The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (April 1 - April 15, 2021)
Thursday April 1, 2021:
Updated Part No. page for rear brake cylinder banjo bolt. Added two new Part No. pages for rear brake banjo fittings. Added pictures to the starter ring gear installation tech page. Long discussion on why NOT to reverse the ring gear when installing a gear reduction starter.
Friday April 2, 2021:
Okay, Tech Central day, so lets see what the guys are up to now. A little more progress on the MG ZB Magnette Overdrive and 1800 engine conversion. After some fiddling with a tach welded engine mount, it's still not the right shape. Looks like more waiting for the modified propshaft to come back for better alignment before the rear mount can be finished. These are late model MGB parts with the larger flywheel, bellhousing, and pre-engage starter. Engine mounts have been shimmed up some for the oil pan to clear the cross member. Now the solenoid on the side of the starter motor hits the frame. It is possible that a Marina starter with solenoid up top might fit, but those are rather rare these days. More likely to go with a modern gear reduction starter that would be much smaller.
The MGB wanna be race car is getting patches to close speaker holes in the rear bulkhead. Good for pictures of Cleco fasteners (temporary rivets) used to hold the sheet metal parts in place while drilling holes and getting the real rivets installed.
The Excalibur kit car is getting some chassis top covers and battery carrier installed.
Rusty Midget #2 is still getting pieced together enough to get it back on the road. It has had a rough life, punched out, twisted, half straightened, re-welded, and now getting extra sheet metal below the passenger side floor to keep the seat from falling through.
I had to chuckle at the chain used as substitute for the left rear rebound strap. The front spring bracket on left side was upside down, making the body too high and leaning to the right. When the bracket was turned right side up to lower the left side of the car some, it was still way too high. No time today to figure this out, but the underbody twist up front must be pretty bad.
Ah, the green door is getting installed today. Looks like they got it right on the first try with good alignment, easy close and latch and re-open. Nice custom made hinge alignment tool. I don't know how it works.
Nice start on rubbing out the paint on the green MGB with cutting compound and power buffer. It really wants a repaint sometime, but if it rubs out okay the new paint may come a lot later.
 The rusty Midget is out of the shop and running, getting oil into the gearbox. The gearbox oil filler port is on left side of the tunnel for this model. Kind of a pain, but a motorized oil pump makes the job easier. Clutch hydraulics still has some air and not working yet, but that will wait for another day.
Saturday April 3, 2021:
Catching up photos and notes for the day before. Added some pictures to a tech page for restoring the horn button on the MGA dash.
Sunday April 4, 2021:
Happy Easter. Take the day off. I hate holidays. They closed my WiFi spot in mid afternoon.
Monday April 5, 2021:
An odd request. Someone with an MG TC carrying and Austin B-series 5-main bearing engine was asking for dimensions and cross reference part numbers for the rubber rear seal and matching Speedi-Sleeve. So naturally I spent three hours searching the internet for the information. This implies I will then make a new tech page, because someone with an MGA may eventually have use for this information.
Just received the CMGC April newsletter Publisher file, so that should kill the rest of day transcribing it the club web site, but didn't get to it at all. Spent some time discussing lack of current events information for maintaining the CMGC club web site.
Tuesday April 6, 2021:
Added some pictures to a tech page for seat belt anchors. Answering a request for informtion on mechanical brake light switches and retrofit to an MGA. Rest of the day spent transcriping the Publisher file for the CMGC newsletter to web pages for the club web site (nearly done).
Wednesday April 7, 2021:
CMGC newsletter uploaded, and the membership roster updated. Several CMGC 2020 business reports from the Annual meeting in February also uploaded (for members only). Now catching up with BBS and email. Another club web site committee meeting tonight. Seems like their attention span is 90 minutes max, talk about cosmetics and personal preferences and how to spend money for someone to revamp the front pages, and more money for much larger monthly fees to a second hosting service. Then close the meeting and schedule another one. Not that nothing is getting done, just that it will take forever the current pace.
Thursday April 8, 2021:
Not much happening. A question about spin-on oil filters, engine pulling, tunnel modification for high starter conversion, and short nose water pump for 1800 engine in MGA.
Been experiencing intermittent engine cut-outs for 1 to 3 seconds at a time, getting more frequent recently. A few days ago it conked out while waiting for a traffic light (after dark), but just a quick poke under the bonnet got it going again. Beginning to expect it is related to vacuum advance at low throttle settings. If it gets worse, we may figure it out the hard way, after the engine quits.
Friday April 9, 2021:
Tech day again back at Tech Central. Traffic a bit heavier, a few more people then normal today. Start with the TR6 with oil leaks at the valve cover gasket and timing cover seal. A bit irritating that it throws some oil on the bonnet, but otherwise oil is cheap, so it probably won't get fixed any time soon.
There was a white MGB that just came in on a trailer, not running for a few years. With battery charged it would
click but not crank. A new cube relay on the inner fender got it cranking, but then no fuel delivery. Power on the wire to the pump when disconnected, but dead when connected. Pull the cover to sand the points, but still no go. Remove the pump from the car and test with jumper wires, but still no go. Barely audible "tunk" with power connection, but no movement of the armature. Probably not worth the attempt and cost to rebuild it, so time to order new pump. Chore for next week, along with draining the stale fuel.
The MGB wanna be race car was getting a few more hole closure patches, and pedal box disassembly.
Bunch of good used parts available, so pick the best of three pedal boxes for sand blast and repaint.
Number 2 rusty Midget now runs and drives, and has some double layered sheet metal to patch the floors well enough to get it back on the road. Now getting some seal sealer to cover the last of the small gaps before under coating. Trying not to spend too much time or money on this one.
The MG ZB Varitone with new 1800 and OD gets the new propshaft today. That first came back 2-1/2 inches too long, because the shop was measuring between spider bearings rather than across flanges, but now corrected and installed after the third shop visit. Now on to getting the gearbox into correct alignment, in preparation for welding the removable rear cross mount (again). That may have been done by end of day.
Now remember two race cars, so you can drive one and fix one during racing season. Get the good one out of the shop and into the trailer, while moving the broken one out of the trailer into the shop. Nothing too serious this time, just need to build a better throttle cable bracket so it can finish a race.
The green MGB with rebuilt door and new paint on door and lower front wing is now getting work on upper front wing. I swear this one will end up with a full repaint before they stop tinkering.
The Excalibur kit car now has auto-trans cooling pipes hooked up. Radiator is being relocated just a bit, one more time. Brake pipes all connected, beginning wiring. Contemplating removing original mechanical fuel pump, because it is getting an electric fuel pump (personal preference I guess).
On the way out, our MGA ignition finally crapped out. I was playing with light throttle while cruising casually around 45-50 mph, figuring out where the "sweet spot" was when it just died, and we found a safe spot in a right turn lane (flashers on please). I pulled the distributor out, absolutely knowing it was a disconnect or shorting to ground
of the flex wires when the vacuum advance plate would move. I dug out a picture from a year ago January when I was installing this thing, and I thought then that it might make for some problems.
The issue is the strange wire connection arrangement where the green wires for power in and condenser connect to the spring arm for the points. The spring arm has a friction hook on the end lightly pinching the wire terminal. The arm also slides quite easily in the plastic isolator bushing. When the vacuum advance moves, the spring arm pulls a bit on the input power wire, making the spring arm slide in the nylon sleeve, and maybe the spring arm was grounding out on the housing. I pulled a little more of the green wire through the rubber bushing to make a longer flex loop. Not sure yet, but kind of expecting it to happen again.
Okay, time to send my original distributor off for rebuild so I can get that one back in the car, and maybe keep the cheap 45D knock-off for an emergency spare. Slight diversion in the evening to order up the renewal for the trailer registration (license plate sticker.
Saturday April 10, 2021:
Very quiet day. Got bored and started answering questions about MGB dash instrument failures, MGA Twin Cam tail pipe hanger, and location of MGA firewall grommets (already well defined).
Sunday April 11, 2021:
Bunch of work on the CMGC club web site, remodeling the front pages to suite someone's personal fashion whims. Sad part of the day was to delete the web page for Local Cruise Nights and Car Shows, because the club no longer encourages members to present their cars in public. This required editing about 100 other pages to delete a link pointing to the page that is no longer there. Sign of the times, and one of the reasons the club has been shrinking in recent years as they become more introverted and less diverse.
Monday April 12, 2021:
Spent much of the day doing links check and fixing broken links on the CMGC web site, mostly the list of USA and Canadian car clubs. This is another feature of the club web site that has been neglected in recent years, deemed not essential for this club, and likely to be abandoned soon. Evening Zoom meeting with the CMGC web site committee. I don't remember anything constructive being accomplished, but they seem determined to investigate spending money with some outside service for somehow remodeling the front end pages, paying monthly fees for routine maintenance, and "archiving" most of the existing web site. I suspect that means 23 years of development work and thousands of web pages may be buried and never seen again, along with most of the history of the club.
Tuesday April 13, 2021:
Added Parts Index pages for AFH1704 and AFH1705 - Splash plates behind rear wheels. Already had a tech page with drawings to fabricate these parts, but someone was asking again. Easier to find now with factory part numbers attached.
Someone found a very strange misbehaving link on one of my tech pages going off-site to a picture nested on the Angelfire (now owned by Lycos) server. If the link address is copied and pasted into the address bar of a browser, it works. If the exact same address is used as a hyperlink connected to an image or text line on a web page, then when clicked on it forwards to a different place on the Angelfire/Lycos server. Very strange coding problem with the Angelfire server, nothing I can control from my end. The expedient solution was to snatch the picture and post it directly on my own web site, which in this case is okay, because the picture belongs to a friend who will approve.
Wednesday April 14, 2021:
Added a couple of pictures to a Carburetor Tech page to show the difference between the banjo bolt used on early carbs and the banjo stud used on later carbs. This makes it obvious that the float chamber is mounted lower on the later cars, which is likely the primary reason why they use different fuel metering needles.
Another CMGC web site committee meeting this evening. Another guest, a webmaster from another club using Wild Apricot to manage their web server. The graphics look good, and this guy says it's easy, but of course he has been working with it for a year to get the hang of it, so we might consider how tricky it might be to even find a replacement webmaster under those circumstances. So far no resolution on the actual cost (monthly service fees forever), and no idea how they might migrate all of the existing web site data to the new server, or if we end up paying for two server accounts to avoid moving the data. It was real easy to chat for an hour and not mention one word about how to improve the club or the club web site, or how to stop the incessant shrinkage of membership numbers. So far this new idea seems to be all about how to pay some third party to manage our club, to offload the always voluntary grunt work by taxing the membership to pay for it. Interesting what happens when expenses increase as member count decreases. Management doesn't get it yet. Meanwhile, kill another two weeks doing nothing before the next committee meeting.
Thursday April 15, 2021:
A little discusson about oil supply to the rocker arm asssembly, and why it might fail. Another question about an engine with good compression, but oiling up one cylinder and spark plug overnight..
Otherwise still depressed after last night's committee meeting.
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