The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (July 16 - July 31, 2023, 2023)
Sunday, July 16, 2023:
McHenry, Illinois, we have an appointment, supposed to revive an MGA that has been parked in a garage for at least four years. Common and usually straight forward chore, mostly grunt work, but we'll see.
 On arrival we get to ask some pertinent questions. The lady's husband ran a tire shop, and the MGA was parked there for many years. he wouldn't let her drive it, but it did get out for some pleasure cruising occasionally. Husband deceased four years ago, then the shop was closed, and the MGA came to the home garage along with a lot of tools and other stuff from the shop. Tools along the side and back walls, while the car was surrounded (obstructed) by "stuff". In the last couple of years lady has been disposing of "stuff", now freed from captivity, so now time to get it running so it can be sold.
Still some air in the tires, so we pushed it out, verified the engine will turn, and pushed it back in closer to center with space to work around it. Not wanting to use the parking brake, in case it might stick, so check that out later. Very dead battery, almost no water in it, so top up the water, and put it on a charger for a while. Scratch and sniff time. License tags expired 8-1/2 years ago, probably not driven much since then. It may have been running when brought to home garage four years ago, possibly had fresh or at least serviceable fuel in it then.
The battery could not be revived with a charger, so lady was off to the store to trade old for new battery. Meanwhile we jacked it up to drain the stale fuel. About 5 gallons of fairly clean fluid, but it smelled like turpentine, so had to go. The tank was nice and clean inside, no rust, and no sediment in the drain fluid. Installed a few gallons of fresh fuel, and got it off the jacks. We installed a new ignition switch, which lady provided, only because she had lost the keys. Good timing, lady was back with a new battery, not long to get that installed.
Battery is connected Positive Earth, as it was before we started. Switch on, and there is clock display on the electronic radio, so I recon we got it right, and the radio itself is happy with positive earth. While installing the switch we notice a few oddities behind the dash. A board attached to two dash braces seems to have no purpose other than to support cables and loose hanging wires. That should go away sometime, but right now it is obstructing hand access, difficult for wrenching, so maybe it will stay a while longer.
Lots of stray wires there, mostly connected to ignition switch output White wires, but mostly not white. One wire had an in-line fuse, probably for the radio. One definitely undersize wire went to a cigar lighter in a rather exotic stainless steel bracket. Another metal bracket held a toggle switch, not connected. Ignition warning light socket was taped to side of the steering column just below the dash panel, seems to work, hoping that was not for diagnostics of some electrical issue. Three new rogue wires, all green, ran together through the bulkhead on right side, then downward under the chassis along with the original side harness. Leave that investigation for later.
In the engine bay, haven't identified the taped over device on back end of the generator yet (about the size of an ignition resistor). All original wiring in the engine bay was painted Black so diagnostics will be interesting. On the carburetor side, switch on, fuel pump works, carburetor float bowls fill and fuel pump stops ticking (all good), but rubber grommets on bottom of float bowls leak and need to be replaced. The "hose" running from body to rear carburetor consists of three pipe couplings, four hose barbs, two hoses. All fuel hoses and the rocker cover vent hose are hard as rocks also need to be replaced.
Monday, July 17, 2023:
Put together a list of fuel line parts needed, and get that in process by mid day. Also order new keys for the original style ignition switch that was removed so we can save the one with screw terminals and original bezel nut. And order new battery hold-down clamps. This Braille 3188 model is my favorite, as long as the J-bolts can go straight down on both sides, and there is space across the center on top of the battery. Sturdy FRP (Fiberglass Reinforced Plastic), adjustable width, strong and durable, about $20 for the whole kit.
Finally a few minutes to relax, have a late lunch, and catch up some tech questions and BBS.
Tuesday, July 18, 2023:
Breakfast WiFi break, finishing up a few last photos and notes from yesterday. Then making a short list of
maintenance items for the MGA that should be done soon. Begin with a Walmart stop and changing out the LF headlight that had lost high beam. Stop to fuel up, and put more air in the tires. Then heading south, just to be somewhere else. And while we're at it, find some side streets and swap seats so navigator can have some time behind the wheel.
Yup, gotta learn sometime. Most of an hour putzing around in circles and figure eights and lots of stop signs while he was getting into start-stop-turn and his first taste of a clutch and stick shift. Then some longer and straighter streets for a bit more speed and using higher gears. Not too long for him to learn tight turns in city streets, staying in his lane, and he certainly knows where the brake pedal is when needed. He was soon into go and stop and cruise, and left after stop in traffic with very little intervention. The kicker was, the last hour was driving in fairly heavy urban traffic, in mid afternoon, the kind of traffic even I don't like. He crunched a few gears and overrevved the engine a few times, but doing that less with time. He was getting a little anxious, especially after killing the engine and getting honked at a few times. For him it must have been baptism by fire, but we survived. Sorry I couldn't get him to sit still long enough to get the picture of him in the driver seat, but surely later. Time for a well earned late lunch.
After food and cool off, I spent some time checking on Monday's parts orders, some of which didn't get shipped until Tuesday, but now all expected to arrive by Friday. Call the lady with the MGA to let her know what was coming and when, and arrange a work day for Saturday.
Wednesday, July 19, 2023:
Catch up photos and notes, email and BBS. In the evening we were off to Wednesday Night Garage Club to see what surprises may be in store tonight. Begin with the CMGC project car out front, soon to get a replacement left side body sill. Lots of grinding going on to remove more rusted metal. The sand blaster was cleaning up a heater box. With slightly "frosted" window and dust inside, I couldn't get a picture of the parts in the cabinet.
A few people taking turns with Sawzall and angle grinder, there was a little bang followed by a piece of grinding wheel flying off into the gravel. Then Sparky showing the broken disc and a small notch in his thumb. The proper technique here is to use the edge of a cut-off wheel, gently, to "erase" spot welds from the front layer of sheet metal, then lift the separated layer with a screw driver.
On the side there was an MGB, recently procured, drivable but not running well. A lot of aged rubber parts, cracking hoses and fractured vacuum caps allowing a few vacuum leaks. Time for some rubber caps to close some unused ports on the intake manifold, and it was running a little better. We spent some time chatting about crankcase ventilation, fuel vapor recovery, anti-run-on features, and how to make all that work again.
There was the nicely restored MG YB, I think we have seen this one before. The nice late model MGB with Miata seats with high head rests, which may some day get radio speakers in the head rests. And Jeff Powell's racing MG TC with supercharger, which always seems to want a little tweaking and cleaning.
Dean had his new convertible top all tacked down in front, now working on the side LTD fasteners. The resident MGB and MGA on and under the lift, a bit of friendly chat in the club room space, and some progress on wiring up the MGB dash assembly.
Just across the street from the garage, the resident Mustang and Fiat 124 Spider. The Mustang was getting a bit of tune-up, for which I drug out the timing light but couldn't find the pointer for the easily seen marks on the crank pulley. We set timing by ear, and of course it was easily burning rubber (lots of smoke but no good pictures).
Another MGB recently acquired, needing work on the hand brake lever. Rusted screws needing more finesse than force, finally grinding through the base bracket to liberate a damaged flat head screw, followed by lots of BB Blaster and Vice-Grips. Where there's a will there's a way.
Paul Pickley was barbecuing burgers and brats with lots of us vultures crowding around for our share. After chow down and natter and noggin, Sparky's MGA was running on three cylinders, so we figured to fix that before he would leave. Missing on #2, we switched #1 and #2 spark plugs, but no difference. Did a compression test, 120+psi, so that wasn't the problem. Switched a couple of HT wires, and that didn't make any difference either. I thought that looked like a crack or tracking inside the distributor cap very near #2 terminal post, so I borrowed and installed the cap and wires form my car, but that didn't fix it either. Say what? I was about to install a new spark plug, but Sparky was anxious to get home, so we put it back together and sent him off driving on three cylinders. Such open problems drive me nuts, so we will be anxious to get back to it at earliest opportunity.
Thursday, July 20, 2023:
Trip to pasts store to pick up DOT 5 brake fluid, two small bottles from stock, and special order a quart of the stuff in preparation for some brake work and periodic flushing of the hydraulic system. Checking tracking of parts orders, some to arrive Thursday, others to arrive Friday, and make appointment to work on lady's car Saturday.
Friday, July 21, 2023:
Some chat explaining to a new owner what is involved to change an MGA from wire wheels to disc wheels. Back to the parts store at appointed time 3-pm to pick up the special order quart of DOT 5 brake fluid, but it wasn't there. Curses, what a waste of a good day. Call again later? Maybe. For now head north to be close to tomorrow's appointment, and do dinner in Lake Zurich, IL. Check tracking info ,and it appears all of the required parts have arrived.
Saturday, July 22, 2023:
Back to McHenry, Illinois to get the dormant MGA running. But first business is to install the battery hold-down clamp so the battery cannot fall out.
Then on to the chore of disassembling the badly assembled primary fuel hose (if you can call it that). What should be one hose with Whitworth threaded free-spinning end nuts was a substitute assembly with three taper threaded pipe couplings, four hose barbs, and two hoses. The hoses were so old and brittle that any motion at all would break the hoses. At least that made it easier to disassemble, just break the hoses and discard all the parts in the middle.
Unscrewing the mismatched threads was tough going. Starting with Vice-Grip on the pipe coupling, the original soldered brass fitting with male threads was so soft that a wrench was taking the corners off of the relatively small and very narrow hex. Solution was to put the straight tips of large Vice-Grip on the brass hex, and another large Vic-Grip on the pipe coupling,and apply some muscle with fingers crossed. Fortunately it worked and came apart. The old hose running between the carbs had one good female threaded nut. We used that to chase the slightly damaged male threads on the brass fittings, managing to save the soldered fitting on the supply pipe and two male threads on the rear banjo fitting.
Not long then to remove the carburetors to be replacing all of the leaky fuel jet seals and float bowl
rubber grommets. I found a jury rigging made with #10 machine screws, some jam nuts, and a bit of heavy steel wire formed to make the connecting link between the brass choke levers. Very creative, possibly more sturdy than the original threaded link and trunnion arrangement, just not adjustable.
Rebuilding the carbs was standard fare with new jet seals, float bowl rubber grommets and mounting gaskets, and some new clevis pins. The mounting gaskets had been glued on both sides with gasket shellac, so that took some time scraping for clean-up before reassembly.
We pumped the final pint of stale fuel out of the supply pipes, getting rid of the turpentine and getting fresh fuel before connecting the last hose. Finally back together with fresh seals and new hoses, nicely impressive compared to where it began.
I must be getting better at initial carburetor setup, because it fired right up with just a little choke, and soon
settled into a perfectly smooth idle and good fuel mixture with no more adjustment required (pleasant surprise). We pumped up proper air pressure in the tires and topped up brake fluid in the master cylinder. Clutch and brake pedals seemed to be working fairly well. Very car fully, clutch would release and engage, and brake pedal was firm, so it was time for a test drive. Once around the block was enough, as it was beginning to rain. Clutch pedal was slow to return, causing clutch slippage for a second or two, but did not slip afterward. Indication there is a clogged clutch slave hose causing slow fluid return, which can be an easy replacement, but not today. Our requested task here was just to get it running so the car can be sold.
The nice spin-off is that we also confirmed good running engine, good clutch, good quiet gearbox with all good synchronizers shifting up and down, no propshaft vibration, no backlash or whine from the differential, and good brakes. So maybe the next owner can drive it home without needing to be towed. The parking brake lever would move a bit, but no more, so the hand brake cable is rusted solid and needs to be changed. All around good test run for a five minute trip. We tucked the car back into the corner, packed up tools and cleaned the place up best as possible. Then off to find a WiFi spot close to tomorrow's appointment.
Sunday, July 23, 2023:
Early morning breakfast, email check, and a quick look at BBS before heading out. Meet up with Chicagoland MG Club at Arboretum Shopping Center in South Barrington, IL for a rally. By the time we were all assembled I think there were 18 little British cars, and a few more rogues. Seems like the people were all indoors.
Sure enough, about 40 people crammed into two small rooms at Pannera Bread restaurant. Sign in, toss a die for the first beginning game of chance. I rolled a 3 for the first 3 points, meaning we already lost the rally with a 3 point deduction against anyone who would roll a 6. This was to be "Hot Dog Poker Run", which is a driving rally with a bunch of gimmicks to assure that it will be a total lottery. Grab a dash plaque and the first two playing cards with an envelope, get some papers, sit through some announcements and a drivers meeting.
Half the cars were starting ahead of us before we could get lined up. The first error in route instructions was not telling anyone which exit to leave from the large shopping mall, so the first car went the wrong way with everyone else following. Navigator was pretty sharp, so we turned the other way to go find the correct starting point, and most of the cars behind then followed us. No penalty for extended time or distance, so that was just a good laugh, not to affect outcome of the rally.
There was one street name misspelled in the route instructions. That should mean not to turn there, because it is not the right street, but I suppose everyone figured it was just a typo and turned there anyway. The rest of the route was okay, so at least no one was getting lost. There were some cars ahead of us missing a turn here and there, having to backtrack, so we were passing other cars quite a lot. Stop for two intermediate check points just to pick up more cards on the way by, and one more card at end of the rally. No idea why they didn't just deal us 7 cards at the beginning along with the die throw. Having passed lots of cars along the way, we were the first car to finish (no big surprise).
I believe we did everything perfect and answered all the gimmick questions correctly. We even had the correct answer for the city name with specified population number, even though there was no road sign for that answer. To be truly correct, the right answer would be to leave it blank, but they counted it anyway. Of course we still lost. Out of seven cards the best we could do was a pair of 8's. That must have been the worst hand available for anyone. I was just wondering what they were going to do to sort out the inevitable six way tie for first place.
Oddly enough there was a clear winner (declared) for the poker hand, but I think they made a mistake there. The five cards were J, 9, 8, 7, 5 with two missing cards in that run, and I don't think that's a legal straight, but they counted it. Shucks, if they would do that, and we had our cards back, we may have had a better straight (like queen high straight). Don't bother thinking about contesting the results, because "the rallymaster is god" in this club, so any objection would just get you severely chastised.
There was also a clear winner (declared) for the gimmick rally, so someone must have tossed a 6 and gotten all the answers right. But there was a 5-way tie for 2nd place, and we were not included, so our perfect answer sheet was good for no better than 7th place out of 20 entries.
To determine how the five second place teams would be ranked, there were some "bonus" questions to be answered. I think the questions were all about the Super Dawg restaurant were we finished the rally run. It was an elimination round, so if you missed the first question you were out (dead last for the tie breaker). There was apparently some advantage if you were a long time resident, and had visited this establishment before, more like a general knowledge issue, again nothing to do with skills or driving.
In the end a good time was had by all, yeah even us. We didn't enjoy the driving much, too busy poking along looking for the gimmick answers, no time for the scenery. But we did get a few good laughs at the way this club runs a rally, pretty much all as expected in advance. Time enough left for the rest of the day to be Laundry Day.
Monday, July 24, 2023:
Day off, so catching up with BBS and email, and half of the day was gone by the time I had yesterday's photos and notes posted. -- There was supposed to be a John Twist UML Zoom tech session tonight, but it was cancelled, rescheduled for next week. So that didn't happen, but it did sort of screw up my scheduling.
Tuesday, July 25, 2023:
Time to post a few pictures and a link to a new video for cut and weld Converting The LHD Dashboard to RHD.
Making reservations to attend John Twist's University Motors 50th Anniversary party to celebrate first opening of his business. This will be a simpler "resurrection" of the University Motors MG Summer Party last held in 2014. It is also celebration of the 100th anniversary of first production of MG cars, so should be jolly good fun all around.
Wednesday, July 26, 2023:
Wednesday Night Car Club in Lagrange Highlands, IL. At least a dozen people, and more cars than people (counting resident cars), so always a parking problem. More work on the CMGC project car, cutting out more of the left side body sill in order to accept a single large donor piece from another car.
Sparky's MGA was back, still running on three cylinders, no fire on #2. Had the dial indicator on top, and the hand crank from my car, measuring valve lift for cylinder 2, which checked out okay. Switching #1 and #2 plugs made no difference. All new spark plugs made no difference. Compression tested okay, but it looks like weak spark on #2.
We tried a different distributor cap and all HT wires from another car, also no difference. Working our way down, we tried a new rotor, but still no difference. I was again offering to pull the distributor out of my car to try that, hoping to prove it was a distributor problem (or not), but Sparky declined. Someone gave him a gift certificate form Moss Motors, so I think he wants to buy a new distributor. Maybe next week.
This rubber bumper MGB with Weber carburetor conversion arrived with a clutch problem.
So it was jacked up with guys underneath to install a new clutch slave cylinder and hydraulic hose, and bleeding the fluid line. Just finishing up, about to start the car for testing when there was huge cloud of smoke underneath.
Looks bad, but not to panic. Tommy had tossed a smoke bomb under the car. Fortunately everyone has a good sense of humor, no harm done, but it did take a while to get the garage aired out.
Later evening departure time, after munchies and cozy chat, time to test the clutch, but not working right. Pump the pedal three times quickly and hold it down. Muscle a shift into one of the forward gears, using the synchronizers to stop the parts from spinning. Then shift quickly into reverse. That worked (barely), good enough to drive away and come back. Decision made to drive it more and wait to see if it might work the remaining air out to work better. Guess we'll find out next week.
Thursday, July 27, 2023:
Posted a new tech page for an adjustable pushrod for the standard MGA (and MGB) clutch slave pushrod. No one should ever need this, but apparently a few people believe it may help.
Posted a new tech page for another MGA variant, modified for street use. This one is a 1957 MGA re-bodied as Maserati Coupe.
Time spent updating three tech pages for rear brake banjo fittings to add some cross links and clarify what threads are in which fittings (because people keep asking such questions).
Banjos and Pipes - 27H7164 Straight Banjo - AHH5634 Angled Banjo
Posting yesterday's photos and notes (above). Got a call from O'Reilly Auto Parts to say my quart of DOT 5 brake fluid has arrived, so need to pick that up sometime (and schedule some work on my car).
Friday, July 28, 2023:
Side trip to pick up my 1-qt bottle of DOT-5 brake fluid before I forget it.
Half a day of head scratching to figure out why the Twin Cam left engine mount has a different part number from the pushrod engine bracket. Three screws in front instead of two, and the holes are in different locations. After someone making their own bracket, and making a template for it, I posted a new tech page for the Twin Cam LH Engine Mount Bracket, just in case someone may need another one.
A late note to the BBS about oil level in the MGA gearbox.
Saturday, July 29, 2023:
Posting three new Part Number pages for engine mount brackets AHH5065, AHH5066, AHH5703. This was motivated by the fact that the Twin Cam engine has a different part number for left side bracket, due to front mounting holes being in different locations.
Sunday, July 30, 2023:
No appointments, so seemed like a good day to get navigator Elliot some more seat time. We headed out to Plano, IL for lunch while waiting for a return phone call. Late afternoon heading over to older daughter Teresa's place in Sandwich, IL to pick up navigator's Illinois state ID card (toss out the old temporary paper one). Interesting the IL ID card looks a lot like a Drivers License (but isn't). Then heading toward rural Norway, IL (now officially Sheridan, IL (since the Norway post office was closed) to visit younger daughter Honey at her new digs. Well, she has been here more than a year, but we didn't have the address last time we were in the neighborhood. Call it family day. Back to Naperville by late night.
Monday, July 31, 2023:
Sitting in Wheaton, IL. Some BBS chat about oil fill level and quantity in the MGA gearbox. Also the ongoing problems with failing ignition condensers. More chat about master cylinder bleeding issues, too-strong return springs in the TRW units causing residual pressure problems (friction drag) with disc brake cars, and master pushrod clearance requirement. We had a one week delayed John Twist UML Zoom tech session in the evening. Half the time was spent chatting about rear axle differentials before another hour of open Q&A time. Not much else happening.
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