The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (December 16 - December 31, 2024)

MGAguru.com

MGAguru.com

Monday - December 16, 2024:
Sitting in Ocala, Florida today, I finally got around to doing something that was about 20 years overdue. I was updating a Cooling Tech page on the various MGB water pumps for 3-main bearing and 5-main bearing engines . This is important if you want to transplant an MGB engine into the MGA, and you need to select the appropriate water pump to make it work.

Tuesday - December 17, 2024:
Lutz FL today, just ambling along.

Wednsday - December 18, 2024:
Sitting in Ellenton,FL with a day off.

Thursday - December 19, 2024:
Strolled on down the road to North Fort Meyers, FL. We are due in Bonita Springs tomorrow.

Friday - December 20, 2024:
Christmas dinner time at Tech Central Racing in Bonita Springs, Florida, and we made as planned (easy-peasy). We arrived early enough to watch and help with staging the cars to be on display for the day.

Supposed to be a casual party day, no tech work intended, but sometimes boys will be boys. The MGB wannabe race car "Tina" that has been slowly progressing for the past few years recently got he clutch and brake hydraulics hooked up, so it may be about ready for a test run around the block. For some odd reason it is reluctant to start without a sniff of starting fluid, but once started it seems to run okay. And no, it is not stale gas.

Someone is contemplating using the modular aluminum trailer, but lots of stuff on it needs to find a different hone (not today) . Some new simple shop tools have just arrived, a set of four pinch clamps with rubber seals used to close off hydraulic pipes to retain fluids during service disconnect. One on left has two rubber stoppers to seal a banjo fitting. Others are three different sizes to seal the open end of a flared pipe. Just so you don't think we only play with cars here, there is a small chain saw getting a new magneto ignition coil, which does work, so now it runs again.


Nice dinner party on the patio, good friends, wonderful weather, great time to take a day off. In the evening we had some time to grouse around the net looking for new fenders for the Magic Trailer. They seem to get beat up pretty bad every few years, cheap enough and easier to fit new ones than to repair the old ones. We may have found some locally, maybe a chore for tomorrow.

Saturday - December 21 2024:
On a mission today. we found a pair of trailer fenders we wanted at the Tractor Suy store in Naples, FL. Word was they had been left outside for a while and may be a little rusty. That turned out to be an understatement, but they were the right parts in the right place at the right time, so we went for it. Being discounted 50% was only incidental. Looked like the "surface rust" might almost buff off, but not so lucky. Grab an angle grinder with a flap wheel sanding disc. By the time we were done it took two guys two hours to get them down to basically bare metal. Got lucky and finished grinding just as the sun was setting behind the trees and our view was getting lost in shadows. We washed them down with lacquer thinner to get the grinding dust off.

After some consideration we wiped them down with Ospho rust treatment, maybe the best we could do for any rust dust left in microscopic pits. After a few minutes there was a light blue hue on the surface to indicate it was working some. We will let that cure over night and take a shot at primer paint tomorrow..


Sunday - December 22 2024:
Back to Tech Central to finish cleaning up the new trailer fenders and get them primered. Start by rounding off all of the sharp corners, Then go at them with 400-grit emery paper and lots of water to buff off the sharp edges and anything that does not feel smooth to the fingers. Not trying to make pretty, just wanting the paint to stick and stay on for as long as possible. In particular, it would be nice if the paint would flex and not break loose next time one of the wings will get bent (and of course they will). Wash them with lacquer thinner, let dry, spray with self-etching primer. walk away.

Watching paint dry is not my favorite past time, so let's check out the new engine. It has been running well, generally speaking, just a bit slow for cold start, and wanting to run about 10 seconds before it smooths out. Thinking it might be flooding on start up. We have been checking and adjusting float levels and making sure the float valves close and do not leak, So far so good. Wanting to do a compression test anyway, since it now has over 1000 miles since the rebuild. Remove spark plugs. Get two pair of eyes staring at the ports before cranking it over to be sure nothing would come spitting out,. Also okay.

Then do the compression test. 140, 90, 60, 140. What? That looks a like a blown head gasket. Could it be leaking water that we don't see? So Do a cooling system pressure test. Top up with coolant, apply pressure at 10-psi, and it looks like it's holding the pressure. Really. Put the compression tester in port #2 and give it another crank. then we both yelled at the same time. Navigator said the radiator tester jumped a few psi at the same time as a I got soaked with a heavy wet shot from port #3. Okay, it's a blown head gasket. Just git er done. One casual hour to drain coolant, remove carburetors, separate manifolds from head, disconnect a few hoses, remove the head nuts and lift off the head. The head gasket looked okay, until we pulled it off and flipped it over. the under side was definitely burned in the middle between cylinders 2 and 3, including some disfiguration around the adjacent coolant holes.

Mating surfaces of the head and block otherwise look okay, so clean it up and reassemble with a new head gasket. We regularly swap things around to try new parts from time to time. This time we set aside a couple of familiar Payen head gaskets to try out a new Lucas brand head gasket (Made In England). I rather like the looks of solid metal both sides in the center between #2 and #3 cylinders. Judging by where the red silicone sealant lines are positioned on the gasket surface, the makers seem to have some experience about the most likely leak points, and how to avoid it. -- Not long to get the new gasket down, drop the head on, get the head nuts all torqued down. Pushing dusk by that time, we spent the last half hour working with flashlights (nothing new here). Carbs back on, coolant in and and running by 6-pm, clean up and pack up the tools. Toddle on down the road 5 miles to our dinner spot, then re-torque the head again while the engine was still hot. Tomorrow's gonna be another day.


Monday - December 23 2024:
Back to Tech Central to spray a finish coat of black enamel on the new trailer fenders. Then to replace a throttle cable that has been bothering us for long time. Each time I bought a new one from Moss Motors, I found the metal ferrule on the bulkhead end of the outer jacket was too large to fit into the firewall receptacle. I would end up pulling the center wire out of the new cable to install inside of the old jacket. Now the old jacket that has been recycled several times is broken up too bad to use, so something else has to give. we finally figured out the old cable had a smaller diameter end fitting which fit inside of another thin wall ferrule, and it was now just matter of fishing the thin wall piece out of the firewall receptacle. Then it all went back together as intended, and there is nothing wrong with the Moss motors cable assembly. Peachy, it works just fine.

We installed new wiper blades, which we hope will banish a multitude of irritations. Then on to the more important issue that has been bugging us for at least a few months, and maybe lot longer. Do a power shift, hammer the throttle and let the clutch up, and the clutch would slip for at least a few seconds before it would hook up and pull normally. A related issue is, you can't do a burn out. First gear,m rev it up to 4-grand, pop the clutch and stomp the throttle, and it would just sit there and smoke the clutch. Back to half throttle for a few seconds to allow it time to hook up, and then drive away. Once the clutch is fully engaged, from 2500-rpm you can stand on the throttle, and it will pull normally without slipping. Seems like this has to be restricted fluid return. So we did the cheapest and easiest thing first, installing a new clutch slave cylinder. In the process, verify that the slave hose runs freely and will dribble fluid by gravity feed, so the hose is not clogged.

After clean-up and pack-up we headed out for dinner, and gave it a good hard power shift or two. Guess what? No difference, it still has the clutch slip. now thinking the fluid return restriction must be in the master cylinder. Maybe the anti-return check valve for the brakes was installed in the wrong bore and is adversely affecting the clutch return. Something to check tomorrow.

Tuesday - December 24 2024:
An eventful day at Tech Central with Tina the wannabe race car getting its first trip around the block under self power. And for the second lap around the block, it came back blowing clouds of steam with a blown head gasket. Well, it is a car built by committee, so no one knows who did or did not torque the cylinder head. but the Magic Trailer came to the rescue with another head gasket. Two minus one equals one left in reserve. Likely that will be fixed next Friday.

We did jump on the day to install the new fenders on the trailer. Empty the cargo, jack up, remove wheels, and remove the mangled wings. In short, locate and drill eight holes to bolt on the new wings. Wheels back on drop it off the stands and repack the cargo.

Time for chat with a few friends before folks blow town for a holiday break. Takethe rest of the day off.