made it to Dublin! Now officially relocated to the Emerald Isle - should be
renamed the Dark Cloud Isle as I have never seen sooo much rain in my life!
Arghh! <G> Any Irish list members btw?
As some of you know my girlfriend Sonia and I have spent the last 6 weeks
touring around the US. Along the way we met up with some Internet friends
including Barney & Ed in Chicago, both on the list. Barney showed us around
Chicago, let me run riot in his MGA, get totally lost in his MGA <G> and
also discover the meaning of disc brakes. Having never driven a totally drum
braked car, I almost didn't make the first stop sign. <VBG> Wow. His car
certainly loves to be thrown around, in fact I think it probably couldn't
take being driven any other way hey Barney? We had a great dinner with Ed,
Barney, Kim and Elliot and Ed forced me to drink copiously.. ;) I also think
Ed needs to tune his El Camino, it sounds positively EVIL. <G> Besides the
list members we also met up with a good friend Ron Smith in Sacremento, he
looked after my Healey and CGT for a year before the cars finally made it
down to Australia.
Well now we've made it over to Dublin, I need a Car. <G> So of course, not
to let the side down, I've decided to find an MG. A BGT V8. So if anyone
knows of one for sale in the UK let me know. So what else is new MG wise? I
guess I never got a chance to tell the list of my adventure with my MGA
motor rebuild, here goes..
Some of you will remember my A broke it's crank about a year ago, and I set
about doing a full motor rebuild with added performance, big bore, big cam,
flat tops etc to go with all the other goodies I had previously installed
like roller rocker and perf. distributor. Well anyway I got the motor back
in the car, looking all beautiful.
http://www.apphosting.com/mgstuff/A/new_engine.JPG
http://www.apphosting.com/mgstuff/A/new_engine_dist.JPG
Run the cam in, no problems evident at all, perfect oil pressure,
unbelievable. I was absolutely chuffed!! <G> (Wait for it) Initially I had
trouble sourcing a crankshaft for the MGA, so I had to go for a 1600 Mk2
crank and have the block modified to fit it. They essentially line bored the
block and narrowed down the centre main bearing. I had to fit a couple of
different sized thrust washers to get the correct end float, but apart from
that no probs, and everything seemed 'sweet as a nut' (to coin a good aussie
phrase).
When she started first go, well, you can imagine my delight. Timed my first
camshaft, and learnt so much along the way. Many thanks go to Barney, I
couldn't have done it without his advice every step of the way! OK, so after
the cam run in, I spent the rest of the night till the next morning
installing the floorboards and seats etc so I could drive her up to Brisbane
to give to my father before I went o/s. Well, I got 3/4's of the way around
the block and then the motor just ground to a complete stop. It felt like
someone just stamped on the brakes! Oil pressure had been fantastic, so I
couldn't understand what caused the problem. I had to leave within 2 hrs and
couldn't take the car with me. You can't imagine how that felt. I guess some
of you can!! So much work and then to just have something like that occur
out of the blue before I leave the country.. All I can say is major major
disappointment!
To cut a long story short, my father had my mechanic take the motor apart
and send it to an engineer for inspection. According to them it was nothing
to do with my building of the motor - what a relief! What happened was
this - the shop when they did the line bore, neglected to check the
clearance between the scroll oil seal at the back of the crank and the rear
main bearing cap. There is supposed to be 3 thou in there. I admit I had
never even heard of this clearance, never saw it in the Workshop manual, but
the crank certainly turned over very smoothly and I didn't see any problem
areas assembling it. Apparently, after the motor had some load on in and the
clutch engaged a few times, the clearances closed, and wham, the crank just
locked up solid on the block. Basically destroyed the crank and damaged the
block. My mechanic is in the process of getting the shop to pay up or pass
it onto the Motor Traders Authority so we can recoup some of the $. Frankly
I don't blame anyone, I wish I had heard of this clearance before as I would
have checked it. I guess you live and learn. Good news is we've sourced
another crank, and there was no other damage to the motor so we can reuse
virtually all of the new parts. The big pity is I won't get to drive it for
quite a long time! Oh well, I hope my Dad has fun with her.
Well, I better leave it for now, getting VERY long! Many thanks to all the
people who spent time with us and entertained us while we were touring the
US. Couldn't meet a nicer bunch of people!
Cheers,
Neil
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