Spitfire from Texas
Rick the Grabel Van Lines driver called last Saturday afternoon to arrange for the delivery of Sean Austin’s long dormant Spitfire on Sunday, because he needed to be back in Texas by the following Friday. His plans went a little askew when shortly after he hung up, his trailer unit calved its air suspension on Interstate 91 just outside of Springfield, Massachusetts. As a result, Sean’s Spitfire was showing up in Westminster, Vermont, about the time Rick had originally planned to be showing up in Texas. The vintage Oklahoma plates would suggest that this Spit’s been off the road for a while.
Butch runs up a long dormant MGB
Is a pattern developing here ? About a month ago I hiked down to Rumson, New Jersey to retrieve an MGB that had been sitting in a heated garage for about 30 years. Butch checked the point gap and cleaned up the carburetors a little bit. We set up a soda bottle fuel feed to the rear float bowl, and with your scribe manning the choke & starting fluid while Butch ran the controls, Et Voila ! She rumbled back to life with good oil pressure and everything. Now we’ll try to get the brake & clutch hydraulics going again so we can get it out on the road and see what we’ve got.
V12 intercooler & oil filter
In another millenial development, my E-type has received it’s first oil change of the new century. It too had been in hibernation for a decade or so as the press of business proved too great to chase a couple of mundane cam cover oil leaks, which on the V12 engine involve dismantling the ‘over the mountain top’ intake manifolds to get to. A Wise Man also changes the 12 exhaust manifold gaskets while he’s so close, and time-wise it adds up to a great deal of work.
Castrol 4T (was GP Cycle)
There has been much loud noise about zinc, or the lack thereof, in contemporary motor oils, the concern being that the zinc necessary for adequate lubrication of flat tappet (a.k.a. solid lifter) engines, which encompasses everything we work with. Regretably that zinc is basically history because it also clogs catalytic converters once an engine starts using oil, admittedly not so much of a problem for us. So upon consultation about five years ago with our late, lamented Castrol distributor Roland Derosiers, who also drove the truck until he was nearly 90, we reluctantly abandoned Castrol GTX with it’s American Petroleum Institute rating of SL/SM in favor of what was at the time Castrol GP Motorcycle oil which carries the A.P.I. rating, so sought after by us, of SG, which means it’s got the zinc.
Road test after a bad condensor was detected
Because we pay more than the $4.90 a quart we install it for, we actually lose money on every quart of motor oil we sell, making it back, fortunately, on the oil filter. You probably won’t find it at NAPA, but it appears that you’re probably O.K. with SG rated Valvolene Racing oil instead.
Pictured on the left is the MG TD wot’ dropped the #8 exhaust valve a month or so ago. The owner had reported very poor running characteristics, as in he could barely limp it back up his driveway, and last Monday I retrieved it after work. The condition traced back to the new condensor Butch had installed at the time we made those repairs. It was bad out of the box, apparently, and had been on our shelf since the era when all the Lucas and Intermotor branded condensors (and rotors) were junk. We compensated for this by buying NAPA condensors under the part number EP 29, and it was one of these which restored this TD to robust good health. Take a look at those speedo and tach readings going up the hill.
