The MGA With An Attitude
MGA Guru Is GOING MOBILE - (May 1 - May 15, 2025)

MGAguru.com

MGAguru.com

Thursday - May 1, 2025:
Sitting in Covington Louisiana today, got an interesting call from MG Limited, home of Killer Beez Racing in Greenfield, Wisconsin. Normally they are specializing in MGB Only, but they just picked up a very early production MGA, chassis number 10108. Word is it has been off the road for years, a little rough, but a complete car with original Car No. plate, definitely restorable, and they are about to have at it. This will be good to have another very early MGA coming back to life.I will be keeping an eye on the progress, as it may lead to more tech information.

Friday - May 2, 2025:
Moved a little west to Hammond, LA, just sneaking up on Saturday's appointment farther west. Had a little on-line chat with someone who may be interested in making more bronze thrust washers for the Austin differential from 1953 Z-Magnette through all MGA and MGB and MGC, and maybe the RV8 as well, like these: RA-109A. The Salisbury tube-typev rear axle from 1interrested68 on (and all MGB-GT) is much different from earlier banjo style rear axle, but they do use the same thrust washers for the differential. Beginning 1968 the factory changed to phenolic thrust washers as a cost reduction, resulting in huge reduction of reliability and operating life of the rear axle. It is very desirable to have bronze washers as replacement parts for these applications, but the bronze parts are generally not available. The big problem is, bronze sheet stock is not available in 0.036-0.038 inch thickness, only 0.040" (1.0-mm). The alternative is to begin with cored bar stock 2-1/2" OD x 1-1/2" ID, chuck it in a lathe, and use a thin cut-off tool to slice off flat washers of appropriate thickness. Waste material would be about the same amount as cutting washers out of flat sheet, and material cost would be less than $1 per piece. I would like to be the first customer.

Saturday - May 3, 2025:
We headed over to Baton Rouge, Louisiana for breakfast with British Motoring Club New Orleans, Baton Rouge group. It has been ten years since we were participating in an all-club tour drive with thee folks. A few years ago we tried the breakfast meeting, twice. First time the restaurant was closed for Easter weekend, the the following week no one showed up. But we're persistent. This time we made some phone calls to arrange advance appointment, and here e are with a nice groip of friendly faces.

After breakfast, back to the car park for some tire kicking, and see who brought what for show and tell. I don't dare touch the black MGA as it has a 20 year old mirror finish paint job that still looks like new.

The quaint attraction today was the Leyland Mini with some neat patina. I think the Mini wore the Leyland badge from 1968 to 2000. As the party was breaking up we were ff to find a local WiFi spot for rest of the day. WiFi closed at 9-pm, so we headed east and north, landing at the Mississippi Welcome center on I-55. Been a fairly long day.


Sunday - May 4, 2025:
Sitting in Magnolia, Mississippi today, mostly relaxing and processing yesterday's photos and notes. Currently our only future appointment is for NAMGAR GT-50 in Traverse City, Michigan. That's still four weeks away, but for sure will will find plenty to do in the meantime. The license sticker on the trailer is now expired. It has been legally renewed, but the new sticker was mailed to Sandwich, Illinois. So we will casually wander along to visit oldest daughter where we can pick up the new sticker. I suppose we will spend time this afternoon considering what playgrounds and toys we can find along the way.

Monday - May 5, 2025:
Breakfast in Hazelhurst MS. Had an inquiry about parking direction for the MGA screenwipers. Some bloke has the parking commutator pointed in the correct direction, but wipers parking on the wrong side. Best initial guess is, wheelboxes installed upside down. Wait to see.

Tuesday - May 6, 2025:
Sprinkles for early wake-up, so get on down the road before it rains more. Park it in Winona, MS, and run for cover as the rain is picking up. Rain all day, 100%, no break, good day to be sitting inside. 10-pm closing, still raining, run for the car. Point it toward a truck stop an hour north, and creep out onto the expressway with fogged over windows. Must be 110% relative humidity. Using the third wiper blade to wipe inside of windscreen every five seconds, driving 50 to 55 tops, trying to see lane lines somewhere, occasionally. Following taillights when we can, keep wiping the glass. Must be some oil inside of glass, because no matter how fast or hard I wipe it just smears and stays clouded over. Five miles short of intended truck stop, there was rest stop that didn't show on the Garmin GPS, so screw it, get off the road, stop here and batten down for the night.

Wednesday - May 7, 2025:
Good morning, no rain, just overcast. Truck on up the road a bit to find the Love's Travel Center in Batesville, Mississippi. Good place as any if there is nowhere pressing to go. Later in the day it was raining again.
When I get bored and have time available, I sometimes search for illusive information. Not sure why this just came to mind, but people occasionally ask for information on Bearings to rebuild an MGA water pump. I know the BMC part numbers, but I could not find any in stock, and could never find any alternate part numbers,. but today I was more persistent. 1-5/16" OD x, 1/2" ID x 3/8" Wide, single row open ball bearing, Now I can post a new 2A457 Part Numbers tech page with the information where people can find it. This one is for the early production MGA water pump that could be disassembled with a wrench for easy rebuild.

Thursday - May 8, 2025:
Hanging out in Batesville one more day. Once I had the first alternate part number for the bearing, it didn't take long to find more, and post a new Cooling Tech page COOL-108I with the bearing cross reference numbers for other suppliers. More rain in the afternoon, but by late night we could move on again.

Friday - May 9, 2025:
Leaving Mississippi behind, we drove north into Tennessee, then west across the Mississippi River into Arkansas, and more north still on i-55. Fuel stop in West Memphis, AR, and then the starter motor went dead, no go. Not long to diagnose a battery cable disconnect, corroded joint between copper cable and positive battery terminal connector. Gawd I hate these cheesy bolt-on cable ends. Move it up the priority list to see if we can get a cable service to install a decent crimp-on cable terminal. Meanwhile, pull another spare bolt-on terminal out of he Magic Trailer. Scrape the corrosion off of the copper cable, bite it a few times with Channellock pliers to remove more of the internal corrosion, and install another bolt-on positive terminal. Also notice the even cheesier sheet metal terminal end on the ground cable. I can't believe I got suckered into buying that piece of crap last time around, just because that was what was available at a parts store when we needed it. I suppose we need to replace the ground cable again as well. Twenty minutes of fettling got the battery connections clean enough to work again, for now, and it fired right up. On the road again.

Continuing I-55 north, cross another state line, stop at Missouri welcome center in Hayti, MO

Saturday - May 10, 2025:
More north this morning, stopping for breakfast at Mathews MO. We would stay most of the day.
Someone was asking for length of the bridge pipes on MGA 1500 front drum brakes, and the threads on the fittings. This information was already posted on one of my tech pages: BT-132. But that got me motivated to revise the page to add factory part numbers for each of the pipes. That makes it easier to find the information, and easier to search the internet if you are looking for one of the parts. Scratch half a day for one question.
Drove another 100 miles north after dark, landing in Bloomsdale, MO for fuel stop and late dinner and a little more WiFi time.

Sunday - May 11, 2025:
Most of the day spent sorting out a new Part Numbers tech index page for the list of metal brake pipes used in all MGA models, listed in alpha-numeric order. That turned into 53 line items covering 32 part numbers, and hot links to 20 new Part Numbers tech pages. Still have a lot of checking of cross links before I can post it. Maybe tomorrow. Moved farther north late night to stake out the burbs of St. Louis, Missouri, to be closer to tomorrows appointment.

Monday - May 12, 2025:
Another half day to finish the project for new Part Numbers tech pages for all of the different brake pipes used on all MGA models. That made 20 new tech pages to cover 32 part numbers with full details of pipe lengths and end fittings, and where all the parts are used on the cars. See here:
Parts part_nos.htm -- The complete part numbers index for MGA
Parts 7H8205.htm -- the first brake pipe part number tech page.
Brakes bt132.htm -- Brakes tech page listing pipe lengths and end fittings.
This Part Numbers Index has been in the works since beginning of a 9-month Covid break in March 2020. I haven't counted all the part numbers yet, but there are now about 300 numbers linked to detail pages (and it will continue to grow).
Off to a club meeting tonight with MG Club of St. Louis. 31 people in the dining room, but only one MG in the car park (other than our MGA). I only found the one Z-Magnette. Someone said there may have been a Morris Minor somewhere (maybe). Someone else said it looked like it might rain (poor excuse). Very noisy dining room, sitting in an echo chamber, didn't get to chat with many people,and no one seemed to notice we were there (even though we fired a warning shot a few days in advance). But later as people were leaving and we were waiting to settle the food bill, some bloke walked in and asked, "Are you Barney"? He had seen our MGA with the trailer outside and came back in to say hello, and then we had few minutes to talk about the web site.
After the meeting we headed east, crossed the Mississippi River and then north again. Still a bit of rain, so we hauled in for the night at Hamel, Illinois.

Tuesday - May 13, 2025:
Time spent creating two more Part Numbers tech pages for the 3-way fittings on the MGA rear axle, AJA5028 and 3H2424. Early 1500 cars had 3/8-20-BSF threads on the two rear brake pipes,which may have been a hold-over from the MG T-Type cars. Later MGA cars had 3/8-24-UNF threads for the rear brake pipes. This involved change of threads in the 3-way fittings and in the rear brake banjo fittings.