I wanted to share a recent experience in the hopes of saving someone else
similar problems. The source of the problem is, unfortunately, mostly
supernatural. Our club recently held our annual wine tour. A great success
with 20+ cars and some fabulous weather. Well, the occasional thunderstorms
didn't bother us in our GT anyway. BTW, we managed to pack 4+ cases of wine
in the GT with lots of room to spare. One of our cars was having an
intermittent fuel pump problem as most of us have/will experience at one
time or another. For most of the trip he would simply look for a pot hole
or failing that, pop the trunk and pound on it with his fist. Finally on
Sunday he replaced it at one of our last winery stops. But that really has
nothing to do with my real topic.
At one of our stops on Saturday, I was talking with a fellow, who had been a
good friend, about the fuel pump problem. He made the comment that our car
certainly had been reliable on our club events. I immediately went in
search of wood to knock on and thought that the danger had been averted.
Well, that was almost true but not quite. Sunday, coming down the western
side of the pass on our way back to Seattle, I felt a sudden change in
power. I thought at first that I had bumped the overdrive switch. Nothing
else happened for a minute or two and then it all went to *&^(. surging,
bucking, loss of power. Fortunately we were on the down hill side and I was
able to maintain some speed. I started to pull over in search of a turtle
or pot hole or something. Also I didn't want to get run over by a semi or
camper. The edge of the road had a very rough area made of small trenches
cut in the pavement to warn you where the edge was if you fell asleep. As
soon as we hit that, the pump came on and all was well the rest of the trip
home. No more problem since but I will be getting a new pump to have with
me at all times.
I thought that was it. Wrong. Arrived at the start point of a TSD rallye
this last Saturday. Smelled anti-freeze. Opened the hood and noticed a
small amount of liquid on the wheel wells. Looked underneath and found a
large puddle of anti-freeze. Now I had just replaced my upper hose and
filled up with Sierra. I was not happy. Looking around I finally traced
the problem to the bottom bolt on the water pump. It had mysteriously
backed out, in spite of a good lock washer. I tightened it down and
completely stopped the leak (for now anyway). I have never worked on that
pump in the ten years I have been maintaining it.
Who knows what will happen next. These things tend to occur in threes you
know. The lesson is: Watch what you say about someone else's car, unless,
of course, you don't like them very much to begin with.
Ted
Edward B. (Ted) Weiler - tweiler@eskimo.com
Membership, MG Car Club NorthWest Centre, '74 MGB GT
http://www.eskimo.com/~tweiler/mgccnwc.html
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