Parts is Parts

A modern Toyota has about 30,000 parts according to Wikipedia. An MG manufactured in the early 1950's has far fewer. For example, it has no windows. Although MG did introduce roll-up side glass as standard equipment in 1962, prior to that year you made do with "side curtains." These canvas and plastic screens, mounted to  flimsy metal frames, were usually to be found in the garage or under the bed when needed out on the road. To be fair, the chaps at British Motor Corporation, successors to the MG Car Co., Ltd.,  intended these fitments be stowed in a virtually inaccessible box behind the car's "boot," which is just aft of the seat and over the rear axel. The boot-- also standard equipment on the MG-- is  sized to hold a valise for two, three American shopping bags full of groceries, a well-behaved dog no larger than a beagle, or a 3-year old youngster sitting sideways. The child will thoroughly enjoy this specially-sized perch, but will eventually get an earache and begin to complain.

The boot is a handy accessory but virtually inaccessible when the "hood" is "erected." The hood is a kind of truncated canvas top, resembling what we see on convertibles. But where the convertible is a car with a sort of fitted tent to protect the occupants, the hood on a British roadster is more akin to an umbrella. Consequently, were you to encounter the occassional English drizzle, you'd be expected to don a "mac," or a slicker, or perhaps an oiled cotton "Barbour jacket." Were it to get cold, you'd need a warm coat, a scarf, a fedora or some other woolen head covering, and gloves. Another piece of standard equipment on an early MG was a commodious glove box. It's where you keep your gloves when it's not cold, unless you leave them at home with the side curtains.

British foul weather gear was not meant to create some sort of climate-controlled transportation lounge. You are, after all, motoring-- not lounging. Persons wanting to lounge book railway passage, sit in the back of their Daimler Vanden Plas saloon, or simply have another cigar at the club while waiting for the weather to change. A sports car, on the other hand, is about motoring. And therein lies its charm.

Fewer parts should make a rebuild a simpler process but it's still a lot of work and always takes more time than I initially budget.  What's disconcerting is when parts don't work right, don't fit right, or-- the most distressing possibility-- are unexplainably left over. These sneak into your field of vision just when you think you have completed an assembly. Fortunately, these are usually sundry washers, cotter pins, bolts and such that were hopefully replaced with newer hardware.  Occasionally, they prove to be some essential gear, fastener, or doohickey that confronts those of us who aspire to be "mechanically adept"  with our own humble limitations. This can be a somewhat unpleasant private event marked by pejorative expletives directed at oneself, but spoken by that cruel inner room mate who's always ready with a negative comment concerning one's competence, parentage, or native intelligence.

I'm not really sure what this stuff is, but it was apparently not that important
when we put the motor back in the car on Mothers' Day weekend

And then there are the  more public displays of inexperience, absent mindedness or stupidity. Like the time I drove my race car onto the grid at GingerMan Raceway only to discover a flaccid brake pedal under foot. In my mirror, I could see my crew chief, Rick Fisk, running after me waving in the air what looked for all the world to be a set of brake shoes.  I believe he was shouting "Stop that car!" which was not going to be easy since I had omitted replacing the rear brakes after changing out a broken axel shaft. A visored helmet and racing gear do a good job of hiding a very red face.

What goes must stop. Rebuilding the entire braking
system is good insurance when mountain passes are anticipated.

"Authentic reproduction" British parts--
as only the Chinese could label them.

If you follow this simple drawing and you remember your colors
from primary school, automotive electrics are a walk in the park!

So, you replace an old yellow wire with a new yellow wire...

Wait a minute! This doesn't look like the pretty drawing.
Most of these wires are red!

If someone were to turn you upside down and then cruelly
stuff you into the footwell of an old MG, this is what you would see.
It's much prettier in the wiring diagram.

Some parts get added to the project,
 like this coolant expansion tank from a 1968 MG

Others parts get made from scratch.
This just might be a trailer hitch.

Day 20: Heart Transplant

If you're not a mechanic, few things are as distressing as seeing your car with the engine removed. Where once nestled the beating heart of a running vehicle, now you have a gaping hole, wires and cables hanging, residuals dribbling, and goo in all the recesses otherwise obscured. The veins and arteries that carried necessary fluids and gasses in and out of this organ remain in situ, tied off with bits of rope, bungee cords and zip ties.  I've seen too much of this sort of carnage in my years as a vintage sports car racer and amateur engine builder. But never in "Morris," that steady family member who has lived in our garage for the past 30 years.

Illustration: Peter Aschwanden (c)

This past Sunday, this sorry state of affairs took a major turn for the better. The MG was winched up on my trailer and hauled out to Manley Ford's shop in Milford, MI. There we spent the afternoon

Day 30: Engineering and Art

Forged aluminum high compression piston
by Ross Racing Pistons, El Segundo, CA

I admit it. I have no idea how a photocopy machine takes a single sheet of paper from a stack, pulls, pushes, and rolls it into position, imprints it, flips it over, imprints yet something else again, collates it, spits it out,  staples it, and presents it to an impatient onlooker who bristles that it took so long to get his copies. This is Rube Goldberg at his finest!

Day 60 and Dancing Naked

Have you ever noticed how something can start out as fun and end up feeling like you're strapped across a table with a buzz saw moving ever closer?

Illustration: www.peteraschwanden.com
in "How to Keep Your Volkswagen Alive"

A simple question from Carol, "How's the MG coming along?" prodded me to sit down recently and sketch out a project plan. Starting to sound like work already. With less than two months to go, we counted up the estimated time for each identified task, applied Murphy's Law by multiplying it times 1.5, added the "Gintar Factor" which uses an arcane geometric formula that roughly doubles the estimate, and discovered the car will be ready on the Fourth of July. Too bad the rally starts 4th of June. Houston, we have a problem!

21st Century Already?!



The paddock at the Meadowbrook
Historic Races, Waterford Hills, MI

Several months ago I worked up the nerve to change my Facebook account from one identified by only a pseudonym to one that announced my real name, my interests, my cynical views on politics, religion, and ethnic identity, and even the names of my friends...or is it "friends,"...or maybe Friends. Are there Quakers reading this? My niece in Connecticut was kind enough to welcome me into the 21st century. How did I get this far without a PDA, an iPod, or a smartphone?  Time to pen a Luddite screed?  Hardly!

The Thigh Bone's Connected to the Hip Bone...

What I don't understand is how an old car could run so well for thirty years with an engine full of worn out parts. And every part interacts with some other parts creating a symphony or, in my case, something that sounds more like a middle school orchestra trying to play  Pachelbel's Canon. It sounds a bit like music; you can recognize the tune; but you really don't want to take this gang on a cross-country concert tour.

The Route

The old federal route known as US-50 has been called "the loneliest road in America." It looks like it won't be next June!
         http://www.rallyetoreno.com/         

Jamie Jensen, author of Road Trip USA(http://www.roadtripusa.com/) describes it as a "3200-mile odyssey from sea to shining sea....Along the route are some of the country's most magnificent landscapes: the Sierra Nevada and the

Appalachian and Rocky Mountains, the endless farmlands of the Great Plains, and the desiccated deserts of Utah and Nevada....US-50 passes through literally hundreds of timeworn small towns, the great majority of which have survived despite the modern onslaught of Wal-Marts and fast-food franchises."

Blizzard Blankets Michigan!

Last night a blizzard starting blowing through most of the Great Plains and northeastern part of the U.S. This afternoon, it's still snowing heavily. Not a great day for a 79-mile commute each way, so an opportunity to catch up on things at home.

The motor to the TD is completely disassembled and the major components are at a local machine shop being measured this week.  Bill Mikkelson, working out of his Chelsea-based shop,

Day 125 and Counting

Last Sunday was 125 days from my planned "ready" date to have the 1953 MG TD on the road for break-in and testing. With the help and guidance of "brother" MG Vintage Racer Manley Ford, we pulled the engine in about four hours and accumulated a workbench full of grimy bits and pieces. Some of these went into plastic bags; some were too big and just got piled.

New Year's Resolution

I've been making a list of everything that will need to be checked, overhauled or serviced to get this 59-year old automobile ready for a cross country journey. The plan was to start in January and spend each weekend in the garage. I've been told Ernest Hemingway began each day's work of writing by sharpening every pencil in the house.

Christmas 2010

Excerpt from an article by Juliana Keeping, posted on AnnArbor.com 12/23/10
 http://www.annarbor.com/news/cancer-survivor-returns-to-mott-childrens-hospital-to-spread-holiday-cheer/index.php
 

An 8-year-old Ann Arbor girl who spent last holiday season battling cancer returned to Mott Children’s Hospital in Ann Arbor on Wednesday. But this year, Mariel Almendras isn't a patient. She visited the hospital to spread some Christmas cheer to other children, delivering cards and Beanie Babies -- presents from not just Mariel but her friends at Ann Arbor's Dicken Elementary, in Cathy Cieglo’s second-grade class.

Mariel's first-grade class at Dicken did the same thing for her last year. The brightly colored batch of cards Mariel brought Wednesday were adorned with stickers and sparkles and candy canes, but more importantly, messages of support like “You’re a really good friend” and “Hope you feel better soon.”  Small gestures like that meant a lot to the Almendras family last year, Mariel’s mother, Gemma, said. 

Children's Cancer?

I have a personal interest in cancer. In 1998, I was diagnosed with cancer of the larynx. I faced the choice of surgery, which would have removed my vocal chords and cost me my voice, or radiation and chemo, which would have ended my ability to taste.  Miraculously, my wife discovered that the nearby University of Michigan Hospital had been initiating early trials of laser surgery for throat cancer. Through the intervention of throat oncologist Dr. Gregory Wolfe and his team, I not only survived but also recovered full use of my voice after many months of speech therapy. 

Over the next 10 years, I was a regular visitor to the U of M Department of Otolaryngology's cancer clinic, first monthly, then quarterly and eventually just once per year. In 2008, after 10 years of regular follow-up evaluations, I was pronounced "cured." I'm sure many of the people I shared a waiting room with were not so fortunate.

To this day, the most compelling memory of my years as a "cancer patient" is the image of the youngsters I saw while there. I had lived more than half of my life in good health, married to one woman, father of two sons, having traveled around the world, achieved a doctoral degree, and enjoyed hobbies and a successful professional career in health care. Children with cancer often don't get a chance like that. Before their lives really start, they face sickness, discomfort, the side effects of treatment, and the palpable sorrow of the families who suffer with them. Some never make it to their 2^nd birthday. Some attend their senior prom having lost all their hair to the efforts at eradicating their illness.  Not I, but these youngsters, truly faced the prospects of a life unfairly stolen by cancer. I had plenty of turns at bat. They don't even get to suit up.

The MG Drive for CURE is a way to pursue my passion and also give something back.