The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (September 16 - September 30, 2022)
Thursday, September 16, 2022:
Good morning. Hey, the web page address says "mobile200" meaning 200 half-months or 100 months on the road.
 Time to change the fuel filter. Likely could do this without removing the right rear wheel, but needed to jack it up anyway. Teflon tape the new filter threads first. Easy access from below, one pinch clip to pull the hose off, unscrew and replace fuel filter, put the hose back on, three minutes underneath. Old filter almost completely clogged, could hardly blow any air through it. Love the rust dust the tapped out of the old filter. Rolling again at a respectable
Friday, September 16, 2022:
Posting this Saturday evening, danged if I can remember doing anything. Sometimes it's nice to have a day off.
Saturday, September 17, 2022:
Time for that Saturday morning hanky panky. 8-am hook up the trailer at Tommy's garage and head over to Steve (Sparky) Sparks place in Riverside, IL. Sparky has a MG Midget that we lent a hand with several times in recent years, now running well (most of the time). He recently purchased an MGA that should be a decent driver car once it is running, but seems to have him a bit baffled. He has been asking for advice on mothballing the car, but we have different plans. We are going to steal his car today. Well, maybe not a legal steal, as his significant other is conspiring to help us sneak it out of his garage (and she keeps a pretty good secret). When we showed up at his house we were half expecting silk pajamas and bunny slippers, but he was already up and around.
While he was asking, "What's going on here?" we were dropping his MGA off the jack stands and loading it onto the trailer. He was almost in tears when we told him he ain't mothballing this car, we're taking it over to Tom's place so the Wednesday Night Garage Club can make it a Fall project and put it back on the road. That's Sparky in the bib overalls helping to push, after he figured it out. At least he wasn't calling the police.
Five miles back to Tommy's Garage. In short order we had moved a few things around, unloaded the car and had it stashed inside. Thinking this must be the first time there were three MGA in here at the same time. Now I have a change of plans, Rather then bugging out of town after next Monday night's CMGC club meeting, we may stick around two more days to be here for next Wednesday night tinkering session. Then we can give this car a close inspection to see what it needs and lay plans for its recuperation.
Since we were sitting where we could plug into power, it was a good time to finish installing the Hidem strip on our new convertible top. About the normal amount of fuss we were expecting. Start in the middle, open it up, align the bottom edge, pop in the first staple, and continue working out toward the sides. A bit finicky deciding how to align the ends with overlap on the side flaps (this time), and installing the chrome trim tabs with small finishing screws.
There it is with the Hidem strip installed, trim tabs in place, and two more screws with finishing washers on top to secure the fabric to the rear steel bow of the top frame. Cute. Noe we hope it will last longer this time.
Then a couple guys were dragging out the sand blaster, because someone brought over front and rear subframes for an MG 1100 Sport Sedan. I know a little something about this, as I used to own an Austin America with Hydrolastic suspension, and I have repaired a few of them. I also wrote the operating instruction for this (cheap) sand blaster 20 years ago, so a little coaching was in order, but when it was fired up in the open it was time for me to run for cover.
Here is a look at CMGC's latest project car, the MG-MGB-GT. Late enough to have fuel vapor recovery, but before rubber bumpers, and I think I see an anti-run-on valve, so 1973-1974 model. It was a very good engine with the "L head (1972-1974) for higher compression and better breathing.
Now this is why free may not be such a good deal, as there is a LOT of grunt work required to replace all the rusted sheet metal in a unibody car. But I hear that there may be some younger people in the club recently who may like to get down and dirty to practice some cutting and welding. I may smile when I see it (if it happens). I hope the Wednesday Night Garage Club guys can resist doing all the work if the CMGC members are not participating. That would take the essence out of "Tech Session".
For something a little more enticing, this is the new V6 engine and T5 5-speed gearbox (think modern Chevy Camaro). This is destined for Tom's latest MGB restomod with all of the go-fast parts. Love the exhaust headers, gotta find our who did those. Powder coated gearbox and coaxial hydraulic clutch release bearing. Will be a challenge to pin the bearing housing so it doesn't rotate, and properly anchor two hydraulic hoses for input and bleeding outside the bellhousing.
Then the guys were getting into stuff that was beyond my area of expertise electronic engine controls?), so break for late lunch and WiFi time to process these photos and notes.
Sunday, September 18, 2022:
Attending the Tally Ho Rally, a gimmick rally presented by Vintage MG Car Club of Chicago, with invitation to Chicagoland MG Club, so it is an official club event for both clubs. They do share a lot of events. Beginning and ending at the Lucky Monk restaurant in South Barrington, IL. First up, a new car in the club, recent acquisition by a long term club members Russ and Amy Mehaffee. It is a nice mid production MGB, converted to a Weber downdraft carburetor.
Long line up of cars before the rally. Believe I counted 14 MGs, and a few more family haulers that would also participate. The white MGB with black bumpers moved a couple of times. I think he was looking for shade, as the engine was running very rich and being hard to start. But he was declining offers of help, figuring it would make it through the rally okay.
The rallymaster's car with the Tally Ho fox on top was the landmark for the gathering point. Well populated drivers meeting. I think I counted 38 people, which is 10 more than having 2 for each MG. Discounting the rallymaster, there must have been four non-MG vehicles in the rally.
Having done a number of these events, you may realize that the primary objective here is to come back alive, not
to get run over while poking around on public roadways looking for answers to the questions. The next bit of fun is figuring out where to drive when they put the gimmicks in the route instructions. Also figuring out what the rallymaster really intended when you ultimately encounter the routing error that will send you in the wrong direction or continuously around the block. Not much time to take pictures while driving.
A three hour time limit was more than generous, expecting to finish in about two hours. But there was a specified average speed for this rally (from which you could calculate minutes per mile). And there were significant points penalties for each minute early or late. So the idea was to measure distance very accurately, discounting any backtracking, then multiply by minutes per mile to give your desired finishing time. In the end we graciously requested a 33 minute time delay allowance for the extra time and distance we had to run due to one missing sign and an error in the route instructions. Pretty sure we will be over ruled on all counts and likely be scored DFL. All jolly good fun.
Monday, September 19, 2022:
Monthly club meeting for Chicagoland MG Club tonight at Mr. Beef and Pizza in Mount Prospect, IL. We arrived early for dinner, not very many MGs in the car park yet. It got downright crowed by meeting time, maybe 38 people to fill the room, including a few standing in the rear. Mid meeting break after most of the formal business, so out to the car park to kick some tires. Hard to get pictures in the dark, but I think there were 12 to 14 MGs with more family haulers mixed in.
Back inside after the break for a presentation on competition driving. Lots of photos and some videos for wheel to wheel vintage racing and for high speed autocross on the open race track. Good to chat with old friends when we get the opportunity.
Meeting over, time for a late night drive (sprint down the expressways) to the southeast, out of Illinois into Indiana while the Chicago area traffic in only busy, but not rush hour.
Tuesday, September 20, 2022:
Morning time to catch up email and BBS an some tech questions, no time for the trip log yet. Mid day another half hour drive to visit brother on a side road near Hanna, Indiana.
Mostly just family chat when we're here, but I sometimes have something more interesting for him to play with. He is a retire machinist, and still keeps some machine tools in his large garage/workshop. I only wanted to borrow a 0.075-incb drill bit and a hand drill, but he got more carried away with unnecessary precision.
The little chore here was to make a few solder couplings to repair the analog temperature gauges. The original gauge in the MGA has 0.072" OD pressure tube, while a repair tube from a new (cheap) gauge has 0.060" OD. Starting with 1/8-inch copper tubing with 1/16-inch bore, I want to make short coupling pieces with 0.075" drill x 1/4" deep in one end, and 0.0625" through clearance hole. Start by cutting off some short pieces with a fine tooth band saw.
Mount a small Jacob's chuck from a hand drill in the 3-jaw chuck of his lathe, and an even smaller Jacob's chuck in the tail stock. With the copper tube rotating and the drill bit stationary, the 1/4-inch deep clean out drill hole only takes a few seconds. As a quick way to deburr the other end of the tube, just use a 1/16-inch drill bit and run it all the way through. Short work, and stash the bits in the Magic Trailer for future reference.
7-PM we were loaded up and heading back the other direction, because we have another tech session back in the Chicago area tomorrow evening.
Wednesday, September 21, 2022:
Back to Tommy's Garage, the primary project tonight will be Sparky's MGA. 5:30-pm already getting busy with someone cleaning wire terminals on the turn signal relay unit. What will it take to get this thing running?
The engine would fire and run a few seconds on a sniff of starting fluid so it should run with some fresh fuel. Sparky had previously drained the stale fuel, cleaned out the carburetors, changed the carb fuel hoses, and verified the fuel pump was working. Off to the local station for two gallons of fresh premium fuel, pump it up, crank it up, and YES it runs, right off.
After a minute warm up it seemed to be running on three cylinders (or maybe 2-1/2). Pulling plug wires one at a time reveals slightly weak spark but no fire on #1, and significant noise under the valve cover. Pull the valve cover to check, and all valves seem to have correct clearance. Compression test gives 150-PSI all around, very good (maybe a shaved cylinder head). Still no fire on #1, and the spark plug is dry, so maybe no fuel getting through the front carburetor.
Pull cover off the front float chamber, full fuel bowl. Remove dashpot cover and air float piston and metering needle to see into the main fuel jet. Lift float cover, switch on to run fuel, fill fuel bowl to top, and fuel runs out of the main jet, so no problem with fuel delivery. Okay, must be bad spark.
Pull off the distributor cap and get the ohm meter to check continuity of the HT wires. test leads from the terminals inside the cap to the plug connectors shows 4400-ohms for all four spark wires, but resistor wires should not be used with the side entry distributor cap because the screw type terminal spikes in the cap do not make good contact with the carbon string core "wire".
Also people were getting shocked from sparks leaking through the old HT wires. Replace the cap and HT wires with a better set, and fire it up again. Then running on all four cylinders, not long to give it a tune up, running quite well, three cheers for the good guys.
Meanwhile a few guys were fiddling with rear suspension on Tom's restomod MGB, all jolly good fun.
Back to the MGA, what does it take to make it road worthy for a test drive? Get the brakes to work. Most of the rear brake parts look like new, but there was a bit of oil on one of the shoes. The single flat head screw securing the rear half shaft was finger loose on both sides, boo, hiss. The Magic Trailer gave us new rubber O-rings and paper gaskets for the rear hubs, soon fixed.
But oddly there was very little oil in the hubs when disassembled. So check oil in the differential, might as well drain and change it at the same time (and boy was that stuff ugly dirty), good move).
Everyone feeling good about progress on the MGA, but getting late, so time to pack up an put the toys away. Only a few people left after 10-pm, good time for a chat session, prop your feet up by the fire pit. Soon 11-pm, lights out time, and hit the road, Jack. South and east out of Illinois again, change of time one, keep going east, land in Warsaw, IN at 2:30-am EST.
Thursday, September 22, 2022:
Travel day, heading east. Breakfast in Warsaw, IN. Fuel stop in New Haven, IN. Fuel stop in Burbank, OH. Quick snack in Diamond, OH. Dinner in Hubbard, OH. Just crossed the state line into Pennsylvania late night.
Friday, September 23, 2022:
Another travel day. Long run into Philipsburg PA for fuel stop and late breakfast. Longer run to Camp Hill, PA for late lunch, and a WiFi break. Finally made the phone connection to verify tomorrow's early morning breakfast appointment. Headed downtown York, PA late m=night.
Saturday, September 24, 2022:
Met the Darrell's Garage crowd for 7-am breakfast in York, PA. Depending on how you look at it, pretty sure there were at least 16 Little British Cars there. Saddle up and ride out at 8-am, taking side roads to arrive at Rocks State Park in Street, Maryland an hour later. --- First stop was registration, not preregistered this time. Got the car parked, then checking out the table for the host club, MGs of Baltimore. Then check out the swap vendors, since the show cars were still rolling in. British Miles was the larger "anchor" vendor this time, but a few more as well. I picked up a pair of NAPA Gold 1068 spin-on oil filters for $5 each and stashed them in the trailer.
Stroll past Cars For Sale, as they seem to be lined up early, and the Premier Class, which is cars that won their class in the past two years. Close at hand was the "MG Other" class, which for all day only had two MG ZB Magnette.
Since I took more than 50 pictures at the show, with more than 100 cars on display, I'm not posting them all in the travel log. But if interested you can find the full array of photos and notes in the Supplemental index here.
There was one 1952 Daimler cabriolet, which was ultimately star of the show. MG T-types, chrome bumper Midgets and rubber bumper Midgets, four MGA (plus one in the Premier Class), one MGC, one MGB V8 conversion, a few pre-1968 MGB roadsters, far more MGB 1968-1974, more than a representative share of rubber bumper MGB 1975-1980, several MGB GT, all very nice.
Five TR7, one chrome bumper Spitfire and one rubber bumper Spitfire, half a dozen TR250 and TR6, and lmost embarrassing that TR3 and TR4 were outnumbering MGA. Nice group of Jaguar, not quite as many chrome bumpers as I was expecting. Eight big Healeys and a pair of lonely Bugeye Sprites. One 1970 TVR Vixen, one Sunbeam Tiger, two Sunbeam Alpine. I rather liked a Ford Holbay Cortina with engine by Holbay Engineering. There were a few Lotus, one Morgan 4/4, a Sunbeam Tiger a couple Sunbeam Alpine.
Then I had a chat with a fellow MGA owner with the aftermarket grill guard and rear bumper guards from "Wacky" Arnolt. He said they came with the car, and he had no idea about the historical significance.
Nearing end of show time I strolled over to check out the twin Delorean aars. His has a Corvette V8 transplant, while hers has the original Renault V6 engine. Sorry, but she left her flux capacitor home.
I'm not a super car guy, but the Lotus Evora 400 was just eye candy, at least good for honorable mention.
As we were all waiting for awards announcements, my name came up for the long distance award, again. This may well be the same one I received last year at this show, because I did the same thing again, took the picture and gave it back to let them recycle it again next year. I also picked up a door prize (most people did). I don't usually wear advertising, but I can always use another T-shirt, and this one is kind of cute. Last picture is the MGA class winner showing off his new award to go with his real four-wheel trophy. The Darrell's Garae guys snagged the club participation award again (as usual) for having the most cars entered from a single organiation (even more than the host club apparently).
After the show, back to York, PA (or the vacinity thereof) for lte lunch and to catch up with the the day's email and tech questons and BBS review, and to get a start on posting the photos and notes from the car show.
Sunday, September 25, 2022:
Yes I finished posting the car show pics barely) seen above and in the Supplemental photos page here. More to report on a new tech page for MGA Twin Cam water pump rebuild, and an update on resurrection of a vintage custom built MGA fastback Coupe in about 4th iteration of redesign and modification (and hopefully another new life). But out of WiFi time tonight, so catch me on the flip side tomorrow.
Monday, September 26, 2022:
Updated a Variants tech page on new owners and ongoing restoration of a vintage modified MGA fastback coupe.
Posted a new tech page for rebuilding an MGA Twin Cam water pump.
Heading downtown York, PA tonight for a group of car guys tinkering session.
Tuesday, September 27, 2022:
6-pm meet up with the friends at Darrell's garage in York, PA. News from the Sunday car show was a little more then 100 cars on display, and 25 of them were affiliated with Darrell's garage. Interesting.
I had the camera in my pocket all night, but got busy with my hands and didn't get around to taking any pictures. Had plans to repair two temperature gauges, but it got dark when I had only one finished, and wanted to get it installed in my car. That is a bit of a pain including R&R of a couple stress relief P-clips and fishing the sensor pipe out and back in through the dash and bulkhead panels. Finished it and had a few minutes to relax and chat.
Then all packed up, in the car, seat belts fastened, about to start engine to leave when copious amounts of smoke escaped from the wires. Oops. Mostly my own fault I suppose. The 1986 vintage wiring harness was definitely shoring its age (after half a million miles), for many years already, with some wires near the engine cooked and brittle and cracking. Apparently the white wire on the ignition coil managed to short through an insulation crack making contact with the wire on other side of the coil, the one going to the distributor.
Switch on resulted in a direct path from fuse box connection to the coil, then from coil to distributor, and though the contact points to ground. Luckily the wire from ignition switch to fuse box is heavier wire gauge, so that one stayed cool. But other wires downstream were definitely crisp with well melted insulation, and wires inside the distributor also fried (including nylon insulators on the contact points terminal post).
Being about 10:30-pm, we took the most expedient solution, beginning with swapping out the distributor for the spare on in the trailer. Then run a new 18-Ga White wire from fuse box to ignition coil, winding it around the main harness for security, and another new wire from coil to distributor. That's all, set timing by ear, clamp it down and be out of there by midnight. Off to Sheetz for late dinner, then get some sleep.
Wednesday, September 28, 2022:
Early morning trip to Walmart for supplies, then take the rest of the day off to catch up two days of communications and take a load off my feet.
Thursday, September 29, 2022:
Short trip with Darrell from York to visit John Paxton in Columbia PA. John has a very nice MGA 1600-MK-II. A year ago I rebuilt the carburetors as a group tech session at Darrell's garage. Darrell took the carbs to Columbia to install them on John's MGA. Apparently it ran well for a while, until it didn't. No fire on cylinders 3-4, and the rear carb was dripping a bit of fuel from bottom of the main fuel jet, so Darrell had removed the carbs and took them home to replace the jet seals (at least one) in the rear carb. Today we got to reinstall the carbs on the car.
Seems straightforward enough, just bolt them on, hook up the linkages, fire it up and adjust the carbs. But then, thinks are not always what they seem to be. Good that I thought to give the float valves a blow-down test, because they were both sticking shut. A few drops of carburetor cleaner and a bit of exercise fixed that.
A new replacement throttle cable from Moss Motors didn't fit, because a metal fitting at one end was missing and
the fitting at other end was too large to get into the mounting nesting hole. I carefully ground down the outside of the fitting until it was a thin wall tube to make it fit, but then the cable jacket was too short. Final solution was to re-use the old outer jacket with the new inner wire.
Then the rear fuel jet was sticking on choke, partly down and would not return upward by spring force only. So dismount the carbs again, and go after it on the bench. Inside was found two cork jet seals, very dry (which is why it was sticking) with the mating conical washers upside down (flat side to the cork), and two Teflon O-rings under the lower cork ring (duplicates). Toss the dry cork rings and install four new Teflon O-rings, conical packing washers right way around (flat sides to the compression spring), and put it all back together, carefully centering the jets for free motion of the needle.
Next issue was not being able to synchronize the choke levers, because the interconnecting "J" link didn't have enough threads to run the adjusting nuts up far enough.Good news as the Magic Trailer gave up the new part in correct configuration, and that was soon back together and properly adjusted.
The throttle lever arm was badly worn at the small end hole (as they often are). This time the Magic Trailer let me
down, and I had to reinstall the old one (with some crafty adjustments). I used to have a spare, but now not, which means I installed it on my car some time ago and and forgot to order another spare (kick myself). Now put TWO of these on the next parts order.
Two more niggly little problems. One leaking hose connection on a plastic fuel filter, easily fixed by
shortening the hose and reinstalling the clamp. And a replacement fuel pipe (in copper rather than steel tube) flopping around loose, needed to be tucked into its respective frame clip. Everything looking to be in order, fire it up and see how it runs.
Sorry, but big disappointment here, running on two cylinders (which I am informed was exactly what it was doing before the carburetor work). Rats! Close the front carb throttle plate, open the rear carb, and it runs on two cylinders. Close the rear carb throttle plate, open the front carb, and it runs exactly the same on two cylinders. Nothing wrong with the carbs, so re-sync those and lock it in,
Moving to the other side, take one look at the distributor and say "No". Let's do a compression test first. Good move with bad news. 160-120-0-0. Rats again, blown head gasket. But at least we know what the problem is, and it can be fixed. Not today though. Darrell will return another day with his trailer, and take the car to his shop in York for that work. Done here, clean up, pack up and take the rest of the day off. We went to find a WiFi spot for late lunch while Darrell headed home.
Friday, September 30, 2022:
Day off to rest my feet and ankles (comes with getting older). Bunch of tech questions, mostly old hat. -- Late evening watching Tesla AI Day live presentation, much on the new Tesla Optimus humanoid robot and state of the art Dojo learning/teaching computer for Full Self Driving (and Optimus robot guidance). Delayed from 7-pm to 9:15-pm, then lasting close to four hours, had to cut it off at 11-pm and replay the rest next day.
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