The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (September 1 - September 15, 2021)
Wednesday, September 1, 2021:
Welcome to September, and welcome to Mansfield, Ohio. Nice surprise this morning when a '55 T-bird rolled in, and I had to snatch a picture and chat with the owner. He got his first T-bird in the late 60's, about the same time I got my first MGA.
 Got a lead on a chrome plating shop with a good recommendation, New England Chrome Plating in East Hartford, CT. Had to add that one to the Shops list.
Added some photos and notes to a tech page for the MG EX181 land speed record car showing the huge tail find that was deleted during testing, and a little human interest story about Phi Hill.
Thursday, September 2, 2021:
Slow day. Some discussion on MGA seat base perforated metal basket in the seat base, and can you buy one by itself? I know it's easy enough to make your own, but do tell if you know a source for that stand alone part.
Some discussion on converting a mechanical tachometer to electronic by moving the guts of a later MGB tach into the housing of an MGA or early MGB tach, and using the earlier face plate and needle. I thought the face plate screw holes were in different location, but someone said they did it with a tach from a different vehicle where the holes did line up. Details pending.
CMGC web site committee meting cancelled (again). No wonder they make no progress.
Friday, September 3, 2021:
Second full day in Ohio (with no rain). No pressing appointments, so just enjoying the nice weather.
A bit of research to verify that all MGA (except Twin Cam) and all MGB use the same clutch slave cylinder and clutch supply pipe and hose (no change of pipe length or flares or threads). I can do such things when I have time to kill.
Still discussing one guy's tachometer conversion, as I suspect he has converted an early face style tach when he likely has a later production car.
Our last WiFi spot in Van Wert, Ohio closed at 8-pm, still some dayllight here, so we headed west again. Ran most of the way across Indiana in a couple hours, into Central Time zone to get an hour back, landing in Merrillville, Indiana late night.
Saturday, September 4, 2021:
Some questions on MGA bonnet alignment, and effects of flywheel lightening. Our WiFi spot in Merrillville closed up shop at 2-pm (we think it was a city regulation). So we headed out again and landed in Wheaton, Illinois around 5-pm.
Sunday, September 5, 2021:
Little stuff here, posting some pictures of an accessory core plug heater to clarify the toggle type securing nut that fits inside the cooling jacket.
Prior discussion on tachometer conversion changed to identifying a bitsa car, as the guy realizes he may have a mismatch of numbers for Chassis Number, Car Number, and Body Number, and perhaps a non-original Car No plate.
The publisher file for CMGC September newsletter arrived late afternoon, so I jumped on that and got half of it transcribed for the web site by late night.
Monday, September 6, 2021:
Much of the day sucked up transcribing the second half of CMGC newsletter and getting it on line. Then more time updating the club web site to link reports from past events, and add/change some dates for future events. Then catching up part of two day backlog of email and BBS messages.
Tuesday, September 7, 2021:
Some off-line discussion about lead acid batteries, and the possibility of overcharging while running a generator with out-of-adjustment regulator. Not going to happen, as it would burn out the 20-amp generator from over-current before harming the battery.
Wednesday, September 8, 2021:
Good start for the day. Someone found a source for 4-inch air duct hose for the heater air inlet made of a polymer material with wire reinforcement that will not crush and collapse when bumped (as often happens when adjusting the distributor). This is commonly used for pipe organs, vacuum cleaners, pneumatic transfer of bulk materias, and lots of other things. Had to add this to an existing tech page on heater hose installation.
Some time ago someone had a source for higher temperature rubber flex hose originally used as air bypass in a jet engine, recommended now for use in the MGA Twin Cam (or a standard MGA converted to cross-flow cylinder head) where the heater inlet hose is on the other side of the engine and passes above the hot exhaust manifold.
Took a shot at Wednesday Night Garage Club in Lagrange Highlands, IL tonight. Three months since we were last here. First up was an MGB on a spit, looks like a fairly fresh repaint, with some under floor work going on to remove undercoating it preparation for painting all under.
Another active job inside was removing a supercharger from an MGA, as the owner didn't like the way it drove and had sold the supercharger. I picked up right away that the flat belt was one groove forward on the water pump pulley, because the flat back idler pulley was slightly cocked.
Thee was a very nice easy-adjust belt tightener below the alternator pulley. Wish I had one of those on my MGA. Nice asymmetrical plastic fan as well.
The second car outside was another MGA with louvered bonnet, sans engine, with a notable bow-legged stance (sporting negative camber lower A-arms). Tentative plans for this one may be to slit it right down the center line to widen the whole car by 8-inches? Trying to make a 3-passenger vehicle? No, but idea is to to install a Jaguar V12 engine. Likely have to stretch the wheelbase as well. I have seen an MGA widened 5-inches before, 2-1/2" on each side of the front cowling, but 8-inches may be a bit much. Time will tell.
Tom Raddatz was showing off his new "Tommy's Garage" lighted sign, which changes to a few different colors. After the pizza it was closing time, so stash the two MGAs on the hoists, and get the B on the spit inside. One last look outside at another MGB on a trailer, just arrived. Pretty sure this one is going to be disassembled for parts.
Thursday, September 9, 2021:
Someone sent me photos and notes about a light duty trailer hitch he built for his MGA about 30 years ago, and which he still has in his possession. This looks like a reasonably decent solution for a small luggage trailer, but perhaps it should bear a caution label specifying the very light towing capacity (maybe 300 to 500 pounds max). Anyway it spawned a new tech page, just in case anyone might ever have a yen to build another one or something similar.
Friday, September 10, 2021:
No rest for the weary, even on a day off. Got a report (not the first) on a Moss Motors fuel tank with filler pipe in the wrong location. Three years by now, and no immediate fix in site, so I recon I need to post this one in the Faulty Replacement Parts list.
Tech questions about MGA Twin Cam clutch pressure plate and friction disk, and can we substitute a standard MGA or MGB clutch. This is sucking up some research time, and will ultimately generate another tech page.
Another question about a car that dies when turning a corner at speed. Not determined yet, but should be an interesting investigation.
And some discouraging news about the aftermarket ADDCO front sway bar for MGA. Still available and still functional, but quality of the fittings is slipping, so now it requires some additional fettling to get it installed. If I get some pictures, that may also make another new tech page.
Saturday, September 11, 2021:
By day's end it as agreed that we needed a new tech page for the faulty fuel tank with misaligned filler neck, because it has been hanging around for more than three years, hasn't changed, and Moss Motors seems to intend to keep on selling the known faulty parts (likely until they deplete inventory). That's grounds for crucifying them in public, putting the pressure on to see if we can change their attitude. How else would we ever hope to get good parts?
Sunday, September 12, 2021:
BCU British Car Festival today at Harper College in Palatine, IL. I have lots of pictures to post, so give that a day or two and check back. Thanks to Duke B "DukeThe Snook" in Glencoe, IL (from the MG Experience forum) for these first pictures. The BCU organizers say 416 cars registered by about 10-am, and maybe 15 or so more a bit later, so something around 430 cars registered (except there may have been some no-shows). Lots of old friends and some new ones to chat with, all good.
A little overcast early, full sun and hot mid day when I was taking pictures, had to sit down out of the sun a couple times. Maybe I'm just getting more feeble as I get older, but I'm not submitting to disability yet. Hell, since my first MGA I've been 19 for 53 years so no reason to quit yet. Been to most of the BCU festivals since #1 in 1987. Only missed two years when we were touring in Canada in 2017, 2018, and of course 2020 which was cancelled. By coincidence, I was wearing the 2019 T-shirt, picked up 2021 today and another spare from 2018. I go through a lot of T-shirts. Also renewed the Moss sticker on the RF wing.
A number of common vendors were notably absent, and I think only one or two food vendors, who were running out of bottled water and ice cream. The problem came from late decisions by the venue on what would be allowed on the premises In the end it turned out okay, just that the vendors didn't have enough time to react, and may have made commitments elsewhere. Looking forward to more cars and more vendors next year as the "environment" hopefully improves.
Monday, September 13, 2021:
Destined to spend a good part of the day posting up photos from yesterday's Brit Car Fest.
A BBS discussion prompted me to compose a new Part Numbers page for AHH5179 Piping for the MGA grille. Made a drawing for that part to list dimensions of the width and beading sizes as original and from various aftermarket sources. Time consuming, but useful.
When we last had new tires installed a few years ago the shop screwed it up by leaving the old tape weights and dirt inside the wheels, and putting new tap-on weights on the rims. Rim weights do not hold well on our thin spin-formed aluminum rims, so as the rim weights got tossed off one by one the wheels were getting farther and farther out of balance. I might tolerate the nasty shaking in the steering wheel at road speed, and maybe funny wear on the tires, but I really don't like the damage it can do to the front suspension and steering gear.
So we finally took some time out in mid day to get the car wheels balanced. Nice friendly older guy for a tech this time, likes old cars and took time to pull out all the old tape weights and clean inside the wheels with mineral spirits. Got it as a freebie too, as it was covered under Lifetime Balancing that we were "forced" to pay for with the tire installation. Well, it was $9 per wheel ($36 plus tax), which was reasonable I suppose even if it wasn't life warranty`. The new bill that was just washed out would have been $56, adjusted to zero, so that was nice.
Immediately after wheel balancing, while hooking up the trailer, the turn signals and 4-way flashers were not working. We had this problem once before, and while fiddling with the wiring harness around the fuse block and flasher unit navigator thought he saw smoke escaping. Lots of poking around with a test light then revealed a dirty fuse connector limiting current to the bright corner lights, and cleaning the fuse contacts seemed to fix it. But not now. This time I needed nearly half an hour of diagnostics to find something I thought would never happen. We had an open circuit somewhere within the harness on the one continuous wire between the flasher output and the turn signal relay flasher input. So it seems navigator was right, and we had let some smoke out of the wiring harness. Rigging by-pass jumper wire from flasher unit to turn signal relay got it working again.
We have a John Twist UML on-line tech chat tonight, and I seem to have missed the last one while working on my car a couple weeks ago, so I really want to visit this one. Yesterday I was informed that the CMGC web site committee changed their meeting from Thursday to Monday, now making that a conflict with the UML Tech meeting. I warned them about that a few times already, so they may have to get on without me this time.
Tuesday, September 14, 2021:
Half the day spent catching up email and BBS forums (chatty bunch today). Got to process and upload nearly 90 photos from the Brit Car Fest on Sunday, but not enough time to shuffle and sort and add comments. More work tomorrow.
Wednesday, September 15, 2021:
After morning email I got cracking on the new web page for the British Car Festival photos, and got that done by early afternoon, something like 84 photos and notes. Glad I don't do that too often, but jolly entertaining. See http://MGAguru.com/tales/bcu2021.htm.
Then off to "Tommy's Garage" in Lagrange Highlands, IL by 6-pm for "Wednesday Night Garage Club. The first picture is an interesting new acquisition, not what it appears to be. What that thing on the trailer really is, is a $500 V6 engine with 5-speed gearbox, propshaft and rear axle. Only by coincidence it happens to have the rest of a Camaro included for free. The MGA shown here is the one we saw last week that was being considered for a Jaguar V12 engine transplant by stretching the body "six ways from Suinday". When the Camaro became available for cheap, I think Tom settled back down closer to reality.
We had hours of discussion in best way to cut the MGA body and frame down the middle to widen it as much as 8-inches (wow). Going that wide we may not even need to narrow the replacement rear axle, and it should be a cinch to fit the exhaust manifolds (or headers) into the engine bay without modifying the frame side braces or body inner fenders. The resulting 8-inch wider bonnet should make engine bay service much easier. Also cut the rear body tonneau back to the rear bulkhead to create a 2+2 body capacity. You can have a wider tunnel, slightly more roomy footwell space, and slightly wider seats as well. Anyone want to try photoshopping an MGA 2+2 being 8-inches wider than normal?
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