Running up Ol' Myron
Out on Long Island back in the 60’s, an MG TD named Myron was a familiar sight, and sometimes even a very welcome one if your MG had left you stranded beside the road, because Ward Michaelson usually had a rope with him, and on more than one occasion he used it to drag someone’s forelorn MG home behind Myron.
Later on, as a growing family took precedence, Myron was relegated to the back garden where he waited patiently for the Call to Duty once more, a call that didn’t come until after the advent of the new century, an extraordinarily long time, perhaps, for a humble servant of such sprited origins.
Tuesday afternoon Patrick & Butch ran ’em up in the shop with a fresh engine.
4.2 crank & rods with those blue & white boxes again
Monday morning Patrick started bolting together the 4.2 Jaguar E-type engine for the soon-to-be Gunmetal Gray open two seater currently being painted in Brattleboro.
We always check 'em, anyway
Well, we pulled off another hat-rabbit for this engine, too. In a dark corner of the shop attic, under the dust of many years past, was another engine set of engine bearings in genuine Vandervell VP2 material and, Cor’ Blimey, didn’t they look nice. Before we even check the run out of the crankshaft at the center main while rotating it on the #1 & 7 bearing inserts, we check the inserts. It wasn’t that long ago that the AE main bearing sets (M 7118LC) had intermediate bearing shells that were too big. That wasn’t a problem if you knew it beforehand and the machine shop ground the crankshaft accordingly, but if you just threw them in the engine, with no effective clearance the crankshaft didn’t turn !
A Healey 2 seater heads up the Hurd's Upholstering
Once upon a time, many years ago, I ran over to Abingdon Spares to grab a set of .030″ oversized connecting rod bearings for another TD engine we were putting together. Imagine my surprise when the clearance was rather excessive. A quick check with the micrometer revealed that they were in fact .3 millimeter, or roughly .010″ engine bearings ! No real mystery. An XPAG (as “T”series engines are techncally known) are actually metric engines. Get out your owner’s handbook or factory service manual and multiply all those dimensions by 25.4 (to convert to millimeters) and you’ll see what I mean.
A giddy sign of spring from last spring: a Ford 8N waits for the Rapture
