No more MG enthusiasts??

Are MG enthusiasts extinct here? This group sucketh ye big one, and seems to be more concerned with flogging Chinese knockoff watches etc. than actually dealing with anything of interest to we poor misguided souls who still enjoy tinkering with leaky, anti-social old Brit cars.

KH

Reply to
Kevin Hall
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I believe that, at least on the western side of the pond, most people fell off when most of the ISPs quit giving free access to newsgroups in the misguided idea that it would somehow result in less child pornography (according to the New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo).

Now, in addition to paying for my service provider, I also have to pay for newsgroups. Although I haven't gone looking for child p*rn (not being into that sort of thing), I'm sure it's still there as always.

Reply to
Brian Paul Ehni

Sounds like a reasonable explanation. Hasn't stopped the guitar newsgroups though, or even slowed 'em down.

Fortunately I still get the newsgroups free as part of my ordinary monthly net service. We're so far in the bush I have to go to town to go hunting, so we're limited to poor land line service ( sloooooow) but the groups are free.

Reply to
Kevin Hall

I understand. My previous MG was a 69 B-GT, pretty much stock except for a Weber side draft.

Reply to
Brian Paul Ehni

Brian; Did you do the transplant yourself? I understand it's considerably easier on a rubber bumper car because of modifications to the body stampings made after '74 as Brit. Leyland were intending to stick the 8 in on a regular basis after that.

Did you swap the gearbox and diff as well?

It's hard to find a decent donor body on this side of the water. Most have melted due to the amount of salt used on the roads in winter. In the 60s and 70s most folks who drove MGs slapped snow tires on them in winter and drove them year 'round in spite of the rust problems, same with a lot of nice old Mini Coopers. As a result there are very few good, sound original bodies about. Lots of bodged-up 'restorations' with sills full of putty or fibreglass. Not something a sane man would wish to apply 150 hp or better to as-is, and they're very expensive to repair properly.

It probably makes sense to use a GT for the extra stiffness, but they are quite rare these days and I hate to modify my current one to that extent. Had a number of rag-top Bs in the 60s and 70s, but this is my first GT. Makes a nice little tourer, and it is noticeably stiffer and quieter than the convertibles.

All the best, KH

Reply to
Kevin Hall

At the time, I had the 67 B-GT, and had been seeing the ads for how to do it. I was stationed at Fort Dix in 1986, and came across this car with a blown engine for $750. I snapped that up quick, then started looking for engines. All I could find were Olds 215s, so I got one that looked OK. I got out of the Army, and moved back to Houston, where my brother had everything I'd need to do the work (he runs a custom metal fabrication shop). I found a Muncie "Rock Crusher" 4-speed already rebuilt, and we started stripping the car. Other than the engine it was in great shape, even for New Jersey. Got the engine rebuilt to a mild tune with new cam, pistons, Offy manifold, new bell housing, clutch, and even located some V-8 brakes in England, which I had shipped over here. We figured a modest 200HP or so. Somewhere in there, I found a Buick engine, which is what we used, actually.

Then I moved to Nashville. Thinking I would never finish the project, I sold it to my brother's best friend (who also restores Pontiacs). He got the car finished using high school shop students to do the work, with him buying the parts. At some point, he had the engine out, and his garage burned, ruining the motor. He went to a local parts place and got the Rover 3.9L. It's now got a narrowed Pontiac rear end to handle the power.

Fade to 2004, and I ask him if he still has the car, and if he wants to sell it back. He does. So I wound up owning it second time, and trailered it up to Nashville. There's lots wrong with it. Brakes and clutch leak. No emergency brake. No speedo. After a few months, it began to overheat (electric fan and a bad radiator/manifold setup), and the list goes on. I take it out for short runs in the neighborhood now, but not far. As time and money allow, I'm doing the little things, but there's a local guy who's a British gear head and he really wants to get his hands on it and do it up right. That will have to wait until the economy improves some, or people pay me the money they owe me (which is the same thing, I guess).

Reply to
Brian Paul Ehni

Hy, sometimes I take a look, but nothing there Greetings from Germany

1979 US-MGB

Micha

"Kevin Hall" schrieb im Newsbeitrag news:z7adncLi7bbBaMjXnZ2dnUVZ snipped-for-privacy@posted.vianet...

Reply to
Micha Weidler

Hi Brian;

Interesting history on your 8. I do like those little alloy engines, and there are still a fair number of them around. They sure make more sense than the great heavy lump they put in the MGC.

I hope you get a chance to finish it off the way you want it. Saw a lovely one a couple of years ago at Mosport; everything done very nicely indeed, and running like a watch.

So you're in Nashville now. I've avoided a real job for over 40s years by building guitars and restoring old ones. There are one or two of mine in Nashville, and a bunch of old Martins that I restored.

Reply to
Kevin Hall

Now if you are looking for a daily buzz on matters MG, may I suggest that you take a look at the Yahoo newsgroup MG-MGB and the much larger MGS Digest ( Autox) which seems to have been going a lot longer. You could build from scratch with the wealth of info published there. Both of these are US orientated, but as a high proportion of Abingdon products were designed to earn US$s that is to be expected.

Apart from my '67 B we also run a '97 MGF. Some may not be aware of this more recent variant, it was not deemed exportable! An impressive mid engined 1.8litre VVF sports roadster to most onlookers, owners know however that MG-Rover stuck two Austin Metro subframes from their parts bin ,front & rear on a new tub and plonked an unreliable 1.8 motor on the rearmost engine mounting. The power and weight balance is superb for fast cornering on shale surfaces :-) but we have different sized tyres & track front & rear ( an intermediate sized spare tyre in the front !) we have a cable operated gear change ( Ugh) and the steering lock of an Austin Metro- it takes 2 bites to park in a supermarket car park. Unreliable engine means that early models suffered regularly from head warping & gasket blowing even when not abused, often a repair costing $1500.

But then if you are an MG enthusiast, anything goes. Cheers P '67B '97F

Reply to
Pointer

Thanks Pointer.

We haven't had things like Metros and Fs here. Seems to me British Leyland pretty much retreated from Canada in about '79 or '80 and we haven't had a sniff at any of that stuff since. The only Metro I'm aware of is the Mini variant.

We did get the unfortunate Marina, and some of those engines have been scavanged for worn-out MGB replacements.

The only N.American reviews I read about the F indicated that if they were brought in here they'd be so expensive as to not be nearly competitive with other available sports models of similar or better performance.

Those of us who lived through the final years of British Leyland sales and service in Canada would see the lack of a British involvement in those areas as a positive thing. Service was so bad in Canada in the seventies that it killed any market which may have existed here stone dead.

By the time Canadian distribution ceased even those of us most devoted to the marque were ready to lynch the motley assortment of arrogant, ill-informed, bone idle ex-pat Brits who manned the various British Leyland dealerships in this country. It was a great shame, but most of us were driven into the arms of American or Japanese dealers by the sheer stupidity of the Canadian Leyland dealers.

For those of us anxiously awaiting the arrival of the V-8 version of the MG-B, being offered the Triumph door wedge instead was the final straw.

These days owners of older MGs are better served by the aftermarket suppliers than we ever were by the dealerships, so it is still possible to run Bs here in spite of the home companys' best efforts. I can't imagine what it must have been like trying to deal with the company by the 90s.

It would be interesting to see an MGF in the flesh though.

Reply to
Kevin Hall

Hi Kevin, Yup, the sub frames used for the MGF came from the Mini metro

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was so little room under the hood once you packed in a transverse 1100cc engine, gearbox & clutch that you could barely examine tyre tread on full lock. The MGF suffers in the same way!There are many Classic MG dealers in the UK and spares are cheap to buy and usually easy to fit. The Rover body pressings for Frog eyed sprite/Mini/Midget/MGB and MGBGT were sold to British Motor Heritage at the end of their useful 'life' so at a price even today you can buy a complete bodyshell on which to build your classic car.http://www.bmh-ltd.com/bodyshells2.htmMy '67 MGB is actually a '90/91 Heritage shell, which even now is showing signs of the dreaded rust, but only superficially.Many MG nuts in the Uk would echo your Canadian sentiments, the Triumph/MG lobbies within the Rover company was not only demotivating for employees and dealerships, but in time spelled the demise of that engineering empire.Safety fast! Cheers P

Reply to
Pointer

I never knew they'd used the old Mini subframes for that F. Yet another example of classic 'parts-bin engineering' !

The last of a long line of Minis and Coopers I had was a '75 Innocenti Cooper 1300, rally prepped, that I sold off about 4 or 5 years ago. Actually it was the best of the Minis I owned, with far more creature comforts than the various earlier Coopers.

I've seen a couple of Heritage body shells over here, but they're dreadfully expensive due in part to the shipping of course. Very nice though.

Our current ' 70 B-GT spent most of it's life in Vancouver where snow is rare so there's virtually no salt used on the roads. The body had been nicely restored about 8 years ago but no work done on the engine. With

100,000 miles on it it was still pulling well on the original pistons but was blowing a lot of smoke. We built a fresh engine with .040" oversized corks, took about 8 lbs. off the flywheel, used a fast road cam and twin HSR 42 Mikuni flat slide carbs in place of the leaky old SUs. Makes a nice frisky little tourer without being a hand grenade. The electric overdrive makes it much nicer to use on our highways. It's a pity that was such a scarce option on Bs here.

Just in case there's any confusion, I wasn't picking on British Leyland reps here because they were Brits. I'm an ex-Mancunian myself, escaped in '53 when I was a tiddler. It just seemed like being an idle pratt was a prerequisite for employment with the company over here. I swear a little P.R. training for those folks could have saved the company.

It still amazes me that virtually all the major F-1 teams are jammed to the gills with Brit engineers, but England just couldn't keep their own auto and motorcycle industries afloat.

At least the Triumph motorcycles seem to be making a comeback. They are steadily gaining acceptance on this side of the water after many years of absence.

Reply to
Kevin Hall

I keep an eye on the group, but nothing much gets posted. '99 MGF Mk2

46K and original head gasket!
Reply to
Pete C

Reply to
rocannon

This has been so dead (likely the result of many ISPs dropping newsgroups) that I subscribed to the MG-MGB Yahoo! Group.

Reply to
Brian Paul Ehni

whats the full address as I just subscribe and haven't joined Yahoo groups.

Reply to
Rob

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Reply to
Brian Paul Ehni

Thanks

Reply to
Rob

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