Near winter conditions on the Westminster West road
Here in the Northeast it’s readily apparent that we’ve passed the prime driving season for the two seat sports car. In my personal experience this doesn’t mean that we necessarily need to give it up completely, but that depends on what you’re driving and your attitude toward it. Speaking personally I made the switch this past weekend from my MGC GT which is a very nice car, to my MGB GT which has four studded snow tires and always starts regardless of how cold it gets. It helps somewhat that I acquired the car fully loaded.. with plastic filler, so I’m not really hurting it any.
Heading for a rendezvous with the Essex-Charlotte ferry
The day started a little early because we decided that it would be a good idea to beat an Arctic front bringing some cold and a little snow down from Canada. The destination was Charlotte about ten miles south of Burlington, Vermont where I was meeting the owner of this very nice TR4. The arrangements couldn’t be much more convenient. Barry Cook put his Triumph on the ferry and drove three miles home. I drove another three miles and picked up a local MG TD and skedaddled back to Westminster ahead of the weather. In the picture here Butch is tying the back of the car down. John, already having finished tying down the front is headed to bring another car into the shop.
Steve paints an E-type IRS cage
Butch, John & Steve are the reasons why we crank work out of here that we’ll match up against anybody’s. The IRS cage that Steve’s painting here is hardly going to be on display to anyone outside of a Jiffy Lube service bay, but it’s a prime example of how we go about installing quality. There is a very old cliche that if it looks right it is right. Take a look under the hood of your car. If it doesn’t look right maybe you ought to be ringing us up.
Checking bearing clearances with Plastigage
Measuring the "crush"
This is the inside of the MGB engine which is currently on my engine stand. It takes us about 20 hours to assemble a typical four cylinder engine, even though we could probably bolt most of them together in six. The extra time is taken up in ensuring that everything is right. Our initial checks for stuff like crankshaft end float, bearing clearances, piston ring gaps and cam timing easily consume about a day and a half. But as you can see, this engine already looks better on the inside than most other people’s engines do on the outside. These are the standards we work to.
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It is noted here with some amusement that this is the 100th consecutive week that we’ve cobbled together this newsletter which does not arrive spam-like in your in-box, because you have to either seek it out on your own, or else thru something called an “R.S.S. feed” which we do not understand. These facts not withstanding, right now about 350 people a day are taking a look at what’s posted here.
Thank you for being one of them.
