Picking up an MG in Harwich Thursday night
Thursday night found your scribe picking up this MGB in Harwich on Cape Cod. This was a recovery originally planned for Tuesday, but I decided to get out in front of Irene a little bit, because inside our car barn trumps outside in a hurricane. As it was we got a little wet anyway on the return trip.
Butch recovers an MG TD dashborad while John sorts TR3 parts
Butch pulled the dashboard out of the black MG TD Monday and got to work Tuesday on recovering it. A slight variation in the thickness of the replacement vinyl, rexine was probably the original material, was just enough to prevent the glovebox door from fitting. Undeterred, even though he had a few bad words to say about it, Butch
Butch wires up the TD dashboard Thursday
stripped the door back down and took it home for a trip around his belt sander which produced a more favorable outcome. When we work behind the dashboard on “T” series MG’s we frequently suspend them from the windshield to get them at a comfortable working angle. The factory left enough extra cable and pipe back there to accomodate this procedure.
John builds up the engine bay in this TR3
We’re about to receive an Austin Healey 3000 MkIII from Jason Marechaux at East Coast Collision & Restoration which has been the subject of what may have been the most extensive sheetmetal & structural renovation of a big Healey ever undertaken anywhere. The car is new from the Jule frame on up, and is finished in a stunning, and correct, shade of Healey Blue over Old English White. It is a much greyer blue than the Jaguar Opalescent Silver Blue most commonly seen on Austin Healeys.
We have been anticipating this car for several weeks, but while we were waiting we thought we’d slip in a few more days on this Marechaux-refinished TR3, and we really like this car quite a lot, too.
Finished dashboard. Click for detail
Here’s a picture of the finished product, look at last week’s picture for comparison. This afternoon while Butch & John are hoeing out the shop to make room for just painted Healey, I’m underway in a few minutes for Ridgefield, Connecticut to retrieve an 1962 MGA 1600 MkII which has been in one family since 1963.
