Steve tests a TR3 on a raw March day

March is leaving us in more typical March fashion, cold, windy and raw.  I asked Steve to run over to Abingdon Spares to pick up transmission mounts for an MG TF and suggested he take the blue MGB GT,  but he allowed as how he’d rather put some test miles on the TR3 which he’s been finishing up, instead.  So with the top down and the tonneau zipped over the passenger side he set off to travel  thru two states separated by two stop signs.

TR3 horn & turn signal control head before servicing

The same control head after servicing

The turn signals were a little dodgy in the TR3, with  the self-canceling mechanism a hit or miss affair.  Steve pulled the stator tube with the control head in order to see what the problem was, and apart from a worn out self-cancelling detent (replaced with the only used one we could find), the problem was an accumulation of 50 years worth of grease and grime.

mediumThis strikes to the core of our basic mantra, which is that these elegantly simple british cars were built in a manner and with materials of a quality that allows them to be rebuilt for additional long years of service.  Just contemplate trying to get the in-dash GPS device in  your SUV overhauled 25 years from now, and then consider the fact that this control head went 50.  (Steve Reed photos)

With the adjustments and running-in completed, once a couple of our faux pas are touched-in by East Coast Collision & Restoration, we’ll be turning this TR3 back over to its rightful owner.

Hump Time: John, Steve & Butch try to establish rear brakes in the Sprite

Sometimes sitting for a long period of time can present challenges for resuscitating the hydraulic systems.  Working methodically, John had replaced the frozen wheel cylinders, overhauled the brake calipers and replaced the clapped-out clutch master & slave cylinders.

We had hopes of at least salvaging the brake master cylinder, and we were mightily encouraged by the strong hydraulic pressure being delivered to the front brakes.  After a longish struggle and a certain amount of bad language we gave up, and John stripped the brake master, but deep pitting in stepped bore necessitated a replacement.

mediumLater Sprites & Midgets use the same overhaul kit as 1968 thru 1974 MGB’s.  They are, however diabolically difficult cylinders to rebuild, and there are multiple snap-rings located in the cylinder bores.  We can do ’em as long as we’ve got something to work with, which wasn’t the case here.

Anyway, we won, and Wednesday the Sprite was on test, too.

John heads off to put the Sprite thru its paces

Steve & Butch assess John's handiwork. Click to check out the interesting rear tires

We’re not completely sure when we’re going to receive the summons from Jason Marechaux at East Coast Collision and Restoration to furnish him with the rolling chassis for the ‘TD On-de-Lawn’ (see October 15 posting), but as of last Friday it’s definitely a roller.  John has done a pretty good job of getting it to this stage, he’s overhauled the front and rear suspension, replaced the clutch pedal shaft & bushings and also rebuilt the steering rack & pinion assembly.  Still to come are the brake pipes and hoses, and the original brake master cylinder, now resleeved in brass.

The owner is contemplating a 4.55 rear axle ratio in place of the standard 5.125 trials gearing, which would make this MG much more highway friendly, with a useable 65 mph at 4,000 rpm, although this would come at the expense of low speed tractability on very narrow, very steep and very muddy dirt roads and cow paths.

We do this from time to time on special tooling which we commissioned for this purpose.

Steve attends to a TR3 while John does rear brakes on a roll up window Sprite

Steve has been engaged in the thoroughly miserable task of installing the rear fender stoneguards on this recently painted Triumph TR3.  It’s a job best undertaken before the paint goes on, which makes this an exercise in patience and self-restraint, because thrown tools will bounce on a wood floor.  As we like to say, the currently available replacement parts aren’t within a row of: “(pick your own very vulgar term)”.

This week John has drawn a much more straightforward job, which is a complete hydraulic overhaul of this pretty nice little  roll-up window Austin Healey Sprite, which has been off the road for several years.

Rob & Patrick tear down a Jaguar 4 synchro TX

Lately it seems like we’ve been doubling down on gear-trains.  By an incredible stroke of luck or serendipity, or both Rob, who’s on the left, acquired a series one OTS and a series two FHC when they were still just used cars.  He’s holding an old synchronizer baulk ring up against the new one in Patrick’s hands.  Because the engine was already out, it was a good time to renew the synchro rings, the countershaft, the input & output ball bearings, as well as approximately 390 needle roller bearings located throughout the cluster gear and the 1st, 2nd & 3rd speed gears.  We’d call this a preemptive rebuild.

The advent of better weather also means we’ve been able to start running some road miles on this modified late BJ8.  We can definitely handle that assignment.

STRAIGHT AHEAD: We've been putting this Healey thru its paces this week

Engine bay of blue GT

With 95,573 miles on the odometer and not a prayer of a new inspection sticker when the current one expires at the end of  April, the Blue Winter Beater GT is truly approaching the finish line.  It was something of a surprise, therefore, when after a stop at the Westminster Post Office en route to Abingdon Spares, the car resolutely refused to restart.  No matter,  Steve and I winched it up on the trailer, scooted over to A.S.L. and then rolled the car into the downstairs workbay for attention by the late shift.

These later MGB’s run a ballasted ignition system, which means that the coil operates on a current of less than 12 volts.  A coil, being nothing more than an electrical transformer, jumps the voltage up to about 30,000 volts at the plugs, and for reasons not worth investigating, the ballast had failed.  Oh, well, technically the engine would catch, it just wouldn’t stay running.

Butch mills HD8 carburetor spacer blocks on the Bridgeport

A ballasted ignition allows you to play a useful little trick on the coil.  A second feed from the starter solenoid which is only live when the engine is cranking, creates a much greater momentary peak voltage, that’s why it would start and die.  A close inspection of the first picture will reveal my long obsolete Fluke 73 multimeter, a vastly more sophisticated diagnostic tool than the technician using it, and the repair, which was to install  a used 12 volt coil**  and run a jumper wire to it from what we call the “Green Fuse”, which is for functions, like turn signals, which are switched thru the ignition and fused.

A "One Off" heatshield for the BJ8

Butch has had to do a large amount of custom fitting for the Healey Blue over Old English White BJ8.  If you’ve been reading this column regularly, you’re aware that this car is running an Australian-made DMD intake manifold which comes with some rudimentary throttle linkage, and not much else.  Because the standard carburetor heatshield simply won’t fit it, Butch made up what is actually a two piece heatshield with a “Cool Mat” insulator sandwiched in between.

BJ8 carbs & linkages

The DMD-provided linkage pulls from the bracket with a return spring at each end which is  bolted to the intake manifold.  We didn’t like that because there was no way to arrange for adequate thermal protection for the carburetor float bowls.  So after much bad language was expressed about the manifold tuner’s engineeering practices, we decided we could do better, and this task of course fell once again to Butch.  Here is his solution:

He has notched the top of the heatshield to allow for the cable pull and fabricated a cable stop bracket which is mounted to the air cleaner flanges of the carburetors.  This has the additional benefit of using up more of the length of the suppled right hand drive throttle cable, which has a clevis at both ends.  Unfortunately, this is making for exceedingly tight quarters for the air cleaner assembly, but if push comes to shove, we can always make the same sort of expedient repair I once saw performed on a well turned out Allard on the Bonneville Salt Flats during Speed Week.  In order to increase air flow to the radiator, the pit crew simply opened out the front shroud with a pair of tin snips.  We have tin snips.                   – Click to Enlarge All of These Pictures-

** A number of years ago, Peter Egan, writing in Road & Track magazine detailed ten steps guaranteed to make your race car go slower, one of which was to “borrow a used ignition coil from one of your competitors”, although a much better method, in my judgment, was “to wait until after the starter’s flag drops to remove the tennis balls from your velocity stacks“.

BN7 back at East Coast Collision & Restoration

By prior arrangement, Wednesday night I hauled the BN7 back to East Coast Collision & Restoration in Mount Holly to re-panel the car now that we have the mechanicals roughed in.

At 7:00 p.m.  Jason Marechaux was just finishing up his day, and the camera caught him over by the series 1 E-type that has proven very conclusively that “Paint hides a multitude  of sins”.  We are all praying that the backordered (from England) sheetmetal shows up soon.

We’ve just received the repaired transmission mainshaft, which has been hard chromed and reground to a condition slightly better than new.  That’s the solution to a problem referenced in our January 27 posting, “A Rusty Coil and a New Clutch”.

Morgan waiting for paint

Now there are actually two shops at East Coast Collision & Restoration.  There is what we might call the “Bump” shop where tear down, panel work, welding & build up are taking place, and there is the paint shop, the function of which is self-explanatory.

This Plus 4 Morgan will be shedding its cocoon in the next week or two, at which time it will be refinished in what might be aptly described as “Arrest Me Yellow” which is similar in effect to “Arrest Me Red”.  It’s a high visibility color, especially for traffic patrolmen.

'69 Sprite in good nick, from Arlington, Vermont

We don’t see a lot of Sprites & Midgets, although we do have quite a nice Old English White car wintering over in the barn.  This one’s in a very nice state of preservation.  I spent 20 minutes underneath it recently looking for the tell-tale signs of the Bodgers and there wern’t any.  In fact the only known fault at this time is directly attributable to the mice and chipmunks that had been using it as a winter shelter.

John starts to build up a TD

When last seen, we were using this TD chassis as a chinning bar, because the only convenient temporary storage we had for it was by suspending it from the shop ceiling.  It’s the “TD Ondelawn” from last October, and John is commencing the chassis build up.

We had previously prepped the chassis parts and stored them in the green tubs behind John to the left, many of which he has laid out around in in the manner of one of those exploded diagrams in the parts books.  We’re hoping that by this time next week it’s a roller again.