The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (May 1 - May 15, 2024)
Wednesday May 1, 2024:
Heading generally south, sitting in Slayton, Texas this morning. Going to visit Starbase at Boca Chica to check out the big rockets, eventually. No rush, as they aren't launching anything immediately. We do have some appointments around San Antonio this weekend. Weather turned bad, blowing dust plus thunder storms equals dirty car. Power outage twice finally got us out of the WiFi spot, another hour and half south. Drove 20 miles through another storm, giving a good workout to the MGB 2-speed wiper system installed last November (jolly good mod). Stopped in Sweetwater, TX for late dinner and WiFi.
Thursday May 2, 2024:
Most of the day in Sweetwater, TX, watching rains come and go. Did make another appointment for the week end. Rolled more south, mostly decent driving, except for a few minutes of what must have been light hail, landing in Junction TX late night.
Friday May 3, 2024:
A bit warmer each day, but parts of Texas getting record ran fall and flooding. In Junction, TX Around 9-pm we suddenly got the bum's rush. "Get out! We have a tornado warning! We can't have anyone here during tornado! Go to the courthouse"! Huh? We don't know where the courthouse is. But it was time to move on anyway, and we figure the odds of getting hit with a tornado were pretty slim anyway, so we just drove south. A few minutes of moderate rain, and then we just drove out of it. Landed in Comfort, TX an hour later where we were doing a fuel stop anyway. Still another hour to run, but we'll put it off until morning.
Saturday May 4, 2024:
Up early, grab breakfast to go, and head south again heading for San Antonio, TX. Bunch of road construction there, installing a new overpass bridge, exit ramp closed, bit of a detour. At one point three wide lanes merged into two narrow lanes, some people don't know how to drive, or merge. A large pick up truck with fat tires gave is a gentle side brush, scuffing dirt off the LR wing and putting a small wrinkle in the left side trailer fender, nothing to keep us from driving.
 Arrived a little early, killed half an hour before meeting a couple MGBs in a Home Depot parking lot on North 281 in San Antonio. This was a contingent from Alamo MG Association. Supposed to be a 42 mile trip for Wings and Wheels car show at Pioneer Flight Museum in Kingsbury, TX. Fairly heavy overcast, so maybe some people thought the old birds would not be flying. One incoming phone call said one more car coming, but they would catch up later, so the three MGs were heading east. Slow going on side roads, and more construction delays. but we finally got there. Not sure how old the Corvette is, but it didn't strike me as vintage. The rest of this stuff, yeah, I could have been driving any of those as my first car.
If you look the other direction for a moment there was a big change in both time and style. Okay, this is my idea of real antique.
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Turn around one more time, maybe click your heals together, and the world changes again. The real reason we were here today. I don't know much about this world, so just enjoy the pictures.
From here on, I'm pretty sure the rest of these are operational (on a whim in good weather).
Well, I cheated you a lot on this bi-monthly travel page (for lack of space). You can find LOTS more pictures of vintage cars, antique cars, and the antique airplanes on a supplemental photos page here: wings2024.htm.
I was appreciating the low overcast. It was warm enough today without the sun. By half past one the other MGs looked like they had enough, so it was time to haul out (gently), shuffle over to I-10 and head back west. Less than 15 miles we found a suitable WiFi spot and late lunch in Seguin, Texas.
Sunday May 5, 2024:
Mid day today we dropped in to visit James Conrad in Helotes, Texas, a northwest suburb of San Antonio. He has this nice MGA 1600 with red interior. fully restored concours show quality car. I have seen this one before, in eastern Pennsylvania in 2008. I mentioned at the time that this is one of the few black and red MGA I have ever seen with the correct color red for the interior. This knock your eyes out bright cherry red is indeed the original factory red interior color. Not long ago this car suffered a self-inflicted wound, ending up with a scratch across the painted bonnet. So James had the bonnet off to a shop to have it repainted. Today we would help to reassemble it, hopefully without scratching it again.
I have a little trick up my sleeve. For many years I have been making up thumb screws to secure the boot and bonnet lids so they can very easily be removed and reinstalled in minutes with fingers only, no tools required. These are standard #10-32-UNF x 5/8" Socket Head Cap Screws with plastic thumb knob caps pressed on. For several years we have been carrying some of these thumb screws around with us, but no joy today when the zip-lock bag was nowhere to be found. Bummer, going to have to do that over again. Meanwhile we borrowed one thumb screw from each of the four hinges on my car to provide four pieces to assemble and align the bonnet on James' car. Once it was aligned and verified to close and open without a hitch, the screws were swapped out one by one to reinstall he original machine screws. Then the thumb screws were returned to service in my car.
Then the freshly painted bonnet was not sitting entirely flush on the black car. This was due to recent issue rubber buffers from Moss Motors being too short. A pro shop doing work on the car had shaved some rubber buffers in half crosswise to double stack buffers as the rear edge, but that left the bonnet sitting a bit too high in the rear. Easy solution, if you know what it's all about. the Magic Trailer anted up a new set of bonnet buffers with the required fasteners. Doctor's bag from the boot also offered a dozen #10 flat washers. The trick here is to install exactly one flat washer under each rubber buffer to bring them up tto the right height to let the bonnet sit flush.
With the black bonnet properly installed, we took the opportunity do do an oil and filter change in our car (just every 4000 miles or so). And another local club friend (himself not so local) Jon Etheredge from Red Rock, TX stopped by to chat. He has an MGA project car that had sat for something like 30 years with the cylinder head off. Also worn out engine, but someone else had donated an MGB 1800 3-main engine for the cause. This sounds like an MGA we will need to visit soon. -- After 4-pm, time to break up the party and toddle off to find a WiFi spot for late lunch/dinner and time to process these photos and notes for your enjoyment.
Monday May 6, 2024:
Day off, time for some guru things on the side. planning, and plotting for some new web pages.
Tuesday May 7, 2024:
We dropped in on a club meeting this evening with Alamo MG Association in San Antonio, Texas. There were only a few MGs in front, but lots of people haulers. I was counting 26 people in the dining room, give or take a couple. We were here once before, nine years earlier in 2015. A few people remembered us. A few more knew us from somewhere else.
Wednesday May 8, 2024:
Plotting and planning. Heading south in the evening, way south. We don't do this often, but e were about to turn into tourists for a day.
Thursday May 9, 2024:
After a little morning travel. we are sitting in Raymondvillle, TX for breakfast. About an hour shy of where I thought we should be, but we can get going again. We were intending to go first to South Padre Island Visitors Center where there would be a nearby breakfast stop. But having already stopped for breakfast, we changed direction to go to Boca Chica Village first.
Approaching Brownsville, TX, we were following a few new windmill turbine blades. Not unusual these days, and they commonly travel in sets of three for one windmill. But then they stopped and blocked the road for a while, and it was 102dF in full sun, not fun, so we hauled into a truck stop for a short cooler.
- - Continuing on, TX-4, turned east heading for the Gulf of Mexico. Follow Boca Chica Hwy another 20 miles takes us past Starbase, "Gateway to Mars". The first picture gives us two of the large second stage Starship rockets sitting to the left of three assembly buildings, all on the left side of the road at this point.
More construction as they are building out the rocket factory. Amazing that Rt-4 highway goes right past the whole complex, just pull over and take pictures. A long row of residence buildings for workers living on site. - - Then our first view of the launch tower with a "ship" on the crane nearby, and a view of the "old" tank farm in between. There used to be eight vertical tanks, at least two of them since removed, the rest may be going away soon. The launch complex now on the right side of the road.
Continuing past the launch complex, the large array of plumbing on the right is where large numbers of tanker trucks back in to offload cryogenic liquids, methane and oxygen rocket fuel and oxidizer, nitrogen for cooling and pressurizing things.
Then we ran out of road. No, we won't drive on the beach. Go ahead walk on the sand, dip your feet in the Gulf of Mexico. If you see baby turtles crawling out of the sand and heading for the water, don't bother them.
Check up and down the beach, go sun bathing if you like.
Time for a U-turn to head back. The horizontal arms at the base of the launch tower are the "chopsticks" they use to lift the booster rocket onto the launch mount, and to lift and stack the "ship" on top of the booster. If all goes to plan, the chopsticks will also be used to catch the returning rockets out of the air when landing, and put them back on the launch mounts or transporters. We were delayed a few minutes waiting for a couple of GenOx trucks to back in for unloading liquid oxygen. On the way out, lots of trucks and other industrial vehicles moving about, so we definitely felt out of place. I've been to Cape Canaveral, Florida before, and you certainly don't get this close to the action there.
After backtracking half an hour to Brownsville we turned right a couple of times to head out to Port Isabel and South Padre Island.
38 miles by way of roads, even though it is only 6 miles the way the crow flies. This reminds us a lot of the Outer Banks
tourist land in North Carolina. We certainly didn't need to come all the way to south Texas just to find hotels and restaurants. Lots of beach access too, but that's not why we were here. We had some hope that the Visitors Center night have more information about Space-X activities, but nothing more than the single word "Starbase" on local tourist map. Pretty much a bust and waste of time coming here. One of our best sources for advance information for Starbase was "The Everyday Astronaut" web site.
Friday May 10, 2024:
Trying to take a day off and stay out of the heat, we headed north after dark. Then the alternator was dead again (sheesh). So we stopped at a truck stop to let it cool down for an hour plus before swapping in a replacement alternator. Apparently we didn't get the fan belt tight enough. It started charging okay, but was soon charging at low voltage with the belt squealing like crazy. So then there was a road side stop under a street light to tighten the fan belt, blistering my arm on a scotching hot alternator pulley in the process. Second night running when we only got three hours sleep.
Saturday May 11, 2024:
Today we dropped in to visit Javier"Harvey" Bazan in San Marcos, TX. We were last here in April 2015. Seems like his house has undergone a few changes, as well as some of his rolling stock toys.
One that didn't change was the small utility trailer that we helped him procure and retrieve from a neighbor in 2015. It begs to be sandblasted and repainted, and maybe new tires. There is a newer MGB in pretty good condition, procured for a good engine and overdrive gearbox and the hardtop. The neater toy now is his 1953 Chevy 3100 truck. Just a bit rough but progressing with restoration. He recently swapped in the lager optional engine.
He has a flat deck MG Midget with a bug-eye Sprite front end, and a vintage Mini. All good, but man were we tired. At least we got to crash on Harvey's couch and didn't wake up until the next morning.
Sunday May12, 2024:
By mid day we were off to visit Jon Etheredge in rural Red Rock, Texas. He has a mostly rust free (Texas car) MGA 1600 Coupe, which is begging for lot of attention. It came to him with a prior paint-over-piping repaint, which will require time for body disassembly for sanding, priming and repainting.
It also has a very worn original 1600 engine partly disassembled, head off, large ridge in the cylinder bores.
Someone has donated an MGB 1800 3-main engine in less worn condition, but with pistons seized in the cylinders. That one has been soaking in Mineral Spirits for weeks, but it may ultimately require more physical effort to get free.
In one of his work sheds he was showing off his industrial grade walking foot sewing machine, which is capable of stitching up multiple layers of heavy vinyl or leather or carpet, suitable for most any fabric trim requirements for the vintage cars
There are more machine tools here, capable of making most anything for car restoration. And he is a handy carpenter, having built a few more of the buildings around the farm. There are also a bunch of parts here for a Triumph TR3 in process. I recon if we just leave him alone for a while longer there will be a couple more restored LBCs. For this evening we are off to find a WiFi spot in Katy Texas.
Monday May13, 2024:
A visit today with Fred Valente in Bellaire, TX. He has a Chevy pick up truck which would be a new model by our standards, but old enough to be high mileage with faded paint begging for a repaint. Makes me wonder when I might start thinking of those as vintage vehicles.
We were really here to check out his MGA 1500 which is plodding along the path to restoration. Body and paint work finished, now in process of reassembly, new seats and carpet mostly installed.
There is a problem with replacement parts, rubber gaskets behind the headlights being rather thick and too large diameter, going to be a challenge to trim the OD. That's a new one to me, but I have no idea where they came from or how old those parts might be.
There were some questions about shimming the bonnet and boot lid hinges. The simple solution there is, don't use any shims. These hinges are easy enough to bend into your preferred position with minimal fuss and no shims.
Oh, by the way, this car came with a cast aluminum front bumper. in three pieces . It is an interesting artifact from the 1970's when original type parts were not available and aftermarket suppliers figured out it was easier to make castings than to machine up new stamping dies.
Tuesday May14, 2024:
We stopped to visit Joe Bolduc in Manvel, Texas. He wanted us to park in front of the church for a photo op. The second picture is his house, which he built by his own hands, with no drawings or plans. One day a Docent from the church walked by to congratulate Joe on finishing such a nice house. Then he asked Joe if he would like a church to go with it? Apparently the church had a lot of long deferred maintenance issues, and it was time to let it go. So Joe bought the church, and proceeded to restore it, top to bottom, inside and out. By now Joe owns both sides of the street for a few blocks, and there has been substantial appreciation in property values in recent years, so I guess he did okay with his house and church.
We took a little walking tour of his shop space and a few more out buildings in the area. Joe recons he has had more than a hundred MGA in his life, and still has several more to process. He has in his possession enough parts to assemble at least four MGA "Deluxe" cars, and he is shooting for six. He has at least one spare MGA Twin Cam frame, which is not for sale.
Since he likes Twin Cams, he also has several Jaguar XK120, XK140, XK150.
One of his recent tricks was to develop fixtures and tools and techniques to restore MGA Twin Cam pin drive steel wheels. He does this starting with damaged and broken wheels, and grinding out the rivets to separate the rim from the center disc. Do the same for some standard bolt-on steel wheels. Then mating a standard wheel rim to a Twin Cam wheel center disc, fixture them carefully and weld them back together. Having collected wheels for some years, he now has enough to build the half dozen "Deluxe" cars he has in process.
About this time I got tired of shuffling pictures too many), so just thumb through the rest and enjoy whatever you see.
After sitting and chatting for a while, navigator and I decided to take the opportunity to rewire the better distributor that we had accidentally burned up a few year ago, the one with the new vacuum unit. This turned out to be easier than anticipated. Just install new points and condenser, and a new side terminal with lead wire to the points, and toss in a new rotor. Back in the car in short order, tossing the lesser one in the trailer for spare. Then we were off to the north side of Houston to find another WiFi spot.
Wednesday May15, 2024:
Off to visit Shannon Sasser in Houston, TX. He has a 1957 MGA. Some time ago it was reported to have issues with cooling, compression, fuel smell, bad running. Most of that has been fixed, but not it won't start, sometimes. A head scratcher needing diagnostics. Cranking, but no start. A sniff of starting fluid, but still no fire, so no spark. Test light on the ignition coil, lights up okay. Test light on thr distributor points wire, flickers when cranking. However, the light does not go completely out, but switches from bright to dim. So there is resistance in the circuit, meaning dirty contact points, or points not closing. Remove distributor cap, and sand the points, but no improvement. Remove distributor, sand the points some more, but still no ground contact through the points. Time to remove the points and see how far we can throw them. install new points, adjust, test ground continuity, reinstall the distributor, set static timing, and it fired right up on the first try. Couple minutes to warm up end fine tune it, and all is right with the world.
Heading off from middle of of Houston to the north side, just getting out of he big city. Everything is big in Texas. 25 miles to the north edge of town? Another 25 miles to our intended fuel stop. Pulling off he expressway the engine died, and we thought it had run out of fuel (should not have been empty). Put a little fuel in it, but no start. A sniff of ether, but no start. CRAP, no spark again,
exactly 72 miles after rebuilding the distributor with new points and condenser.. Test light, on, but no blink, points not opening. Yank the distributor to set the points, but the points won't open, no adjustment range left. Hey, these were brand new points, the premium quality Intermotor points with the nice brown phenolic rubbing foot. Okay, install another set of Intermotor points, but these won't open either. The damn things have the adjustment slot in the wrong position relative to the rubbing foot, or like the rubbing foot is not long enough. - - - Okay, swear a little more, at least we know what the problem is. Install a new cheap set of points, the crappy ones with the red plastic rubbing foot that will wear out quickly and need need frequent adjustment. Correct geometry, plenty of adjustment range, and it fired right up. Cheap saves the day after expensive parts turned out to be garbage to leave us stranded on the road.
Thursday May16, 2024:
Rain day, real gully washers and flooding. Great day to be sitting inside working on photos and notes from the past few days.
Friday May17, 2024:
Had in mind to visit a shop in Conroe, TX, today, but but got a bit carried away documenting the recent incident of faulty ignition points (above). By the time I got that done, and called Moss Motors to file the heads up notice, it was after hours and the shop in Conroe was closed for the day (or for the week). Not sure if we will still be here come Monday.
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Monday May20, 2024:
Weekend past, time to get back to work. On a recommendation from some random stranger at a truck stop, we headed for Conroe, Texas to visit Jud's Eurotypes shop.
Jud Morriss has had his hands on machinery since he was working on Allis Chalmers tractors in the 50's. As the tractors were getting bigger and heavier, he decided to try working on cars, much smaller and easier to work on. This was back when our beloved vintage cars were not vintage. Little British cars were common then. In more recent years Jud has taken a liking to Mercedes and Lotus cars, but he still works on vintage British stuff occasionally. If you have a need, give him a call.
Then we ran another 30 miles south to visit British Sports Car Center in Houston, TX. Bill Kitts, the owner, likes working on vintage British cars. It appears he also has an assortment of project cars and parts cars, so he can also supply parts, new or used.
Heading back north in the general direction of Dallas, Fort Worth, one hour or 60 miles in the heat, we picked a good time to hit an exit ramp at Huntsville, TX. We needed to visit an O'Reilly Auto Parts to get the failed alternator tested and figure out how to order up a replacement (under warranty). Verified dead okay, failing five out of six electrical tests. Looks like the replacement has to come out of Nashville, TN, and would take 3 or 4 days for delivery. We're not sticking around for that, got a better idea.
Another 27 miles north, we find a nice cool WiFi spot for late lunch in Madisonville,TX. Sit down, do a little search, Call another O'Reilly store in Arlington, TX to order a new alternator, to be delivered to that store by Friday, when we will be there to pick it up.
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