A Danish admirer with the MG TD

Last Friday afternoon I loaded up the MG TD that Steve had finally bested, and while our rig was parked alongside the Westminster West road it caught the attention of the Danish visitor pictured here.  I had my camera, too.  It never ceases to amaze me what an attractive nusiance a TD is.  These must be the Labrador Retrievers of the car world, everybody seems to want to pet them.

An MG "Y" Tourer, Patrick at the wheel

I believe I may have neglected to identify the mystery MG posted up here a couple of weeks back, which two people correctly identified.  It is an MG “Y” Tourer, built from approximatley 1947 thru 1950.  It’s a variation of the four door “Y” type (YA & YB)  sedans which entered production not long after the end of World War II.

Although very traditionally styled, the “Y” types were very cutting edge with their independent front suspension.  The YT’s were mostly built for export markets, had a twin carb engine in “TC” tune (sedans had only a single carburetor), and were the first MG’s to be built with left hand drive.  It’s an interesting fact that these cars rolled down the Abingdon assembly lines alongside the basically pre-war MG TC’s.

Is there air in your spare ?

A 2,500 miles minor service performed here on active cars  includes checking brake linings and vital fluids, some attention with the grease gun and a check on belts & hoses.  Oh, and tire pressures.  It’s an interesting phenomena, but the average tire inflation for spare tires checked here averages around 8 PSI, which means an awful lot of them ain’t gat’ no air in ’em at all.  By comparison this spare was twice as good.  Regrettably, 15 pounds of air isn’t really enough to get the job done.  We set them to 36 PSI because it’s a lot easier to let some air out on the side of the road than it is to get more in.  Consider this to be a gentle reminder.

Right now we’re truly ‘in the weeds’ as far as work goes, and I’ve been working until the mosquitoes drive me away at night.   This isn’t necessarily a bad place to be in May, although since we’re booking several weeks out right now, we’re “futuring” as much work as we can to allow for immediate attention to breakdown work.

We’d still love to hear from you, and if you can work with us on that, we’d very much like to work with you.

Wednesday afternoon around 3:30

Steve roadtests an MG TD

Steve took Monday & Tuesday off to travel to Philadelphia, so Wednesday morning we wasted no time getting right back to work, and around 8:45 he was out running this  MG TD over the road in order to start tuning the carburetors he extensively overhauled last week.

Let me come right out and say it; we truly pity our urban & suburban breathern.  Not only are they genuinely hard pressed to find an open road to properly dial in a car, nothing on their test routes comes anywhere close to the aesthetics of ours.  Those are round bales in Billy Acquaviva’s hayfield.  Our “B” route features sheep.  This is springtime in Vermont.

Severely worn throttle shafts

Vapor leak around jet

Steve’s first roadtest was plagued by an over-rich fuel mixture from an unusual source: Fuel was pulling up around the outside of the jet, you can actually see it if you enlarge the picture on the right.  Butch spotted the condition, and I took a picture.  This is truly an unusual situation caused by some unknown hammer-handed mechanic some time in the past.  The jet assembly aperture in the bottom of the carb body is sealed by a copper washer, however the seating was so badly mutilated that the copper washer never stood a chance.  Steve cut a new washer from fuel proof gasket paper.  Now it’s on to sorting out the distributor.

John cleans down a Borg Warner D.G. 250

Detroit Gear 250 I.D. plate

John is about to stuff the engine & automatic transmission back in the repainted & reupholstered Jaguar Mk2 sedan seen here a couple of months back.  While he spent some time cleaning up and repainting the engine ( we lateralled off the bright work to Joe at E.C.C&R. for polishing), he simply cleaned down the marvelous Studebaker Detroit Gear 250 automatic, which is the same model as the one I hauled out of the Mark IX Jaguar last week.  When Studebaker moved on to “Flight-O-Matic”, Borg Warner packed up the tooling, shipped it to England and built the D.G. 250 for Jaguar and Mercedes & some others.

Also on test:  A Jaguar on the “B” route

Capital View: Bedding-in XK 120 brake linings Sunday morning

Tight Squeeze: Jaguar Mark IX

Patrick gave me an assist last weekend and we managed to squeeze this truly massive Jaguar Mark IX sedan into what is called “The Morgan Room”, a.k.a. the north end of the shop.  Under normal conditions we can service two Morgans or two TD’s or a Midget and a Spitfire in here, or one very large sedan.   Steve’s comment was “A ship in a bottle”.

The initial purpose of the exercise was to haul out the leaky B.W. Detroit Gear Automatic for adjustment and re-sealing, a job which meets all three of our sublet criteria:  If someone else can do it better, faster, cheaper, then let ’em.”  We have a rather lengthy punch list of other items on it, too.

Automatic Transmission in situ

Transmission out

This mechanically elegant transmission lets the driver lock the torque converter either in or out below about 60 mph.  Above 60 it’s always locked out… automatically.

Additionally, the unusual rear pump can pressurize the entire gear train, allowing for a rolling start !

A happy man & his MG TC EXU

Dick Warren collected his EXU TC Saturday afternoon after Steve did a steering box swap last week.  He reports that for the first time speed enforcement might be a problem.

The EXU (Export USA) TC’s were built specifically for the American market, and were equipped with turn signals and bumpers !   All of ’em, were however right hand drive.  Dick’s car started out Clipper Blue, an excellent color.

And now for something completely different:  Another MG of the same vintage, but left hand drive with independent front suspension.  The first three respondents who can correctly identify what it is will receive a free oil filter of their choice, if we stock it.

Late 40's left hand drive four seater

Safety Fast: You Can Do It In An MG

Last Thursday afternoon, I road tested one of John’s scuttling kindergarten of MGB’s back to its owner in Axle River, just up the road from us.

John was following in my MGB.  The resident of the yellow house came down her driveway, let me by and pulled out in front of John, who was about 500 feet back.  I saw the whole scene in the rear view mirror:  He locked up the brakes, and took evasive action as she lurched out over the double yellow line.

The net result:  Excellent brakes and quick reflexes mean a Toyota Prius will live to see another day… Maybe.  When we went back to survey the scene we initially stopped at the wrong set of skid marks.  Perhaps it is a regular occurrance around 4520 Westminster West Road.

Butch welds a broken Triumph steering bracket

Tight Squeeze: broken bracket repaired

An interesting local stress point on a Triumph TR6 is the somewhat inadequate steering column mounting bracket fixed to the passenger compartment bulkhead.  The steering wheel is probably not a functional handgrip to raise and lower yourself to and from the driver’s seat.

After extensive excavations, John freed up enough space to allow for repair by welding, which at the very best was still a fiddle.  Butch has the best helmet and the best skills.  He made the repair.

Butch wires the Austin Mini Panel Van

Owing to an incredible 40 year run, Minis seem to have an uncanny ability to almost spontaneously mutate.  This seemingly straight forward external door hinge car is a veritable hotbed of mechanical and electrical quirks.  It’s an early car with a late A plus engine, nothing unusual really in that, but Butch has been sorely challenged trying to create a seemless cohesion out of electrical components and wiring that seem to run thru the full 40 years of model changes.  He’s winning, barely.

XK 120 brake assembly with something extra

Contrary to my strong expectations, the wheel cylinders in the XK 120 Fixed head Coupe seen here last week were in good to excellent shape, To get the most out of a drum-braked XK Jaguar it helps to have a strong right leg, and if the wheel cylinders are starting to seize, that effort goes up.

We don’t do a lot of these cars, although I have one, so when I compared the front brake linings to the rear, I thought it was unusual that they should be about 2 inches longer.  A quick consult with the factory parts book confirmed my suspicions that front & rear brake shoes are indeed the same, and should be lined up to  the round notch visible at roughly the 11:30 & 5:30 position.  In fact if you look closely, you’ll see the lining material lifting away from the shoes at either end.

"Original Brake Linings were MINTEX M.20, secured to each shoe with 12 Rivets" click to enlarge

A consultation with Jaguar XK 140 Explored by Bernard Viart, and available  confirms this.  The magnificent Viart illustration shows where the lining is supposed to be, and even tells us the original material, Mintex and the number of rivets (12).  When in doubt find a knowledgable source.

If you have an XK 140, buy the book !   If you have an XK 120 you can soon rejoice, your book’s coming out this fall. http://www.paulskilliterbooks.co.uk