The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (September 1 - September 15, 2022)
Thursday, September 1, 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 speed. Next stop was NAPA Auto Parts to pick up another spare fuel filter.
Then a mandatory oil and filter change here and now in Winnemucca, Nevada, the 500 mile oil change after the new engine rebuild. Killed an hour in the que waiting for Walmart to tell me they won't do it. Some of them are like that now. The standing excuse is they don't have a torque spec for the oil drain plug, so it's a liability issue. I suppose they got sued once and became gun shy. So off the Pennzoil quick change, but that one was closed for a change of ownership. Just down the street to PDQ Auto Center, and 20 minutes later it's done (and my wallet is $67 lighter just for the service when I supplied the 20W50 oil and Wix oil filter).
Fuel stop and dinner in Wells, NV, haulling tail through the mountains, down to West Wendover., NV (lass gambling town in NV), cross into Utah, fly past Bonneville Salt Flats late night, stop for the night an hour short of Salt Lake City, UT.
Friday, September 2, 2022:
Change of time zone, push the clock up an hour, 60 mile drive for breakfast in Salt Lake City at 9:30-am. Gas up and move on. Early PM lunch in Rock Springs, Wyoming, gas up and move on. Nearly ran out of fuel, bought a gallon 20 milles short of destonation. Quick evening fuel stop in Laramie, WY and move on. Last fuel stop for the day at 10-pm in Sidney, Nebraska. 606 miles today, almost finished.
It was running bad before the Laramie stop, some ignition issue with misfire under load at speed, hard time pulling the hills, and poor fuel economy (16-mpg), which is why we nearly ran dry. Quick solution was to swap out the distributor. Last leg much better with good torque, good cruising speed, better mileage (18-mpg at 75-mph with the trailer).
Saturday, September 3, 2022:
Late last night, about the time we crossed the state line the main odometer turned over all zeros again. I have now put half a million miles on this car since 1986, in addition to the 150K or so that was on it when I bought it in 1977, so make that 650,000 miles for this one.
Cross another time zone this morning, kick the clock forward another hour for Central Daylight Savings Time.
For the past 24 hours the ignition light has been playing up, on or off or glowing at random with no discernible pattern. Charging voltage has been running consistently high 15.6 with lights off
14.6 with parking lights on, 13.6 with headlights on (so we run with lights on). This morning the ignition light was on full bright for a while. Then just before breakfast stop the light went out, and voltage dropped to 12.1. Kill the lights, voltage still at 12.1. Another damn Chinese Lucas alternator failure. A quick check after breakfast. definitely dead, no charging. Swap in another new alternator, and get on our way.
Fuel stops today in Elm Creek, NE, Nebraska City, NE, Concordia, MO, and New Florence MO. I think real close to 700 miles today. Y'know, Tuesday night we were still in Murphys, California, and tonight on the edge of St Louis, MO. After late night dinner, close to 1-am, tightned a squeeking fan belt and replaced the illimination light bulb in the tachometer.
Been using LED "bulbs" from Moss Motors for several years. Nice when they work, just the right brightness, nice bluish green hugh, I like them a lot, when thy work. They used to cost $7, now about $5 each, four required for the four dash instruments. Problm is, aftr sveral years of exprience and lots of night driving, you can bet that the first one will begin to flicker and die within 6 months, and the rest will be soon to follow. Best guess is broken elctrical connections from normal vibration. Nice as they ar, I don't think its worth $40 per year for constant replacements, so I will swear off of these things and go mack to standard lamps that are cheap and last a lot longer.
before sleep. Zzzzzz.
Sunday, September 4, 2022:
Breakfast in Byrns Mill, Missouri, just west of St Louis. 9 AM phone call from our appointment, Ron Cleveland from Prague, OK. He is still 40 miles away, so we have another hour for casual breakfast. And now the reason for all the rush in driving this past week. Ron bought a disassembled MGA project car, and now has the problem of getting it home, from Missouri back to Oklahoma. Ron finally arrived 10:30-ish, and shortly thereafter arrival of the folks selling the car. Then we all caravaned off to see the car and what we might do about it.
First a small trailer load of loose parts, a couple of exhaust pipes on top that do not belong to any MG, and other miscellaneous parts that do. In the garage, all of the outer body panels, windscreen, side curtains, gearbox, side curtains, rear axle (most of it), fuel tank, radiator, you get the idea. And one of the primary ingredient that wasn't all there, parts of the leaf springs.
Reason this was important was we were seriously thinking of getting enough of the suspension installed to make it a 4-wheel roller for purpose of transport. Unfortunately, some parts of the leaf spring pieces and the U-bolts were missing as well as one rear hub bearing and a few other minor bits, so it wasn't going to be a roller today.
We moved outside where the car was recently pulled out of the workshop space and set on wood for retrieval. Right front brake drum reported to be frozen (could deal with that. Left front suspension appears to rebuilt (except missing the bearing hub and brake drum which are available). It is the few missing parts of the rear axle and rear suspension that will keep us from putting it on wheels.
We took a few minutes to check the Car No plate (which looks original), and search for the stamped chassis number on the frame (no luck there).
Then in the workshop we found a very complete set of carburetors, a completely rebuilt cylinder head, and the short bock assembly, complete, well oiled, but not rebuilt yet.
We moved the short block assembly from the shop to the garage where it will be easier to retrieve. We put all of the bulky outer body panels in one place, along with the five wheels, and that's about all we left in the garage.
We picked up most of the smaller parts to pack them into Ron's car, including the gearbox. fuel tank, seat, splash panels and muffler, and lots of smaller parts by the box full. We estimated 25% of the MGA was in Ron's car.
Then we were off to the local McDonald's to discuss options, check out prices for renting a flat bed trailer (not too expensive), and consider what Ron was going to use for a tow vehicle. Then we sent him on his was back to Oklahoma, figuring he was pretty tired and wound need to stop for some sleep along the way.
Navigator and I were hanging out at McD's until 8-pm, after which we were going to move across the Mississippi River to East St Louis, Illinois for another WiFi spot that would be open later. We didn't get very far, maybe ten minutes on, when the shift linkage suddenly went open circuit leaving us in neutral and coasting. GET US OFF THE ROAD, RIGHT NOW! Fortunately we were rolling down off of a bridge, managed a rolling no-stop on red, and coasted into a McDonald's parking lot. How's that for good luck?
Get out a few tools, remove the shift knob, pull out the tunnel center carpet piece, lift out the rubber shift boot, Undo eight screws to remove the tunnel top cover, and four bolts to remove the remote shifter assembly. That didn't take long. And we were lucky again, as it was exactly what I thought it might be, a broken front lever on the remote shift rod. At least we don't have to pull the gearbox out to fix this one. And, TA-DA, I know exactly where the repair part will be. (not in the Magic Trailer this time).
A quick phone call to Ron to see how far down the road he got, which was about 80 miles along and stopped for a nap. Hey Ron, you have the part we need in your car. Stay right there, and we will come to you, take another nap while you wait. Take the 3/8" drive socket extension, turn it upside down and stick it into the secondary shift shaft rear lever to use as an improvised shift lever. Keep in mind the "H" shift pattern is now upside down and backward (rotated 180 degrees) with very short throw, and off we went. Jump on I-44 heading west, scat right long with fast traffic, and 75 minutes later we rendezvous with our friend the the shifter extension assembly we needed.
Not too long to drop the new shifter into place and bolt it down, install the tunnel top cover (8-screws), stuff the rubber shifter boot into place, throw the center carpet section over it, and install the shift knob.
Yeah, but that's not enough for one day. While flying down the expressway the "new" convertible top
we installed just over four years ago decided it was time to virtually explode, blowing out stitching on three sides of the rear window (like a zip-out rear window) and about a third of the stitching on the rear quarter windows. There will be a separate discussion on the declining quality of Moss Motors parts in recent years, but for now get out the Racers Tape and try to stick it back together long enough to order up a new rag top.
Several miles farther west we found a Love's truck stop (24-hour service) for late night sustenance, WiFi, and general cool down for our nerves.
Monday, September 5, 2022:
The rag top is hopeless, all the stitching falling apart after only four years in service. The first one from 1986
lasted 18-yr 191K miles, only retired due to fading and a small tear that was repaired. The second one from 2004 lasted 14-yr 210k-miles, better color fading a lot less, retired due to a few seams leaking (but not broken thread). This third one from 2018 only made it through 4-yr 99k-miles before seams were opening up and all the windows blew out due to sewing thread failure. I suppose the quality went downhill in recent years along with almost everything else that Moss sells. I wonder what they use for thread these days. The top is supposed to be environmental protection, but will dissolve and fall apart when exposed to the environment. Just bite the bullet, write off the $800 to experience, and resolve to buy another new convertible top.
Labor Day holiday in the States, so not ordering a new rag top today. Spent the last half of day transcribing the new CMGC newsletter from Publisher format to HTML page for the club web site.
Tuesday, September 6, 2022:
Still hanging out at a truck stop in Rolla, Missouri. Checking sources (other them Moss) for a new rag top, waiting for a couple of call backs (but none came back). Arranged for a ship-to point in the Chicago area where we will be in a few days. Had a bit of Wild Goose Chase visiting two bank locations that no longer exist. Then spent the rest of the day finishing up the CMGC newsletter transcribing and uploading to the club web site.
Wednesday, September 7, 2022:
Ran back east to Eureka, Missouri this morning, visiting a bank ATM first, then getting the latest failed alternator tested at an O'Reilly Auto Parts store. Of course it failed miserably, multiple failures in the regulator and warning light control circuits (always the junk electronics pack). They can have another one delivered by tomorrow morning, and we will still be here, so this time order up the warranty replacement from O'Reilly.
Placed an order with McMaster-Carr for small copper tubing to repair temperature gauges (because I couldn't find the pieces I should have in inventory). Ship tp friend in Illinois.
Put together a (tentative) 20+ item parts order, and call S/F again. Got an answer this time (very busy there), checked inventory and picked oiut one available convertible top. This one will be tan Everflex (factory style leather pattern vinyl with heat sealed windows). Then put my parts order into spread sheet format and send it via email. Hoping for shipping by Friday.
Thursday, September 8, 2022:
Email dated one minute past midnight EST stating S/F order is packed ready to ship, just waiting approval for a few parts price changes. All good, press the buttons, charge it and push it out the door (Thursday). Likely to arrive at friend's place in western suburbs of Chicago around Tuesday.
Email dated four minutes past midnight CST stating McMaster-Carr has shipped the copper tubing. Expect to arrive tomorrow (Friday), same friend's place in Illinois. All good news.
Marginally bad news, I called O'Reilly to confirm delivery of the new alternator, about to go pick it up, but then they called back to say it wasn't there and couldn't be there before Saturday. No-go, won't be here then, so cancell it and I will do the exchange when we get to the Chicago area.
Still trying to help our friend Ron get the project MGA moved. His tow vehicle blew the clutch yesterday on the way to pick up the flat bed trailer, so another change of plans. Today he is heading back this way in his car (by late night). Plan now is to borrow the seller's small utility trailer, which I can tow with my MGA, to move the rest of the loose parts (Engine, rear axle, wheels and body panels) to a local storage locker. That will leave only the non-roller chassis with center body shell, which has other plans to be moved about a week later.
Friday, September 9, 2022:
This started on a bad foot, as the small trailer pictured above was not in good enough condition to be road worthy. That left us searching trailer rental businesses in the morning with no good luck, none available. A call was placed to the vehicle seller for the bad news, when the seller referred us to the new owner of the property, who by coincidence just happened to have a small trailer that he called a "golf cart trailer". Not only that, but he also volunteered to tow the trailer and drive to and from the storage locker. Is that bling ass lucky or what? Well, he did have a bit of incentive. Apparently if we didn't take this stuff away, he was going to have to figure out how to dispose of it.
We shoved a bunch of stuff in Ron's car again, like five wheels with tires, the rear axle assembly, leaf springs,bumpers, and a lot of smaller stuff. In the end, the only things left for the trailer to take to the storage locker (today) were the engine short block assembly and eight external body panels. Not too long to load this stuff and get it tied down, and 30 miles down the road we had it all unloaded and storage buttoned up.
Then we coaxed Ron off to a local WiFi spot for late lunch and to make a list of parts he would need to assemble enough of the suspension to get four wheels on the chassis to make it trailerable. By 8-pm he could start heading back to Oklahoma while we could head on to Illinois. The new property owner was friendly and helpful and amenable enough to allowing the MGA chassis and body to sit on the property a few weeks longer as needed. So the new plan is for Ron to order the parts required to make the project car into a "roller", and while waiting for parts delivery he will work on getting one of his tow vehicles road worthy again. Then he will rent a flat bed trailer, come back to Missouri, put minimal suspension on the chassis to load it on the trailer for the trip to Oklahoma. And in the same trip, get the engine and body panels into the tow vehicle, and close out the storage locker contract. What had begun as a tough day came out fairly well in the end.
Saturday, September 10, 2022:
Mostly a travel day, starting north of St Louis on I-55 in Illinois, heading for western suburbs of Chicago. Not a rush today, time to process photos and notes from day before, arriving Wheaton, IL a bit after sun down.
Sunday, September 11, 2022:
British Car Festival today in Palatine, Illinois. There was an email message sent out yesterday warning of impending rain for most of the day, especially during hours of the car show. I suppose that scared away a lot of people and show cars. I think there were four contracted food vendors, and they were all no-shows. Not a harsh downpour, just normal kind of rain pretty much all day. Hard to blame people for staying away. I think much of the "fog' in these pictures is due to fogging of the camera lens, not so much heavy rain. I had to keep wiping the lens to get auto-focus to work.
Gotta start somewhere, and this is the beginning of the MG aisle. In the first picture there is one MG TF on the left, and one MG YB saloon on the right. Half way up on the right is my MGA along with two more. From the other end some MGB are visible. Not sure what the Spitfire was doing in this line, except I think it was traveling with two MG next to it. Three MG Midgets staged at the far end of the second aisle.
Rover 3500, Jowett Jupiter and a Triumph Herald
Nash Metropolitan, Ford Cosworth Twin Cam, TVR 280I.
Lots of Land Rovers seem to like this weather. The Rolls Royce contingent, a good showing of Lotus.
Aston Martin, very nice Sunbeam Talbot 90 MK 2A, plenthy of Triumph.
Bunch of Minis, old and new, three Morris Minor, plenty of Jaguar old and new.
Two big Healeys on display from Sport Specialty. The one in the trailer was an immaculate AH 100.
Find more photos and note for the 2022 British car Festival in the Supplimental pages.
Play time over, time to go. We are commonly the last to leave, as there is often one car not wanting to start to go home. Sure enough Dino Perez' MGB was stumped. It wanted to start, but would run maybe 10 seconds and die with no spark, over and over again. Bypassing the ignition switch with a jumper wire made no difference. Give it up and admit the Pertronics unit is dead.
No problem, just pull a spare distributor out of the Magic Trailer, pop that in there and follow him home to Lake In The Woods. Last picture is Dino's spare Rover 4.2 V8, and I have no idea what he intends to use it for. We ordered up some Pizza and had a nice chat for a few hours more, Bailed out of there at 8-pm (still raining).
Monday, September 12, 2022:
Kind of a recovery day after the rainy car show and the MGB rescue. Took time to post the car show photos and notes, catch up BBS and email, answer a few tech questions. Also posted a tech page update on gearbox durability, now that we finally have properly hardened layshaft and full compliment needle bearings, as original.
Good news is, my new convertible top has been delivered, so now I just need to arrange for a little work space where I can plug in my electric stapler for a couple hours.
Tuesday, September 13, 2022:
Borrowed garage space from Tom Raddatz in Lagrange Highlands, IL for the new convertible top install. Took longer than expected this time, like five hours instead of three. I have done several canvas tops before and one vinyl top from J.C.Whitney in 1969, but this is my first round with an Everflex vinyl top. First move was to disconnect the old top at rear, slide the steel connector bar into the new top, hook it up and toss the new fabric over the top to verify that it would be long enough in front. It was.
Then proceed to remove four screws and pull out a few hundred staples to remove the old top fabric. Wrapping the front bow is always a bit of a pain. The front hanging flap goes below the wood bow to get pulled rearward against the windscreen top chrome rail. Staple the shorter flap up the front first, then pull the longer flap up in back, forward over the top, and staple it also in front (so no staples will be visible inside the car). The tricky bit is folding the fabric at the ends like wrapping a sandwich so there are not too many overlap layers.
Most of it went as planned. There was plenty of fabric in front to pull and staple, no problem there. But the side flaps upward curvature at front were at least two inches (maybe three) too far forward, so that required some creative sectioning reforming and staples in odd places. Having done a few well documented tech sessions before we were not taking many pictures this time around. As it was getting into late night we left the Hidem strip in front for another day.
Wednesday, September 14, 2022:
Back to "Tommy's Garage" again for the weekly Wednesday Night Garage Club meeting and tinkering session. This one is bit special as every second month they play host to the Chicagoland MG Club monthly Natter 'n' Noggin. We were intentionally a bit early at 5:30pm but there were already a few cars before us. More cars later. If it looks like a few empty spaces, that's because they come and go, and a few had already left. I counted 12 visiting cars at one time, not including the two trucks at either side of the picture. Mostly MGs, the '65 Mustang is Tom's car. One newcomer to the group with a recently acquired MGA 1500.
No shortage of muscle engines here. V8 conversion on left, V6 conversion in the middle, and a mostly original MGC straight six on the right.
We were soon into barbecue time, and raiding the fridge. The star attraction this time was Tom's most recent MGB restomod project, waiting for the new V6 engine and 5-speed gearbox.
Coil-over shocks and 4-link rear suspension with an MGC Salisbury rear axle (5-lug wheels). Coil-over front suspension with large Wilwood disc brakes and a new steering rack (right hand drive?). The plastic box in the vice is the cover for the electronic engine control. A bit of cutting, a little buffing, nearly ready to paint.
New universal wiring harness with fuse and circuit breaker box on the floor, engine control in hand. Now if we can just figure our where to put these things in the small car. With 43 years of electronic engine controls since 1981 you might think they could make them smaller by now. There is a good chance that both the engine control and fuse box may end up in the boot.
And we had Tom's ongoing MGA project. I think this is the one that used to have a supercharger installed but he didn't like the way it drove, so now converting it back to dual carburetors, nearly finished. These are MGB HS4 carbs so the cable linkages are different than original MGA parts. The choke cable is in an awkward position on the rear carb, not well anchored on the outer jacket. It wants to come in from the bottom between the air cleaners. The MGB style center wire anchor and throttle arm are already there, but missing the trunnion fitting to attach the moving outer cable jacket to the throttle arm.
Not a problem. In a few minutes the Magic Trailer offers up the correct cable anchor/trunnion with hardware.
Okay, how many people have three car lifts in their home garage? Two in the back are drive-on 4-posters good for work and for double stacking cars. The one in front is a single post frame lift, and it is mobile. It can roll around the garage floor with a car on it, very handy.
As things were winding down and most people had left, we were discussing delivering a Jaguar V12 engine to Maryland next week, and attending MGs On The Rocks in Maryland on the 24th, and some undisclosed hanky-panky for this Saturday. Past 11-pm (again), time to get some sleep.
Thursday, September 15, 2022:
Posted yesterday's photos and notes, and sent copies of the pictures to the garage site host. A call from friend in Oklahoma with the MGA project car killed a couple hours. Updating the Magic Trailer for the recent parts order received wiped away more time. A few odd tech questions and BBS review. My computer keyboard locked up 3 or 4 times requiring a power kill and slow reboot. I finally pulled the thin keyboard out of the computer for cleaning and re-connection of the flat cable ZIF connector, which so far seems to have fixed it (maybe). And then the whole day was gone with no personal time. Good night all.
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