Tuesday: Chris fettles an Austin Healey

Tuesday was not an un-typical day in most respects; the phone rang, people came & went, the UPS driver came & went, some strong language was directed at recalcitrent automotive components.  If there was in fact anything at all out of the ordinary, it would have been the fact that it was Chris Lundberg’s second day as a part-time employee.    Chris has a long association with british cars, mostly of the two door variety, and  maybe we’ll talk about him some more later.

Tuedsay: John fettles an MG TD

Also on Tuesday, John was on a roll with this 1953 MG TD which took on water during Hurricane Irene the year before last, and we’re pleased to be able to say that right now it’s about as nice a TD to drive around as you’re likely to easily stumble across.  It has an attractively weathered patina that says “Take me up the mountain  on the dirt road, please”.  The short wheel base and relatively high ground clearance render a TD just about perfect for country backroads.

Tuesday: A Butch-fettled Morgan +4

Many years ago Butch once expressed his disgust with a particularly badly assembled Morgan he had been tasked to sort out, with the sardonic comment that “A bad day of E-type Jaguars beats a good day of Morgans”.  Perhaps by-gones are really by-gones, because despite the nearly relentless parade of wrong-size screw holes, clearance problems and “trim-to-fits”, he has managed to keep his descriptive language about the car to a near minimum.

Tuesday: A TR6 waits on a new choke cable

I’ve grown to like Triumph TR6’s, even if I’ve always liked TR4’s better (“Shoe Boxes on Wheels”, as an Austin Healey owner of our acquaintance once described them).  The Road & Track columnist Peter Egan famously declared the in-line six cylinder engine to have the most mellifulous sound of any automotive power plant.  I tend to agree with him, and as we might say around here, the tone of the Ansa exhaust on this red TR6 doesn’t hurt your ears any.

This time of year we never know what’s going to show up in our dooryard.  Tom Rymes drove this handsome early series 1 XJ6 back from California earlier this spring.  Tuesday, Tom was running down the Everett Turnpike toward Manchester and the Hooksett Tolls when an inner voice told him shut down all systems.  He rolled into the  I 93 rest area cum State Liquor Store parking lot on the southbound side and called our friends at Rod’s Towing & Repairs in Putney to come an’ git her, which they very promptly did.

We’ll take a look at things tomorrow (Friday),  when we shall see what shall see.

Tuesday Greg from Rod's exits his rig. He took the front hub caps off to clear his nylon tie-downs.

New floors in a Morgan +4

Your scribe is just back from a quick trip to Montpelier to deliver a cherished MGB to the lady owner who bought it new on June 13, 1973.  We we did an extensive maintenance which even included a new convertible top, but unfortunately didn’t include a final high speed road test. The owner did that for us, and it didn’t exactly pass with flying colors.

However we own our mistakes, so I fetched it back Tuesday after work and spent much of Wednesday doing a comprehensive tune up including several trial runs up and down a useful stretch of I 91.  We tested it again on Interstate 89 just outside  Montpelier,  which has an  even more serious grade, and  both parties pronounced the outcome to be “satisfactory”.

Butch marks out his patterns

This Morgan +4 has recently returned from East Coast Collision & Restoration resplendent in a lurid yellow over black paint scheme, perfect for a bank heist get-away car.  This is a frame up restoration beginning with a new frame.  Butch can be seen here marking out a sheet of domestic (not Chinese) birch plywood with his cutting pattern.  We like to make a little sawdust sometimes, and right now there’s a fine coat of it all around the shop.

'63 MGB low speed test

'73 MGB high speed test

New England has been going through a serious spell of rain, but the weather lifted Wednesday long enough to get out on the road to evaluate our tuning efforts.  I’ve already told you about the 1973 MGB, but John spent much of his time this week with a 45,000 mile 1963 MGB which is a really wonderful early example, although not as extensively tuned as the blue car because it didn’t need it.  The ’63 MGB is also the property of a proud lady owner, although this time through inheritance.  I did a final roadtest on it this afternoon and it’s ready to go back home to New Hampshire.

John is now at work finishing up a 1973 Right Hand Drive MGB, a home market car with overdrive (they all had it), and quite interestingly, not a lick of rust anywhere.

It’s storny busy here now, and on Monday more help arrives.  Stay tuned for details.

Dry shelter on a wet Tuesday night

John & Butch sort an overdrive

Last Saturday I hustled out to Buffalo and retrieved the Austin Healey 3000 Mk III in which John, operating the throttle, and Butch, manually engaging the overdrive, can be seen  performing a basic diagnostic test.

When John first examined the car he noticed that the O/D setting lever was aligned in the engaged position.  This was consistent with owner’s report that sometimes the car wouldn’t back up, and at other times when parked in reverse, it would creep down his driveway as if freewheeling.  Because the solenoid had stopped working sometime in the distant past, John & Butch  ran it on the stands.  After the current band of rain passes by, we’ll evaluate it on the road with a new solenoid, although I srongly suspect we’ll end up tearing down the overdrive to check for damage to the annulus caused by running the one way clutch the wrong way.

Complications with a convertible top

Most of the time putting a new convertible top on an MGB is a pretty straighforward routine for which we tell the customer to plan on five hours, although it usually takes us less.  That wasn’t the case with this one.

On an MGB the top frame is secured to the car by three long 1/4″-28tpi phillips screws on each side that are located by captive nuts spot-welded to the inside of the rear quarter panel.

Occasionally, one or two will take it on the lam, and when that happens we just replace ’em with with square-sided cage nuts in sheetmetal cages which we pop-rivet in.

A tapping plate pop-riveted in place

However, on this car all six of them escaped en masse, and truth be told, we stand in awe of the previous top installer who fixed the frame in place with nuts & washers.  How he or she was able to get a wrench on the nuts on the blind side of the rear trim panel defies easy explanation.

Butch solved the problem by making up a couple of threaded tapping plates which you can see in the top picture to the right of the tonneau bar bracket he used as a pattern.  In the bottom picture, the right hand plate is pop-riveted in place.

MG TD Mk II on test

Road Test Time: Our work nearly always begins and ends with a road test, non-running cars being an initial exception.  On the right is the TD MkII

What makes it a TD MkII

Butch spent much time cleaning out the cooling system.  TD MkII’s were delivered in what was essentially the TF tuning, 1-1/2″ carburetors, bigger valves & two fuel pumps, and perhaps most interestingly a set of front & rear Andrex friction shocks in addition to the Armstrong levers, as seen here.  This car has highway gears in the rear axle instead of the TD’s standard 5.125:1 stump puller ratio, which means  it goes down the road just splendidly.

On Test: We've asked the N.J. owner of this Austin Healey to come and put his car thru its paces this weekend before we begin our final fettling. We like it and we'll soon find out if he does, too.

Butch & John muscle another TD to the barn, with some help from Reilly

Some cars arrive here under their own power.  Others do not.  When it’s possible we farm recovery work out to our favorite Triple A tow facility, Rod’s Towing & Repair in Putney (802-387-4771, ask for Greg).  They have a knack for overcoming the boundaries of geography.  For instance, to the south  Meridan, Connecticut seems to fall within the Triple A Plus zone.   Not that I’m at all unwilling to travel.  Buffalo, New York is my Saturday destination, if it doesn’t rain too much.

Cooling system disorder

The owner of this TD told us that for some time his car got very hot climbing a grade, but cooled off on the down hill side.  Lots of TD’s do that.  Because he wanted to take it to an upcoming  New England “T” Register event in the White Mountains, it seemed like a good time to look into it.

You are too, now.  This looked serious, so Butch stripped off the manifolds, popped out the bottom row of core plugs and gave the water jacket as good a scrubbing out as you can do, short of a hot tank acid bath.  The radiator took a quick trip to the radiator shop, and in fact I put paint on it only about an hour ago, so it will be ready for re-installation in the morning.

Fuel system disorder

We have our quarrels with Moss Motors over quality control issues, and the TD 4.55 ring & pinion set from Hell is still a sore subject here, but to give credit where credit is due, they have produced some wonderful fixes for these MG’s over the years.  The Tompkins Steering kits for TC’s are one, and their thermostat housings with replaceable thermostats are another.  Both are well deserving of praise.  That’s what will be going back in

Another disorder of the ageing process is illustrated here: Fuel system sedimentation.  The MGA from whence this float bowl cover came was given over to bouts of brilliant performance, alternating with exasperating fits of the blahs.  The problem, as it is said, was obvious.  That it ran at all is a testament to the gutsy stamina of these cars.

John hoe’d it out, but the gas tank really needs to come out for a good cleaning, as well.

Butch welds seatbelt anchorages into the MGA

MGA 1600 MK II’s, like the one seen here last week, had seat belt anchorages installed from the factory.  Regrettably MGA 1500 & 1600 cars never had ’em, and an MGA without seat belts is a stupid thing, like Morgan +4’s which had no room for air cleaners.  It’s one thing to kill your engine, and quite another thing to kill yourself.

So we put ’em in, although the Morgans require some outside sheetmetal work.  My MGA actually has three point belts, but it does make it a bit of a chore to put the top up and down, so I just leave it down.  Call us and we’ll tell you how we do it.

The 'Morgan' room, Thursday around 6:00: 3000MkII & TD MkII, with one owner from new.