BN7 & BN2 Last Week, photo courtesy of Wyn Cooper

A minor calculating error with regard to available space on the website has caused this week’s update to represent last week’s goings on, but that’s O.K.  these are still a couple of nice cars,  and after all, how often do you see a hard top on a two seater Healey ?  The BN2 was here for complete servicing, and the BN7 for complete checking over.  It will be back soon to replace the transmission baulk rings, a.k.a. synchro rings.

Cleaning out a Healey Rust Trap

An important part of Austin Healey servicing is cleaning out the dog leg rust trap in front of the rear wheel, it’s one of the first places a Big Healey starts to break rust.  Your scribe is seen here emptying out the beach sand with a bent wire probe and compressed air.  This was followed with a 50/50 solution of Waxoyl & Hydraulic oil to rust proof the area, as we’ve discovered that Waxoyl alone doesn’t have sufficient “creep”, and Hydraulic oil doesn’t have sufficient staying power on its own.  The back of the fender is much easier to reach.

John and Butch pull an MGB engine & TX

Last week we also dealt with a highly unusual repair, a rebuilt  MGB transmission that didn’t want to shift from 2nd to 3rd.  If you’ve perused the Sports Car Services website, you’re probably aware that we regard the 4 synchro MGB transmission as pretty well bullet proof, so to have one apart for any reason is an unusual event, and the owner sourced this one somewhere to convert the car to overdrive, which is always well worth doing.

A loose lock bolt on the 3rd/4th gear shift fork. Click for detail

A loose lock bolt allowed the 3rd/4th gear brass shift fork to “float” on the shift rod.  A “human error” which was easily correctible once the engine & TX were removed.  So easy, in fact, that half an hour after we pulled it, we were putting it back in again.

Answers to Last Week’s Questions: Back in the day, if you had reason to call the MG factory, you would have dialed Abingdon 251, and for deeply esoteric reasons, this also became the chassis starting number for every MG model built up thru the TC’s

Now if you cabled the Jaguar factory in Coventry the address would have been, logically enough, “Jaguar” Coventry.  Less logically, the code was “Bentley’s 2nd”.  Jean McNelly at English Imports in Kalamazoo nailed both answers, but declined the oil filter.

Jaguar XK 140 Explored by Bernard Viart

Car books are a genre just like detective fiction or sea stories.  They generally break down into two categories, marque histories, usually notable mostly for their evocative photography, and “how to” books, usually notable for all the information missing from the book, and for which you bought it in the first place.

Very occasionally a car book transcends the genre.  Among the marque histories, at least of british cars, “MG by McComb” is one of the notable exceptions, being surprisingly literate, and “TC’s Forever” the appreciation by Michael Sherrill is surely a stand out title in the restoration category.  Your scribe, by the way, had the opportunity to tell him so one July night many years ago, when seeing the lights on in the much missed Westminster MG museum, he barged in with his family and discovered Jerry Goguen giving Mike Sherrill a private guided tour.

An XK 140 Open Two Seater in the Jaguar factory, Coventry

It’s fairly well known that William Lyons and Jaguar were caught completely off guard by the public demand for the XK120 when it was unveiled at the Earls Court Motor Show in 1948.  In order to get them into production quickly, very early cars were literally stick built with an ash framed body a la “T” series MG.  The XK 140 was the car Jaguar would have built if they had had the luxuury of sufficient development time.

Basic chassis information for XK 140's. click to enlarge

Jaguar’s reputation was forever established on the basis of two milestone cars, the XK 120 and the E-type.  I stay well away from $100.00  car books, but I could sense this one was different.  Who, after all, puts out a coffee table car book on the XK 140 ?   No, something was definitely going on here that required making an extraordinary purchase.

The something was this:  Not only had the author, Bernard Viart, chosen the relatively obscure (by comparison with the plethora of XK 120 books) XK 140 for a detailed analysis, but he quite literally created over 2,000 four color plates of virtually every component of the car, labled with the part numbers and the start/stop dates.  There’s NEVER been another car book quite like it.  Did you know that eight different shades of upholstery were offered, as well as 23 body colors ?  They’re illustrated in Viart’s book.

This is the “Gray’s Anatomy”, the text book, not the T.V. show, of british cars.

Early and late XK 140 trunk handles & their attendant hardware. click to enlarge

I am on my  second XK 140.  The first, a drop head coupe, serial # 818891, was purchased in 1971 for $200.00 in “Ran When Parked” condition.  This car was ‘down the road’ around 1980 when the car I really wanted, an open two seater, S 811508DN, came along.  Parse the chassis number sequencing diagram in the second illustration and you’ll soon realize who got the better end of the deal when I swapped it even up for my Husquvarna 250 WR motorcycle.

Soon after receiving the book (from XK’s Unlimited) I dropped M. Viart (who as it turns out, is French) a line to tell him I was utterly flabbergasted, no other word accurately conveys my sense of astonishment, at his accomplishment.  He wrote me back saying he could never have done it had he not been retired, as he spent six days a week for three years putting it together.  Bravo Bernard !

The shredded 165-15 Semperit radial from last week's puzzler. click to enlarge

As usual, the first three correct answers will receive, free, the britsh oil filter of their choice, if we stock it.

John bolting down TR3 engine mounts. click to enlarge

This week John and Butch have started reassembling this TR3 which has been completely refinished in a silver metallic by Jason Marechaux and his crew at East Coast Collision & Restoration.  That’s Butch behind the driver’s door bolting down the TX mounting.

Here's last week's puzzler

It’s been very busy  so it’s kind of thin gruel we’re serving this week.  But if you don’t change the channel in the next five minutes we also have a new contest.

Last week’s question, of course, was how did I get this ostensibly too large filter to fit this filter head ?

Unusual installation for GFE 422 oil filter

There’s an obvious clearance problem with the mounting bolt, but its not an insurmountable problem, it just requires a little engineering.

Early MGB filter head on an MGA

Jeff Schlemmer came closest to a correct answer when he posited that it might have something to do with the relief valve in the head, which is visible to the the right of the central mounting thread.  However, the more interesting action is taking place on the left with the mounting bolt which is cut away on parts of three flats to clear the filter.  Otherwise these top loading (GFE 422) filters don’t seal because they don’t make it all the way down, or is it up ?

A brief word… about top loading MGB  oil filters: bigger isn’t always better.  The GFE 121/422 filters are optimum size-wise.  Taller filters aren’t a very good idea because the oil level above the standpipe in the filter head drains back to the level of the standpipe on shutdown.  When you start your MGB with your larger capacity NAPA filter installed,  first the oil pump has to fill the filter back up again before you get any oil to your precious bearings.  Think about it.

Spare Tires When we service a car we always check the tire pressures… and we set the pressure of the spare to 36psi.  Cumulatively, over the last 25 years, the average pressure seems to be around 9psi, which means a lot of spare tires don’t have any air in them at all, which makes them pretty useless.

This spare tire still holds air !

Your spare tire needs to get you back safely.  This one didn’t.  Make sure your spare is up to the task.    If you’ve read this far here’s a two part question:  The first three people who can correctly identify this car will win a free oil filter for their british car, if we stock it.  If you can also identify the make of tire, you’ll win two !

David Changes a Failed Valve Spring Retainer

Our service intervals on driven cars are every 2,500 miles, grease the chassis, check fluids and brake adjustment, lights, horn, wipers, etc.  At 5,000 miles it’s all of the above and an oil change, and at 10,000 miles it’s major tuneup time including points & plugs and a valve adjustment.

In this particular case you’re looking at  the  90,000 mile service last Sunday on my MGA which includes an unscheduled repair.

Early MGB Cylnder Head Fitted to A 1600 Mk II Block

Sharp eyed readers will have already identified this as an MGB cylinder head because of  the valve spring retainers.  It’s sitting on a standard bore, standard crank 1622 cc block, with a replacement cam, bearings & rings.  The valve train was getting just a taddy-bit noisy at idle, and this is the reason why :

Failed #6 Valve Spring Retainer

Well I’ve not seen this failure before except where the single spring retainers were mistakenly used with dual valve springs.  You can rectify the problem in the car if you work methodically.

Step One:  Back the valve adjuster screws completely off and remove the rocker gear

There’s a lot happening in the top picture, so let’s refer back there a moment.

Working from left to right, you’ll see our leakdown tester, set at low pressure to keep the valve on the seat.  The three rocker

Basic Tools: Rocker Pedestals, Valve Spring Compressor. Also the failed retainer, and a single spring retainer, with the dual spring retainer on the right.

pedestals are clamping the head to prevent a head gasket failure, and you also see your scribe using a magnet to manuever a valve lock out past the spring compressor.

Total repair time was just under two and a half hours including a hot cylinder head retorque and valve adjustment.  I checked it twice!   We always do.  From now on we’ll be adding spring retainers to the list of parts to be magnafluxed at overhaul time.

A  “B” Series Engine Puzzler :

MGA: This Doesn't Work, Or Does It ?

“B” series engine cognoscente will immediately recognize that you can’t put a wide body GFE 422 oil filter on an early MGB bottom loading filter head, yet this arrangement has worked perfectly for over twelve years.  The first three people who can answer this question will receive a free oil filter for their british car if we stock it, which we do for most Jaguars, MG’s, Austin Healeys & Rolls Royce.