The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (October 1 - October 15, 2026)
Thursday October 1, 2026:
This might be a boring week with no firm appointments until a club meeting next Wednesday. Time spent considering some new part Numbers tech pages for lots of bearings and seals, as most of those are already on "Care And Feeding) tech pages with alternate part number interchange lists. That could kill a week.
Friday October 2, 2026:
Some tech question about parts of the inertia starter pinion gear and Bendix drive. Just a bit of head scratching.
Saturday October 3, 2026:
Posting new Part Numbers tech pages for Water pump bearings and seals six part numbers, 2A457, 1H1153, 8G698, 13H772, AEB156, AEF136, covering all MGA models plus MG TB,TC, TD, TF.
Sunday October 4, 2026:
Moved a bit more west, sitting in Carlisle, PA. Working on a few more Part Numbers pages for timing cover seals, felt and rubber. Three part numbers, 2K7140 felt ring for early MGA, 2A939 rubber seal for late model MGA, AEJ5 oil seal for Twin Cam. Mostly finished, still needing checking and touch-ups before uploading.
Monday October 5, 2026:
Inching a little farther west, sitting in Chambersburg.PA. Finished the new Part Number tech pages for three
engine front cover seals, and uploaded and tested orking. Start with this one: 2A939.
Right in the middle of uploading and testing, my web site server stopped dead and wasted two hours,because the server operating system has changed functions. Finding out the hard way that some of the bookmarks for my Firefox browser won't work any more,because the bookmarked web addresses start with "http:mgaguru", and now the server requires an "s" in the URL, like "https://mgaguru..." So now I have to update all the bookmarks (lots of them).
Headed west again late evening, running through some delightful mountain roads in the dark, stopping in Breezewood, PA for the night.
Tuesday October 6, 2026:
Breakfast in Breezewood, but navigator calls it too cold in this place,so we fueled it up and moved on. Another 73 miles west, winding our way through the mountains (seems like most of Pennsylvania). Keep you on your toes kind of roads on US-30, Up and down the twisty hills commonly 8% grades, and at lest one at 9%. Only problem was one particularly slow truck for a while. Landing in Latrobe, PA in time for or lunch, not sure why we are one day ahead of schedule, think we were supposed to be still in Breezewood.
Someone sent scans of catalog pages for Glacier and Vandervell bearings for MG engines , so I posted those in the Engine Tech section here: MG Engine Tech - General
CS-106G - Crankshaft Bearings for MGs, Glacier -(pdf) -- Glacier_MG1-3.pdf
CS-106V - Crankshaft Bearings for MGs, Vandervell -(pdf) -- Vandervell_MG1-4.pdf
Wednesday October 7, 2026:
Breakfast in Greensburg, PA, most of the day to pass before our evening appointment.
 A little more fuss about errors and omissions in the Glacier and Vandervell bearing listings. They do (did) not list crankshaft bearings for the MGA Twin Cam. They have wrong part number for main bearing set for the MGA1622 engine (ignoring the narrower center main bearing). And most of the BMC cross ref numbers in the Vandervell catalog do not exist in any MGA Service Parts List. Otherwise these catalogs are good for replacement parts and technical dimensions.-- Found a later edition Vandervell catalog that does list bearings for the Twin Cam, all main,rod, and Cam bearings. So more time to update the Part Numbers tech pages.
Off to a club meeting tonight wuth Laural Highlands British Car Club in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. They meet at a place called 814 Lnes n Games, which id just what it sounds like, a large bowling alley and games arcade with traditional bar with kitchen. Also a groups meeting room on the side, and throw in a gambling machine room. I dunno what else is in there, but the place is huge, and they have a web site if you want to check it out.
No other British cars outside. The club was in the meeting room (13 people plus us), supposed to be dinner at -7pm and meeting at 8-pm. We arrived comfortably at :6:30-pm, and most of the people had food on the tables way ahead of us. Sometimes
it doesn't pay to ask in advance? Not always the right answers? Quick enough to order, and I got to say hello to a couple of people. By the time we got our first bites in the meeting was started about 7-pm, and was finished before our food was. By the time we finished eating some people were already leaving, finished at 8-pm, and out the door. At least we got to visit another club. Just a little disappointed to kill a week and drive 200 miles out of our way for dinner.
Heading west on US-117 and I-70, then south on I-79. Heavy traffic and road construction, stop and creep, merging into one lane, at least twice. Getting late fast, so we stopped in Waynesburg, PA, at a 24-hour gas station with McD and WiFi at 9:30-pm. Grab sodas, and take the time to process these photos and notes. -- Late night we pushed south across a state line to stop at the West Virginia Welcome Center.
Thursday October 8, 2026:
Breakfast in Bridgeport, West Virginia. taking a few minutes to consider timing for the next few steps. Made a call fueled up the car, headed south. Two Walmart stops for oil and more becuse we missed getting everything at the first stop. Landed at Loves stop in Bastian, Virginia, for late lunch, half way to somewhere, check back tomorrow.
Friday October 9, 2026:
Mid day, filled with fuel, and headed south from Bastian, VA. Cough, sputter, right out, getting worse as we go. Pull off next exit to re-gap the points, but more of the same. Pull off the next exit to replace the condenser, and that seems to have fixed it, cruising for the next few hours without incident, fighting our way through stop and creep traffic around Charleston, NC for rmore than an hour, pretty much as expected.
Arriving in rural York, South Carolina just before dusk to visit Bruce Bodenstein. We were here four years earlier to check out his MGA body restoration work, which had lots of misfit issues at the time. But before we get too deep into that, it was time to take advantge of the situation (and timing) to do an engine oil and filter change, and gearbox and differential oil change as well. Only problem here was finishing it up by flashlight after dark, but nothing new there.
Then we were pigging out on pizza and sodas while we sat and chat for another hour. Lots of very expensive new body panels came with the car when he bought it. Unfortunately, most of the stuff had Victoria British part numbers, and none of it fit without lots of fettling.
When it was time for our host to turn in,it was time for me to go to work, processing these photos and notes. We will get more into Bruce's MGA tomorrow.
Saturday October 10, 2026:
This morning we got a good look at Bruce's MGA, beginning with the right side door. With the hinges firmly attached, as the door closes, the rear face of the door shell touches the mating face of the B-pillar, without the shut face plate installed. Obviously this would be an interference fit. Back edge of the boor skin at top also just touches the front edge of the B-pillar, like no space for paint, when there needs to be a clearance gap there.And there is a large space between the tip of the curved door "'horn" and end of the main body where the dash crash rail will attach, and a large space from front of the door skin to the front wing. All of this could be improved if the door could move forward about 1/8-inch.
Solution to this will be to make the hinges thinner. There are at least four new hinges in hand. Pictures show the early production hinge style that allow the doors to open 75 degrees, while later issue hinges allow 85 degree opening. Not a big deal at the moment, so we will work with the parts in hand. A tech article detailing the difference between early and late hinges can be found at BD-103B. Notice with the hinge closed and the arms parallel, the hinge is thick with a wide gap between the arms.
We temporarily disassembled the large vice, just long enough to generously oil the draw screw and the sliding guides. Position the hinge in closed condition in in the vice with the hinge pin 1/2-inch above the top corner of the vice jaws, then crank it down to squeeze it. When finished, the hinge plate will be closer together when parallel with very little space in between, That is, the hinge is much thinner, so the door will sit more forward.
Install the mew pre-bent hinges, and the door sits farther forward with a nice 1/8-inch gap at top rear corner, and smaller panel gap in front. We win the first round. While fitting up the new rocker panel we found a bit of interference at bottom of the B-pillar, easily fixed by letting a small notch on the top rear corner of the rocker panel sail plate.
Then we took a few minutes to look at a new left side door (very expensive part). The top front corner "horn" shape is obviously wrong, being very flat on outside surface where it needs to be curved to match the main body top cowl. That might just be a hammer and dolly job to make the right curve, but the horn is also too long on the tip where it will interfere with the main body near end of te crash rail. Trying to un-bend the crimped over aluminum skin to shorten the steel shell horn, and then bend the skin back over again, has to be lost cause. That would at least require many repeated heat cycles to anneal the alloy with every little motion of bending, and still likely to work harden and break off anyway. So we figure that to be just cut off, and then contract a pro welder to heliarc weld the alloy skin back together.
Then we were trying to figure out why the new rocker panel bottom flange was so far below the bottom edge of the body sill.
Seriously thinking about how to compress the rocker panel top to bottom to bring up the lower flange. We even took it to the big vise, intending to squeeze it, all for naught, This was supposed to be the one rocker panel with the good shape, and it couldn't be that far off. We finally took another look at the bottom of the car with straight edge in hand, and soon discovered that the inner sill plate had been welded in wrong position, at least 1/4-inch too high in front and 1/2-inch to high in rear, while bottom flanges of front and rear wings and rocker panel were all in the right place. Curses. Don't blame the owner here, as it was like that when he bought it. He just got stuck with the job of fixing someone else's screw up.
So off to the hardware store to buy a piece of 18-gauge steel sheet, Measure, scratch mark, and slit a few strips 3/4-inch wide and 18-inches long. Three of those end to end make the 4-1/2 foot length of the inner body sill. Get to work clamping and tack welding to extend the bottom edge of the inner sill panel. When that was straight and secure in place it was time to quit for the day. From there just grunt work to finish the welding and grind it smooth. After that, trim the bottom edge 1/8-inch below the frame to match the outer panels.
Sunday October 11, 2026:
Slept late, missed breakfast, hauled out to the nearest McD for lunch and WiFi time. Processed photos and notes from the last two days, Moving on again, stopping for fuel and dinner hour in Blacksburg, SC. Catching up with email and BBS, and sleep.
Monday October 12, 2026:
Day to spare, so posting three new Part Numbers tech pages for MGA flywheels, 1H651, 12H587, AEH442. Interesting to note the differences.
Evening Zoom tech session with John Twist of University Motors, discussing Brakes., Up to 175 people on line at once, some coming and going over 2-1/2 hours, at least 205 different people participating. Very good information.
Tuesday October 13, 2026:
Moved down the road, a couple of times, spending much of the day on the outskirts of Greenville, South Carolina. Time for phone calls, making new plans for the rest of the week (and a couple more tanks of fuel). -- In the evening we dropped in to visit Foothills British Car Club At Kouzina (pizza), in Greenville, SC. Did find some British cars outside, more than shown here, and 30 or so club members inside for dinner and club meeting.
For sure we pigged out too much, followed by the club business meeting, then a little trip update by yours truly, followed by a longer report from several people just returned from a trip to Europe.
Once the food and fun had settled, we were heading another 85 miles west to stop in Commerce, Georgia for the night. Car running crappy again, suspect bad internal ground wire in the distributor, but that can wait for the morning.
Wednesday October 14, 2026:
Planned travel day, not a big rush. Breakfast and morning WiFi in Commerce, GA, then out to fix the car mid day with 80dF and full sun, before it would get any hotter. Car running badly, so pulled the dizzy for close inspection. no broken wire, points look okay, put it back together, still runs badly. Pull the dizzy again, put a beeping continuity tester on it, and fiddle for a while. Points may not be making reliable contact when closing, so we installed new points (8544-mi 5-mo). Fired right up, ran like champ, so pack away the tools, and move on.
Fifty miles down I-85 in one hour, running great. Just hit the I-285 bypass around Atlanta, Georgia, slowing to stop and creep, and it began running very badly again, worse by the minute. Bailed off the first exit and into a gas station, still running with very rough idle. Applying a test light to points wire terminal on the ignition coil instantly killed the spark, and it was repeatable. Recently replaced condenser and points, so time to swap in a new coil. but that made no difference. Test light on the points wire still kills the spark.
Face reality. Clamp a test condenser on the alternator bracket, and jump wire it to the points terminal on the coil. It immediately fired up and ran great. Removed the jump wire, and it died. Okay, install the new condenser inside the distributor, and how far can I throw the old condenser that died after 565-miles in 5-days? Runs good again, pack up the tools, clean up and get back on the road.
Then fighting the stop and creep traffic for an hour to go 25 miles around the Atlanta bypass expressway loop, followed by flying another 47 miles in 45 minutes to stop in Hogansville, Georgia for very late lunch at 6-pm. Still 107 miles short of destination in Montgomery, Alabama, but we can do that before noon tomorrow. Had enough grief for one day, cool down, beef up, get some rest.
Thursday October 15, 2026:
A little chore over breakfast. A friend in Australia sent an updated list of Production changes for Twin Cam, 18 years since the last posting, so lots of little updates and additions. For the new list, see TC-121
Then we were heading west again, dashing across state line from Georgia to Alabama. Just short of the Montgomery expressway outer loop there was a loud bang from a blow-out of left side trailer tire. I suppose those cheesy little 2-ply trailer tires don't like running 75-mph steady for one full hour on hot highway in full sun. the failed tire was very hot to touch, and there would be a small delay to change one small wheel. For the record, 8719-mi on that tire, only about half of normal expected.
Then another small delay to stop at Harbor Freight to buy another tire and wheel assembly, jack it up to change the right side wheel so it will have two new tires on the ground, and the last half worn tire kept for the spare.
Finally we arrived to visit Wayne Stambaugh in Montgomery, Alabama, come to check out three of his MGA. First is his MGA 1600 Coupe, a very nice regular driver car.
He would like to do a little better with the headliner on the next try, might reduce some of the wrinkles with a hair dryer.
Panel gaps are pretty good on this one. No heater required or desired in Alabama. Kudos for having an original cell core radiator.
He also has a 1500 Coupe in process. i recon he has a good handle on progress, although this one has been physically abused some by other people working round it while it was in storage.
Gimme a second to check out the moderate machine shop.
There is also an MGA roadster hiding somewhere, a little rough and early in restoration, think lower in priority. After some sit and chat it was late enough for a buffet dinner, having missed lunch. When the host turns in for the night, the guru gets to go to work processing photos for the trip log, and do try to get some sleep before the sun pops up again.
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