Library Muse

Well my 77’ MGB Roadster project has become a 78’ MGB Roadster project. This all happened when a “parts car” and a “project car” switched places. I bought my 77’ MGB in December of 2019 with the ambition of it becoming a driving project to work on. Then I joined a group from within the Chicagoland MG Club. This group is the Wednesday Night Garage Club. The Host is Tom Raddatz out of LaGrange Highlands.

Tom has been buying MGs for a while. Some of them become parts cars and some get fixed up to enjoyed. Tom acquired a 78’ MGB that he thought had an overdrive transmission. All the signs where there to believe it had the overdrive transmission. The car had the original paint with the rally stripes and luggage rack along with a gear shifter that had the overdrive button. Unfortunately the car was on 4 flat tires with no way to get under the car and confirm. So Tom gambled and purchased the car on the south side of Chicago. After getting the car back to his garage he was able to get under it and discovered that the gamble did not pay off this time.

Knowing that this car had been sitting a while and was rat infested, we started stripping the car for parts. I grabbed my son to help me start stripping parts off. We removed the windshield and started eyeing the dashboard. At that time I had enough with the smell of this rat infested car. I decided to rip out all of the carpeting and pull the seats out. That’s when it happened. As we pulled a trashcan close and started cleaning out all of the rat feces and bones we got the first part of carpeting out. Boom! There they were, perfect floorboards still with the original factory paint and sound deadening.

I know that my 77’ MGB needs new floor boards and new doglegs. That makes everything else that might be found very questionable especially the all-important rockers. The main bones of the car. I showed Tom the perfect floor boards and had him drop by my house to check my current car. The decision was made. Pull my drivetrain from the 77’ and start working the 78’ Rat Infested MGB. ,BR>
Wish us luck and hit Tom Raddatz up for the Wednesday Night Garage Club. We generally meet up at his garage at 7 PM on Wednesdays and get started “working”. That mostly mean having a couple of beers and swapping stories. Sometimes we do actually turn some wrenches.

Garage is located at 1600 w 55th St. La Grange Highlands, Il 60525 In the back of the lot.
Tom’s number is 773-617-2001
P.S. Tom drinks Miller Lite Bottles and Mike’s Light Hard Lemonade.

~~ Paul Pickley