At last report we were in Colorado, a few hours south of Denver. We have done 4,000 rather hectic miles since then, running through CO, NE, SD, NE, IA, IL, IN, KY, OH and MI. About on par, we were tinkering with 10 cars while visiting 13 friends, 5 clubs, and one car show. But the push for the month was visiting 56 shops (and we still have nearly that many more to go to finish our Shops list).

On 29 May we were checking out Concours Cars of Co. Ltd, a rather large shop in Colorado Springs, CO. They had to admit there

Shop jobs at Concours Cars of Co. Ltd in Colorado Springs, CO

was a preponderance of vintage British cars here. Then we paid a visit to Jim Goodwin, also in Colorado Springs, with a little business called MG Rescue. This involves picking up sickly orphan MGs, nursing them back to health, and passing them along to good homes. Most of the business goes quite well, except he seems to have a problem with too many finished cars in too little space. There was also Rally Coach Works in Englewood, CO, another large shop restoring lots of cars. They were working on a MG K3 Magnette, being resurrected from a pile of rust. We also stopped at Ax and Allies in Denver, a smaller successful place looking for more space. They had a customer with rather rare Triumph Dolomite 1500, possibly the only one in the country. And we paid a visit to Denver Spring & Suspension to discuss problems with current production replacement leaf springs, and what they can do to re-arch them. There is another large shop The Motorway, LtdL in Fort Collins where they have a sweet V6 conversion in an MGB.

Big Healey in restoration at Terry Worwick Restorations, Eagle, NE

On 1st June we tried a "Cars & Coffee" with British Motoring Club of Northern Colorado in Fort Collins, but found no one there, as they were possibly off on driving run that wasn't publicized. Couple days later we were finding a disproportionate number of plating shops around Yuma, CO. Then hauling tail east, next day we were shop hopping around Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. From there we headed north for a day to visit Classic Import Repair in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, then returned same day to visit Terry Worwick Restorations in rural Eagle, NE, with a younger generation shop owner. In the process we got to deal with flooding diverting us a long way to get across the Missouri River, twice. This last shop is impressive for a young guy with a helper doing lots of restoration work on LBCs (and a Lotus Europa that belongs to his 15-year-old son).

Barney's burned piston

Next afternoon (June 6) we stopped to visit a friend Lon Smallridge in West Des Moines, IA. My MGA seemed to be running on three cylinders at idle speed, measuring only 30-PSI compression on #3 cylinder. This was a result of a small hole in the edge of the piston caused by a broken piston ring and some erosion around the two top rings. We had the head off and new pistons and gaskets on order by evening. I bought a cylinder hone and ring compressor, and with overnight delivery we had it back on the road the following evening. No sense wasting too much time on such a minor repair. But then we had to kill the weekend before we could get back to shop-hopping.

On the 10th we were to visit a shop that had turned into a library, and a subsequent search and visit to a succeeding NAPA Auto Care that no longer works on vintage cars (bummer). Then another shop in Des Moines, IA, closed since May 2015, and then had turned into a grassy empty lot. We finally struck pay dirt with Skunk River Restorations in Ames, IA, which is a huge shop with a large preponderance of vintage British cars in house. Some of them were stacked on pallet racks, looking a lot like Matchbox toys from a distance. One car that looked like a Lotus Elite was actually an Austin Healey Sebring Sprite (and it was in full rally trim). In quick succession there was an Anglia, a Lloyd, and a Berkeley, as I was feeling like a kid in a candy shop.

a Marcos, maybe

Anglia

Lloyd

Berkeley

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