits, pick up, clean up, lock up and head home.
Monday July 13, 2020:
Collecting some information to update the web page for Austin/Morris/BMC engine codes. In particular, I have new information on lots of engine codes for big Healeys. -- Also spent some time putting together a fairy large parts order, mostly chassis parts for Marc's MGA (so we can get it back together as soon as he finishes cleaning and painting). Finally got the order in right around midnight.
Tuesday July 14, 2020:
Near as I can remember, this was a catch up day, mostly catching up on sleep. But we did get out for a few errands, like buy some face masks, trip to the bank, and foraging (at the grocery store). Finally got billed for the second part of a Moss order that was placed two weeks earlier, but only shipped now, and so far no order conformation or tracking number.
Wednesday July 15, 2020:
Frustrating day. I finally got billed for the Tuesday early A.M. Moss parts order this morning, and I think it was a day late. Got to midnight and still no order conformation or tracking number. That makes two orders that should be in transit, but no tracking info.
After hours of searching the net I found what I was looking for, higher temperature rating for the miniature relays to repair my turn signal relay unit. The order was to Allied Electronics. I got through the parts list, billing and shipping information, asking for 2nd day air delivery, tapped the "Complete Order" button, and their computer said, "please wait". Then it said, "Sending our homing pigeon for information", and please wait. Then it said, "Good things ship to those who wait", and please wait. After a half hour of waiting I concluded their billing system was stuffed, so I backed up a page or two and tried again, with same results. On the third try it was still saying please wait, so I left the web page open and went on to do something else more productive. Well past midnight I backed it up and tried again, and the order finally went through, but I wasn't going to pay for 2nd day air when the delivery would not arrive until after the weekend, so I switched delivery to Standard Ground (to save $5), and sent the order on its way.
In the meantime, while I was waiting for Allied to get their computer act together, I was working some more on the MGA Part Numbers index, knocking down a few more pages of the SPL. Getting there, slowly but surely. Then my older daughter texted my to ask if I had remembered to renew my car insurance, which expires tomorrow. Oh gawd, what else will I forget in my old age? First priority for tomorrow.
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