The Steering Column
Left Hand Drive from our President

Anyone who knows me at all, knows me and technology go together like a bicycle and a water ski. I’m a number two pencil with carbon paper trying to exist in a 5 gig world. But I’m getting there, as I type this with my two pointer fingers.

The club’s board held a few staff meetings curtesy of Skype. After we figured out why some but not all could be heard, or why I could only see Dean’s cars in the picture, we successfully conducted club business quite well.

However, after some tutorial with Tim Schafer, I am now a Zoom Master. Moving forward, we will be conducting our general monthly meetings using the Zoom app. You will not have to download anything or do much other than open an invitation link sent to your email address. If your computer system has no camera or microphone, you can still attend but won’t be seen or heard. (Wouldn’t that be a nifty domestic feature?)

Now that that’s out of the way, I hope everyone is safe and healthy. During this extended stay at home period, we are accomplishing many things around the house that were never a priority before. We hooked up an old VCR machine to view some of our homemade tapes. Here it is 30 years later and I still can’t operate the remote. Maybe I’ll just call Schafer.

Stay safe my friends.

~~ Phil Wydra

	The Steering Column
	Right Hand Drive   from our Vice-President

Another remarkably busy month has come and gone. It would seem as if now that everyone has been stuck at home. Looking at all the projects that they’ve always wanted to do and never had the time have decided to start them. My phones been ringing off the hook the past month. Home repairs, remodeling and of course MG repairs for the Traveling Mechanics! Well enough about Home repairs and remodeling let’s get down to talk’en bout MGs!

Well the story continues with the 1965 MG Midget.... With the engine freshly rebuilt and installed in the Midget with the T9 5-speed conversion and new propshaft it looked like the project was almost complete. With the spark plugs out we started cranking the engine to first make sure we could get oil pressure. Cranking for 15 seconds and nothing.... continued to crank again for about 30 seconds and pop 50 then 60 psi! A good sign so plugs back in and crossing fingers we tried to start her up. A couple of pops and then nothing.... £€¥§!! Now what! Nothing but Nothing goes easy on this Midget. Well we started the diagnostic procedure. Yes, we were getting spark. Yes, the timing was set properly. Yes, we were getting gas. Soooooo it should be running right? Moving forward I had a prompting to check the cylinder compression. Numbers 1,2&3 were good but number 4 .... wait for it .... ZERO! Pulling the valve cover off I noticed the number 4 exhaust valve was open even when turning the engine over by hand. Hummm... Thinking that the follower (lifter/tapped) had got stuck in the block bore we pulled of the Carburetors, intake & exhaust manifolds and the side cover plates for inspection. And there it was sitting up much higher than it should be. Upon removing the rocker assembly and push rods I was able to remove the problem follower. It slid out easy as pie so now what? Upon further examination I noticed that the rear cam bearing had slid forward 1/8” which would not permit the follower to retract down so it could ride on the cam lobe. Son of a #¥€£ !! and a few other words reserved for such an occasion. In over 40 years of building engines I’ve never seen a cam bearing move. Well I guess you might know what happened next. No, we didn’t push it into the alley and light it on FIRE as much as I wanted to. No, we extracted the engine from the Midget, tore it down and took it back over to the machine shop to have a new cam bearing installed. . . . . . . . .. to be continued. . ..

Back at home things are going a tad bit smother. With the brakes done on the 1954 MGTF and the shocks back from Worldwide and installed it looked like it might be ready for a test drive. Upon starting the engine, I noticed the carbs leaking gas — so not good. Go figure a car that’s been sitting for 30 years needs to have the carbs rebuilt. I called Joe Curto and got the rebuild kits ordered. Well since the intake & exhaust manifolds were off the TF anyway might as well take’m over to Lo Ko Proformance Coating and have them ceramic coated right? Should be back in a couple weeks and then reassembly and hit the road.

(Continued on page 5)