Dear Bill:
Look on the bright side, at least there are parts catalogs to peruse still.
Thank the people who do buy parts on a regular basis that you can find
anything at all without having to dig around in dark attics.
I promise a Moss MGC section as soon as I get some breathing space. Owning
one is very helpful, as cross referencing parts takes forever.
As for your list: The cap and seal are the same as the AH one. The angle
drive, according to the supercessions I ran should be the same as the
regular MGB. There was a factory supercession that looks like the numbers
merged. Sorry, but $49.95 Retail isn't exactly "very expensive
unobtainium".
The orginal brake boosters were discontinued by Lucas/Girling shortly after
the dawn of time, so finding an air filter may be a bit tough. Delphi
Lockheed, Austin Rover, TRW Aftermarket Ops-Hydraulic None of them are
currently manufacturing this part which was 64490584, or the kit which was
64949011.
Moss does have both FS and FA key blanks on the shelf, because it is very
unlikely that the local lock shop will have key blanks that were made
obsolete twenty years ago.
Sorry about the rear bumper. When British Leyland sold out their stocks
only one manufacturer stepped up to reproduce the bumper. It wasn't Moss by
the way. That manufacturer has made all of the new bumpers blanks since
then. Recently Moss chose to discontinue carrying the item due to product
quality problems until such time as a better product is on the market.
To close. The glitzy shiny accessories and the people who buy them are what
keep boring restoration parts on the shelf. I'd suggest thanking the next
person you see with a cross flow head, Sunfast cloth top, chrome wire
wheels, Custom Deluxe Leather Interior, wood dash, logo rugby shirt etc.
That person has allowed the after market industry to stay alive. Without
that industry, we would all be back to scrubbing around in scrap yards and
annoying local parts guys with our hopes that something would cross
reference.
Kelvin.
>
> I have been doing something that I normally assiduously avoid
> - perusing parts catalogues.
>
> I avoid it, because I find it either boring or tempting. I've
> been doing it because I have resurrected an MGC from
> hibernation and find myself in need of a few bits and pieces.
>
>
> Upon reading a couple of these masterpieces of hyperbole
> (Victoria British and Moss), it makes me wonder if someone
> didn't drive a pickup through the JC Whitney warehouse with a
> giant electromagnet - you can buy things to make your car run
> better than it ever did, curing ailments you never knew it
> had, grow hair on hairless places, remove hair from where you
> don't want it, make you twice as sexy, make your dog obey
> you, attract women......well maybe I exaggerate a little, but
> the panoply of things that I can't imagine anyone ever
> needing is a true wonderment. I mean, you can buy a nice
> crossflow head, and then install a downdraft Weber fer
> Crisake! Sort of like buying a new exhaust and having them
> insert a potato in it. Strange accoutrements, odd
> distributors, weird spinners for that Ben Hur look (if Ben
> Hur had been afflicted with bad taste)...the list goes on.
>
> The things I actually DO need, of course, are notable by
> their absence.
>
> A steel cap for the diabolically designed MGC clutch master
> cylinder reservoir - the one that leaks, but in a subtle way,
> so you aren't sure why the formerly pristine paint on the
> firewall now has more wrinkles than a Shar-pei - is
> apparently not obtainable (I solved that by stealing one off
> a TR-3 master).
>
> The angle drive for the speedo seems to be made of very
> expensive unobtainium. The air filter element on the brake
> boosters seems to be a constantly out of stock item (Moss
> doesn't seem to admit that MGC's exist, so they are no help).
> Local locksmiths seem never to have heard of FS key blanks
> (Heaven help me if I needed an old FA or something for an
> older car). The spare can of brake fluid that
> she-who-must-be-obeyed cached in the trunk some years ago
> managed to escape the confines of the can and distribute
> itself all over the boot. At least the paint in the boot now
> matches that on the firewall...
>
> Oh yes - and a rear bumper that the chrome will stay stuck to
> for more than a year still seems to be beyond them
> all.....but are we having fun? Sure, as long as the weather
> is good and I don't drive through a radar trap witout benefit
> of a working speedo!
>
>
> Bill
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