To compensate for all those tales about temperamental lbc's that
always want to break down and that need meticulous maintenance for
reliability, here is my last experience: The car in question is a 66 MGB. I
bought it last May. It had been standing for about five years, and the
p.o.started driving it a little bit just before I bought it. From the beginning
I noticed that everything would be fine when I pulled out of the garage in
the morning, but that after a run down the highway the clutch would slip.
Typical symptoms of a leaking rear seal, and I planned to pull the engine
to fix it after the first snowfall.
So far, so good, but now comes the good part. After putting 1200
miles on the car, the clutch does not slip anymore. I can drive on the
highway, stop at the lights, and pull away using every little bit of
horsepower the engine can deliver, instead of slowly pulling away while
being passed by city busses and garbage trucks. My guess is that there
was a little bit of gunk or surface rust preventing the rear seal from doing
its job, and that running the engine caused it to be swept away. Goes to
show that cars, especially little red sports cars with wire wheels, need to
be driven to stay in shape :-).
Dirk de Boer
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