This week at the shop

John gets into his work

The owner of this freshly painted Jaguar Mk2 Sedan asked us to detail the engine bay.  Although there would have been certain efficencies to doing it at the same time the car was painted, we’ve actually done most of our engine detail work separate and apart from a general refinishing.

This Jaguar has the Detroit Gear (Borg Warner) automatic once used by both Ford & Studebaker, and as had been mentioned on this page before, it is fairly unique in that it has an additional rear pump which can lock up the transmission and turn the engine on a rolling start. John just gotten done checking to make sure the torque converter was going to stay put on the trip back to the barn.

JE pistons for an MGB

We’re in the beginning steps of putting together a high output engine for an MGB.  The .100″ oversize pistons, made to our pattern by JE Pistons came in Tuesday.

These magnificent pistons are infinitely stronger forged (not cast) pistons which are dished for a nominal 8.7:1 compression ratio so the engine will run happily on readily available premium fuel.

The actual compression ratio will come in around 10:1 (still good with pump fuel) because the cylinder head is being pocket ported & cc’d by APT in Riverside California, and we’ll also be running an APT VP 11BK street cam.

Chinning Bar

The +.100″ overbore stays just within the fire ring around the cylinder bore of the head gasket.  There are some big bore pistons on the market which don’t.  That can be a problem with head gasket life, and it can also be a problem with cylinder block life when the water jackets around the cylinder bores get too thin.

It doesn’t have to be that way.  We’re having the cylinder block  sonic checked to determine cylinder wall thickness before any metal comes out.  Every so often we end up preemptively sleeving a perilously thin cylinder.  A little checking up front can save an awful lot of grief later.

Also pictured here is a storage solution that Mr Casey never came up with.  We have a lot of work in the shop right now, and when Jason Marechaux at East Coast Collision & Restoration called up Monday and said ‘come & get it’ we did.  This is a TD frame, or if you prefer, TF frame, the only difference being the chassis number.  The working height is ideal for use as a chinning bar.

I took this picture a month ago, back when it used to still snow, a little.  If you’re feeling a little nostalgic about the white stuff, well here it is.  We’re not.

Touchdown: John, Patrick & Steve settle a TD body tub behind the shop

Road Test Cycle: MG TF at Abingdon Spares

The weather finally broke this week.  Although the roads are dusty in spots, they haven’t been wet, except for some run off.  It’s getting very close now to sugaring season, perhaps the only agricultural crop, apart from ice, which is harvested in the winter.

This has allowed us to get some deferred road test work completed.  I took this TF out for the long loop of about 25 miles thru two states, which isn’t actually saying much, since we’re only ten minutes from Walpole, New Hampshire, an incredibly fortuitous accident of geography, because that’s where Abingdon Spares, the ‘T’ series MG parts house is located.  I worked there for a while in the 1980′s.

Butch trial fits the BJ8 console & arm rest

Nothing is ever truly easy.  In order to get the radio console (sans radio) to fit between the fiberglass tx tunnel and the dash, it was necessary to trim the bottom edge of the console and cut down and re-glass the shift aperture in the tunnel.

We’re blaming it on the Toyota five speed, although really we also know that the entire dash panel came out about half an inch too close to the floor.  Because where you end up means everything, this has been an extended fit and adjust process where the ends justify the means.

Steve installs carpet fasteners

Meanwhile, downstairs Steve is working on the door glass and door trims for the red BJ8.

Because open sports cars have a tendency to get wet on the inside, we like to provide the means to pull the carpets up should the car get caught out in a cloudburst.  The underfelts, especially, are very efficient at holding moisture, and we even see cars from Nevada & California with rusty floors as a result of this.

Jaguar XK 120M in West Lynn, circa 1955

This archival photo has just appeared in the new issue of MESH NEW ENGLAND Magazine. (www.meshnewengland.com) in the context of a story about the owner (one of our customers) who was intimately involved  the Greater Boston North Shore sportscar scene in the late ’40′s & ’50′s.

If you’re not familiar with MESH, it’s lush graphics are visually stunning, and the story content is an easy read.

Also on test Monday: The greatest view in the world

Warner strips a Girling Mk2A brake servo

The red Austin Healey gave us a little surprise Tuesday.  After sitting for a couple of weeks while we were waiting for upholstery, it lost its brakes, but curiously, not its brake fluid.

After a certain amount of head scratching Warner pulled down the brake servo and, Et Voila !  there it was, pretty nearly a quart of it.  Brake servos are a great place for brake fluid to go and hide.

Twenty-five years ago I was recommissioning an MGC  which had been off the road for a very long time, and although

Mk2 vacuum chamber: Where the brake fluid went

it was not rusty, nearly everything was stuck, right down to the switches in the dashboard.  I stripped and re-ringed the engine & got it running, but after overhauling the brake & clutch master cylinders, the calipers, the slave cylinder and replacing the wheel cylinders, I bled and bled & bled, but couldn’t come up with a decent brake pedal.  Even more puzzling, my recently freed-off engine wouldn’t turn over anymore.

I pulled the plugs, cranked it on the starter and was instantly bathed in so much brake fluid that I needed a shower and a change of clothes.  After filling up the servos (MGC’s have two), fluid pumped its way thru

Steve is carpeting the red BJ8

the vacuum lines into the manifold, through an open intake valve or two and filled the cylinders creating the perfect hydraulic lock.  Always remember, the servo is an integral part of a brake overhaul.

Steve is carpeting the red BJ8 now.  Next week he’ll be on to the rest of the upholstery.  He’s captured here with a drill in one hand, and a can of penetrating oil in the other, having just drilled out the stuck hardware securing the dimmer switch bracket to the floor and retapped the weld-nuts.  The oval intakes below the radiator grill are for the oil cooler.

Patrick shows why air tools are a bad idea

Patrick’s holding the  hub nut for this TD.  It’s been stripped by the indiscriminate use of an air impact wrench.  TD’s, MGA’s and some others use a left hand thread hub nut on the left side  so it won’t wind off if it gets loose.

Unfortunately, a previous repairer didn’t know that, so when it wouldn’t loosen (for obvious reasons) out came the air impact wrench.  We have to score that round as a draw, because although he got it loose, he never got it off, even after taking most of the threads out of it.  Fortunately, however, the thread on the stub axle is hardened, so it survived.

Coming Out Soon: The engine in this Mk2, for detailing

Patrick inspects a '67 Cooper "S"

Saturday afternoon my MGB GT stalled abruptly out on the Westminster West Road, and I coasted into a farmer’s barnyard for a perfunctory look under the hood.  No spark.  It was close enough to walk home, so I wandered into the milking parlor and asked if it would be O.K. if I left it there for a while.  I was dressed for it, of course.  You’re a fool if you venture out in the wintertime dressed otherwise.  It’s been a good car, so I gave it one last try, and wouldn’t you know it ?  the old warrior started up.

Butch looks on while John cranks the Mini under Patrick's watchful eye

Sunday morning it wouldn’t start at all, but a close inspection of the ignition system revealed the cause: a rust-out on the bottom of the coil drained it’s liquid medium, a condition known as “No Juice”.

It’s kind of unusual to run across an unmolested Mini Cooper “S”, even more so in this case because the odometer is reading around 34,000 miles, and it carries a set of  1974-issued Maine plates.  Judging by the general lack of wear, the milage is almost certainly genuine.

Patrick got it running with a condensor and a new set of points, but not for very long , because with no oil pressure showing either on the gauge, or around the cylinder head, he shut it down before it made any of the expensive noises.    We consulted with the owner, who said, “Take it out and fix it !”.  O.K.  Can Do.

Lift Off: John & Steve pull the TD body tub with Patrick helping on the right.

Last week Steve was breaking down another MG TD and Friday afternoon with a little help from Patrick and John, off came the body tub.  Patrick has already stripped the engine, and I hauled the chassis frame and body panels up to East Coast Collision & Restoration Wednesday.  Today they were at work on it.

There’s quite a bit going on up at E.C.C&R, too.  Go to our “links” page and log on to their website to have a look at what’s happening in ‘Their Week at The Shop’.

Patrick pulls off the old XPAG head gasket.

This is the second XPAG engine Patrick’s stripped in a week.  An MGA 1500 with a broken crankshaft is on the yellow engine stand, and  on the floor next to it is an MGC.

Directly behind him is the gear set from a four synchro Jaguar transmission, with a damaged mainshaft.  The damage is to the hardening on the nose of the shaft where it is supported on the input needle roller bearings.

You can buy a new one of uncertain parentage for around $1000.00, but we have it out for repair, which is to hard chrome and regrind it.

Sports Car Services uses Borg & Beck clutches

George Borg apprenticed under his father Carl at John Deere and hated it.  Marshall Beck was a lawyer with a mechanical aptitude.  Working together they developed the most widely used automotive clutch design in the world, which is still the standard by which all other power transmission clutches are judged.  You can buy a cheaper clutch, and some of them are very good, but not all of them.  Sports Car Services uses only Borg & Beck clutches, and stocks them for everything from a Bug Eye Sprite to a V12 Jaguar.  We’ll change your Sprite clutch in a day, but give us a week, please, with your E-type.

Engine & transmission installed in the Austin Healey BN7 two seater

A Jaguar 10″ clutch is a heavy duty replacement clutch for an Austin Healey 3000 (except BJ8, which is a 9.5″ diaphram clutch).  All it takes  to make the conversion is the Healey graphite release bearing, which has just a little more offset than the Jaguar bearing.

Warner lowered the engine and new side shift transmission into the Healey 3000 two seater late Wednesday afternoon.  There are bags of room with the sheetmetal off the front of the car ,which makes it a very easy job.  It’s a little more fiddly when everything’s there, but the only time we haul the engine out of an Austin Healey is when we’re doing engine work, because to get at the clutch you pull the TX thru the passenger compartment.

We’re storny busy right now, but if there’s something you’ve been putting off, please don’t put off that e-mail or phone call too much longer if you’ve got springtime motoring on your mind.

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