The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (September 1 - September 15, 2026)
Tuesday September 1, 2026 :
Up early and drive an hour From Sycamore to north end of Naperville, Illinois before breakfast. Couple of tech questions about my special design rubber seal for rear of crankshaft on Austin B-series 3-main bearing engines, and restoring rocker arms..
Wednesday September 2, 2026 :
Navigator's choice, breakfast in south end of Warrenville, Illinois. Tech question about assembly and fit for bearing and paper gasket in Twin Cam
rear hub.
 Also a slight update on a tech page AT-103M for dash mounted Jemca Safety Mirror,
which was used for MGA in French and German markets. Notable features were longer rear angled stem and plastic trim around perimeter of the glass lens, as required for French and German markets. It is not listed in any known Service Parts List, so I do not have the original BMC part number. But it has been found on a number of original cars. And it is a period correct accessory part.
in the evening we were off to Tommy's Garage in Lagrange Highlands, IL for Wednesday night Garage Club. Hey, there's a new toy in the neighborhood. It's a Cadillac convertible sports model. Can't wait to see how this one goes over. And the young lad's BGT is coming along nicely, now that he has his Drivers License.The front wings are back on it, with holes for wing mirrors and side marker lights now welded shut, Bondoed over and sanded smooth.
Barbecue time with plenty of brats, dogs and burgers, and beverage of your choice. Two cars out for open floor space.
The club project car was getting final touches on side moldings, bonnet latch catch and release parts,
and scraping away some odd undercoat or tar stains under the rear hatch glass. Folding and stashing way chairs and tables, and get he lad's BGT inside before closing up shop for the night. Still early enough, so back to Naperville where WiFi could be open late.
Thursday September 3, 2026 :
Processing lst nights photos and notes, and fielding a sticky tech question on assembly and fit of rear bearing hubs on a Twin Cam. Very hot here yesterday and today, so by sundown we were heading north for a hot drive to Wadsworth, Illinois. right on the Illinois/Wisconsin border and smack up against the lake front where it would be 10-dF cooler tonight. Arrive Wadsworth 9-pm, very nice here. Late dinner at Love's Travel Center (Arby's restaurant).
Friday September 4, 2026 :
Good morning, T-Shirt and sneakers weather, beats the crap out of the heat in Naperville. Afternoon high 85dF, but sitting in Arby's with three sweat shirts, way too much A/C in this meat freezer. Is that newsworthy?
Saturday September 5, 2026 :
Moved just 4 miles to a local McD for breakfast, still in Wadsworth. Single sweat shirt in this A/C, so I finally get some work done. High temp 78dF at 3-pm, destined for 68dF tomorrow morning. Nice. Now travel planning three weeks in advance.
W 9/9 - Wednesday Night Garage Club, La Grange Highlands, IL
Th 9/10 - 5-pm - Hoosier MG's Monthly Meeting, Fishers, IN
F 9/11 -10-am - Eric Nelson, Zionsville, IN
F 9/11 - 3-pm - Mark Nix, Newton, IL
Sa 9/12 - 9-am - Installing an MGA rag top, Newton, IL
Sa 9/12 - 9-pm - WiFi, Naperville, IL
Su 9/13 - 9-am - BCU Brit Car Fest, Palatine, IL
Tu 9/15 - 6-pm - Darrell's Garage, York, PA
F 9/18 - Mayer CBR, Harleysville, PA
Tu 9/22 - 6-pm - Darrell's Garage, York, PA
Sa 9/26 - 7-am - Breakfast in York,PA, caravan to Street, MD
Sa 9/26 - 9-am - MGs On The Rocks car show, Street, MD
Tu 9/29 - 6-pm - Darrell's Garage, York, PA
That might be another 1000 miles or so.
Sunday September 6, 2026 :
Moved a little south to Mundelein, IL. Working on a sticky replacement parts issue. MGA Twin Cam connecting rods had a design change for different style of balancing. This resulted in taller big end caps and slightly longer bolts. Replcement ARP bolts are close to dimensions of the later factory bolts, and do not fit directly with early style con-rods. A field fix is to grind a taper on the tip of the ARP bolts,or use a hardened steel flat washer under the bolt head. Just uploaded a new Twin Cam Engine tech page TC-307D to detail the problem and the fix.
Monday September 7, 2026 :
Revising Part Numbers tech pages to include pages for both early issue and later issue con-rod bolts for the Twin Cam engine.
AEH435 and AEH647 (picture above).
Late evening, closing time, Oops! Left the headlights on all day, like 15 hours, battery absolutely dead. Pull out the lithium battery jumper box, and surprise, it works, even with a fully dead battery. I have had a couple of these things before that would do absolutely nothing if the battery was completely dead. Kudos to this one. It also saved our skins back in late March when a failed alternator cooked the new AGM battery. That time the little jumper box managed to start the engine several times before the small 2-AH battery finally ran out of juice and needed to be recharged.
Tuesday September 8, 2026 :
Didn't drive far enough last night to recharge the car battery, so had to use the jumper box again this morning.Didn't drive very far this morning either, so might have to do it again later. -- Yeah, had to jump it again late night, and still didn't drive far enough.
Wednesday September 9, 2026 :
Up early, jump it one more time before heading south in morning rush hour and construction traffic. One hour on, stop for breakfast in Hinsdale, IL. -- Then a bit of distraction to kill half day, researching USB connectors, looking to buy a new thumb drive with very fast transfer peed to do data back-up for my laptop computer. My current "hard drive" flash memory space is 134-GB used of 474-GB available. It will be years before I approach this limit, so 256-GB thumb drive will be big enough for now. Happy to pay more than minimum to get fast speed, I first had to find the actual transfer speed capability of my computer's USB-C connector port. That is 5-Gb/s, 0.5-GB/s, 500-MB/s. So I want a thumb drive that is at least that fast (or faster) so it will not be a bottleneck for the computer data port speed.
Searching the net, I find current flash drive speed can be up to 2000-MB/s, but very expensive state of the art stuff. However, 1000-MB/s is more commonly available, and much less expensive. In fact I found a 256-GB thumb drive that can run up to 1000-MB/s transfer speed for just $50. Really! See here:
www.ssd-tester.com/vansuny_u52_256gb.html (for as long as the link may last).
Okay, I just put this one on my Wish List to order one about a week from now, whenever I figure out where to ship it ahead to arrive before I do.
Bail out of Hinsdale at 5-pm, arriving at Tommy's Garage in Lagrange Highlands, IL at 5:50-pm for Wednesday Night Garage Club. By coincidence,this is also the night for Chicagoland MG Club's Natter & Noggin to meet here (3rd Wednesday of odd numbered months).. But this joint meeting only adds a few people from CMGC, so pretty much business as usual.
The prime attraction out front tonight is this MGA 1600 that has a history as a race car from 1959 into the early 1960's, when seat belts, helmet and roll bar were still rare options. Then it sat in storage for 40 years.
In spite of the slightly tatty appearance, this is actually an original survivor car with mostly original parts and original factory paint (and maybe low mileage). The original engine was shot or seized, so the expedient repair was a good used engine. It had stiff raised rear springs, looking like a jacked up dragster, so that was restored to original type suspension parts. The car is now fully functional, licensed and insured for street use as a daily driver car
. The owner is Dean Hickenlooper, current Vice Chairman of NAMGAR, as well as member of CMGC and WNGC.When asked if it was time to repaint the car, he said absolutely not. The car is destined to be a preservation car, finished, as is. We will see more of it later, likely to appear at the British Car Festival and at the next NAMGAR GT.
A couple cars had been temporarily removed from the garage to make space for Natter & Noggin. Tommy's 289 Mustang and his son's MGB-GT sat out front while humans sat inside to chat and eat. Slow simmered crock pot pulled pork and sausages with cheese potato casserole was goof stuff.
Out back the CMGC club project car was destined to appear at the British Car Festival come Sunday.
No start, no fuel? Electrical wiring, fuse and power are all okay, but no ticky-ticky. Cleaning contact points, still no-go, might need another fuel pump.
Losing daylight, winding down the evening, packing away table and chairs. We left by 8:30 to fight our way through the Chicago expressways, stopping at Demonte,Indiana 10-pm for car cool-down and a couple hours of WiFi time.
Thursday September 10, 2026 :
Breakfast and WiFi, goes together like bacon and eggs. Enough time to process last night's photos and notes. Need to hit the road at 2-pm for two hour drive plus one hour change in time zone, to arrive Fishers, Indiana, northeast Indianapolis area, planned 5-pm tire kicking time before Hoosier MG's club meeting.
Traffic congestion made us a few minutes late, but we arrived to a greeting of people managing poles and chains for reserved parking for the club cars. That was nice, put a tire on the curb, and walk right in the front door. We knew it woud be at "Four Day Rays" in Fishers, Indiana, but no one told us it was a proper public house brewery.
this was a meeting of Hoosier MGs, which is a web site shared by three local MG clubs,
Hoosier A's (NAMGAR) -- Hoosier MGB Club Unlimited (NAMGBR) -- Olde Octagons of Indiana (NEMGTR).
As I was trying to ask how this club works, someone said we do this twice a year. Supposed to be a monthly meeting, so maybe they meant this location twice a year, and somewhere else on other odd months.
It started rather thin, but more people arriving with time. Nice intimate meeting with maybe 20 people in the brewery end of the restaurant. Sorry I didn't get more pictures of the production equipment, but it wasn't a formal tour. Eventually a more normal club business meeting with past, present and future events, and a few minutes for the MGA guru to chat about 12 years of touring around North America, 300 clubs, 1100 shops, and more than 1000 cars to tinker with. along the way. When breaking up, now in Eastern time zone there was still some light around 8:30-pm as we hit the expressways again, half an hour later stopping at Love's Travel Center in Whitestown, Indiana at northwest corner of the Indianapolis metro area.
Friday September 11, 2026 :
We had a tentative appointment with a friend in Zionsville, Indiana this morning. He was supposed to be at last night's club meeting, but was a no-show. So we called this morning, no answer, but left a voice message. -- Then a couple hours processing last nights photos and notes, and call again. Finally got a connection to find the guy had some medical issues, not going to be able to meet today, so then on our way again. -- Couple hours west and southwest, arriving on schedule at 5-pm on a rural gravel road near Newton, Illinois. Say hello to Mark Nix and his wife (and dog).
They have this nice early 1956 MGA, produced a month after the new style dash instruments were introduced. This has been a long term restoration project, getting close to completion, definitely drivable and road legal.
It has an interesting assortment of aftermarket parts, like the steering wheel,LED headlights, cool air induction, Wizard aluminum radiator, and small 30-amp one-wire alternator (which works quite well).
The small single 12-volt battery was original issue for a John Deer garden tractor. Matching tags for the chassis number and original engine number.
Jolly good fun, but time for dinner and some late night chat, so we will take this up again tomorrow.
Saturday September 12, 2026 :
After breakfast, Poking around his infrastructure a bit, I had to get a snap of nis light aluminum flat bed trailer, single axle, 12-ft long bed, fold down rear ramp, perfect for hauling a MG (as long as all your friends don't find out about it). Two shop buildings, one low rise power lift, lots of tools, and another odd car project we don't need to mention.
Back to the MGA, it was time to see if we could install a new convertible top. Mark had made his own wood door top and cockpit trim rails. He also made the new front wood bow for the convertible top. Very nice parts, but the top front rail was 3rd generation style with longer ends. Oops? This only works with the later producton top canopy with slightly extended side flaps. The top frame here is original early style correct for any MGA 1500 and part of 1600 production. On closer inspection, the new vinyl top canopy in hand is, by coincidence, the later MK-II style canopy that should work well with the longer type-3 wood bow. So all is well that ends well.
Unfortunately he had misplaced a few small parts needed to complete the installation. Missing two brass bushings and two wing bolts and the top half of the front bow center latch. the front bow wrap cannot be properly installed until the front bow is properly attached to the windscreen, and the windscreen properly aligned with the side curtains. Bummer. But we did install the rear steel strap that connects to the rear body tear drop hooks. We also spent an hour manually stretching the canopy forward to determine that it is long enough to work. And Mark now has a handle on how it works, so he can install the top later.
Then we were heading off for our next appointment, which would be British Car Festival in Palatine, Illinois tomorrow morning. Garmin GPS makes the quick route (without tolls) up I-57 to and through downtown Chicago before heading west. But, within 150 miles of Chicago, we know the roads intimately.having driven this way many times before. I know where to take a shorter routes that will take a few minutes longer at slightly slower speed on more scenic roads, and will save a couple gallons of fuel. Our target today will be a Loves Travel Center on I-55 in Channahon, Illinois. From there we can make the morning appointment in about an hour after breakfast.
The short route to Channahon will bail off of I-57 at Rantoul, IL, and go nearly straight north through Piper City, and go through Braidwood before getting onto I-55. Not absolutely sure of fuel economy, we stopped in Gardner, IL, 20 miles short of Channahon, loading 11.1 gallons. In retrospect, it looks like we could have made it to the truck stop with a few miles to spare, just didn't want to get the gallon can out of the boot.
Half hour later sitting at Loves, the A/C was intolerably cold. So we bailed out and drove on to a well known McD's in Naperville, IL, putting us a half hour closer to our morning appointment.
Sunday September 13, 2026 :
Up for breakfast, check BBS and email, and head north again. Arriving 9:15-am at Harper College in Palatine, IL, check into the British Car Festival, grab the registration packet, T-shirt and Hat, and find the appropriate parking space with other MGA. Say hello to a few old friends, and wait until 10-am for other cars to arrive and park. And then the grunt work starts. 430 cars registered made for two hours of walking to be taking pictures of people with cars in the background. I tried to cut back on the number of pictures for the travel log below, but there are too many models to show. Click here For the full set of 140+ photos and notes from the British Car Festival
Lots of MGA and MG T-types, and one very nice 1937 MG VA Tourer. MG TDs, TF's, and Jeff Powell's MG TC.
The two-tone green sedan is a 1953 MG YB.
MG Midgets, the red convertible in the middle is a 1995 MG F. then a line up of MGB GT. One MGB with a V6 mixed in with some rubber bumpers, lines of chrome bumper MGB.
Some new Mini's, with an old Mini Moke in the middle. Followed by more old Mini's and one MG 1100 sport sedan.
Bunch of Big Healeys,more Austin Healey Sprites, and one 1961 Austin Healey Speedwell Sprite. lots of Land Rovers.
A generous selection of Rolls Royce and Bentley cars. The neat green roadster with bonnet up is a 1960 Lola MKI. A long line of Lotus, always interesting for the wide variety of different models.
After Lotus, one Morris Minor convertible. I think there was a woody wagon here too. One 1973 Ford Escort Mk1, a 1934 Salmson, a fiberglass body Cobra and a Corvette engine Lister.
1954 Ford Popular, 1949 Singer 9A. 1969 Marcos 3L GT, and 1951 Jowett Jupiter (Best Of Show). 1961 Emeryson S1, 1954 Sunbeam Talbot, 1951 Ford Anglia,and a1960 Triumph Herald tucked in behind all of those.
British motorcycles, Norton,BSA, Sunbeam, Triumph and more.Short break for some vendors, including Burt "BS" Levy, World's Fastest Novelist, too busy signing books to stop and chat. Not to miss the Morgan Plus 4 line-up. There may have been more somewhere, but no 4-4 or three wheelers that I could find.
Checking out lots of Jaguar.
This 1960 Jaguar Mk2 (rat rod) is just to remind us that Jaguar enthusiasts can be interesting too. Yes, we can do modern sport utes too. There was a nice1950 Jaguar XK120. I had to look twice. With the skirts I thought it was a 150.
The Morris Minor Woody Wagon I was looking for earlier, and a pair of Jensen Healey. Smile for one rare 1959 Jensen 541R
Nice Sunbeam Tiger, and one Sunbeam Alpine. And a 1948 Hillman Minx.
Then a long line of Aston Martin (mostly newish). And yes, they make a sport ute too.
Finally down to the last field to find the Triumphs, TR2, 3, 3A, and Spitfires. TR4,4A, and a TR5 (fuel injected), that can be a TR250 in Europe. Another spitfire.
1949 TR2000, 1977 Triumph Dolomite Sprint.
Of course a long line of TR6.Ah, finally the 1968 six-cylinder fuel injected TR5.
A 1971 TVR Vixen. Some TR8, TR7, and one 1973 Triumph Stag.
Purely by coincidence, as I was finishing taking pictures, some of the show cars began to leave. For sure still early, and no one mentioned awards yet. A day later we discovered that the show was terminated early due to incoming storm weather, and the awards would be mailed out later.
End of show, cars leaving, but Russ Mehffee's MGB was a no-start, badly corroded battery cable terminal with no-connect. The Magic Trailer came to the rescue with a new spare cable terminal, so that car was soon on its way.
All is well that ends well, with most of the cars leaving by 1-pm to avoid incoming rain. There were reported 430 cars registered. I snapped 175 pictures, keeping more than 140 of them,which will suck up at least one full day for posting on line.
Click here For the full set of 140+ photos and notes from the British Car Festival
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