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Duncan MacFarlane with a "rattly" MGA

hours are irregular. Later evening we connected with Duncan MacFarlane in Calgary, BC. His MGA 1600 was running a little rough, and rattling rather loudly. Valve lash was between 1 to 1-1/2 turns for each valve, 4 to 6 times the specification, or in the range of 0.060-0.090-inch clearance (wow)! We wound them all down to 0.015, put oil in the dashpot dampers and adjusted the carbs, and it runs like a top. A small rumble at front of engine traced to slightly loose bearings in the water pump, so put one of those on order.

Next day (Saturday Sep 23) we were off a few hours farther down Canada 1 to visit Andy Henderson of Vintage British Cables in Medicine Hat, AB. He is assembling cables for speedometer and tachometer drive, and may be able to provide copies of nearly any drive cable ever made, including gray jacket cables original for MGA.

Chronometric speedometer, the works inside

I had a nice primer course on function of chronometric instruments. Andy has recently ceased working on Jaeger and Smiths automobile instruments, but does still rebuild motorcycle instruments. In the evening we had time to adjust the brakes on my MGA and tend to a low tire (slow leaking at a plug I had installed several weeks earlier). Another four hours up the road we stopped in Moose Jaw, SK in the small hours of the morning.

Sunday Sep 24, we were in Regina, Saskatchewan for a breakfast meeting with Jagnutz - Alphabits - MGnits club (pretty much what it sounds like), lots of British cars including several MGs. We had a dozen people, lots of interesting chat, and some tire kicking in the car park.

Gary Michael and friends in Regina, SK

Next day we had an afternoon appointment with Gary Michael in Regina, SK. He has an early 1959 MGA and a couple of two-wheel toys, and couple more friends (local club members) dropped in to chat. One of them has a 1975 MGB that had been chromed and lowered, duck-tail spoiler, interesting arrangement of cross flow head, dual Weber DCOE40 carbs, cold air intake, K&N air filter, tubular extractors, and aluminum radiator.

Tuesday Sep 26, we had a morning appointment with Wayne Chater in White City (just east of Regina). He has two MGA (with some rust and peeling paint), one 1500 fairly solid, the other is a Twin Cam with pushrod engine, and structurally pretty bad. Some discussion ensued about possibly transferring most of the

New tires, brake adjustment, and a few sloppy roads

Twin Cam specific parts to the 1500 car, a rather heavy undertaking maybe not be worth the effort. But the Twin Cam may be good for restoration (if you were a glutton for punishment). We spent some time trying to disassemble an MGA steering column that was very well stuck. Then we had an early afternoon appointment with Rafe O'Connor in Regina. He had a 1967 MGB with carburetor problems, running much too lean on both carbs, but a little mixture adjustment and air flow balancing got it running well. The electric tach was not working after change to negative earth, due to a couple missing induction parts on the back of the tach. Sitting late night (and part of the next day) I finally got caught up with five days backlog of photos and notes.

Until next time, follow our follies at http://MGAguru.com/mobile

~~ Barney and Elliot Gaylord