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[Mgs] Reciprocity [long story]

Subject: [Mgs] Reciprocity [long story]
From: max_heim at sbcglobal.net (Max Heim)
Date: Fri, 03 Jun 2011 11:13:25 -0700
Last night as I was sitting down to dinner, I received a call from a friend
who was having car trouble. He is an older guy, a musician, with a 1st-gen
Miata. Apparently it had blown a heater hose and dumped all the coolant. He
was about 7 miles away, so I told him I could be there in 15 or 20 minutes.

While performing a quick scan of the workbench for odd bits of hose, clamps,
etc., I was dithering about which car to take. Both are equipped with tools
and a motley collection of spares. I decided to take the MG since I knew it
had gas in it and I would have had to take the cover off the Barracuda. I
also grabbed an extra gallon jug of water.

When I arrived, I quickly saw that the upper heater hose had basically
exploded. It had apparently been delaminating for some time -- it was
swollen and completely severed just past the nipple coming out of the back
of the head.

In these Miatas, the engine ends of both heater hoses are almost
inaccessible -- one is behind the exhaust manifold heat shield, and the
other tucked up between the back of the head and the firewall, shrouded by
the cowling, a hard AC line and the distributor. The heater hoses are both
complex molded shapes, and it turned out that none of the hose I brought was
the right diameter. But he had a used spare for one of the hoses -- the
wrong one, but it had sufficient length, it was just going to kink a little.

The question was, could I get the clamp off the cylinder head end. The only
possible access was through a tiny gap from the top. My larger screwdriver
could just slip through, but couldn't turn, and couldn't quite get into the
hose clamp's screw slot due to the angle. A small electronics screwdriver
fit, but I couldn't get enough grip with my just my fingertips to loosen the
hose clamp (think about how tight these things usually are). I finally found
an ancient wood-handled screwdriver in the MG's kit that wedged in, leaving
enough handle protruding that I could turn it with 3 fingers, if I gouged
the wood against a sharp-edged wiring bracket.

After that it was relatively simple to replace the hose, though tightening
the clamp was an equally painful process. I put almost an entire gallon of
water into the radiator, then we started it up and checked for leaks. I was
a little worried that overheating might have warped the cylinder head, since
about 6 years ago the same hose had let go and I wound up replacing the head
for him. But it actually ran smoothly, and there wasn't any moisture in the
exhaust.

Anyway, I told him I would follow him home, as it was only about a mile. We
arrived without further problems, then chatted awhile. Finally, I got back
into the MGB, and turned the key -- it turned over extremely slowly, twice,
then expired. This was a surprise, since I had been driving it regularly (on
Tuesday it went to San Francisco and back, with lights and wipers on most of
the way).

As it was now full dark, I didn't think we could diagnose anything. So we
just pushed the MG up the driveway alongside the Miata, and got out the
jumper cables. Of course it fired right up.

My friend had just been saying he owed me something for my trouble, and I
had been saying, forget it; now I just said, I guess we're even.

Apparently something had gone south in the charging system, because all the
way home, the lights were getting dimmer and dimmer. By the time I pulled
into my driveway, the headlights were putting out less light than a keychain
flashlight. So now I have somethig to work on this weekend.

--

Max Heim
'66 MGB GHN3L76149
If you're near Mountain View, CA,
it's the primer red one with chrome wires

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