Top Gear

I’ll admit my faults; one of them is I’m a late bloomer in many ways, when I do come around, I can get obsessed. I didn’t learn to drive stick until 2001, and it was shortly after I was starting my first car restoration. Another thing I am a “Johnny come lately” on is the BBC show “Top Gear”. Even when BBC America was available on cable, I’d pass right by it. Now I can’t get enough of it. Thankfully Netflix has most of the seasons available on instant watch.  It’s filmed quite well, with very high production values, and while taking lovingly looks at beautiful cars, it’s quite to the point. I don’t think I’ll ever own a Lamborghini, so I won’t be able to compare it’s braking to a Porsche 911, but it’s interesting to see such an in depth look at the machinery. 
It delves into the culture that also surrounds cars. So far my fave moment’s is when they make fun of an MG branded smoker’s pouch. “They’ll throw you out of the pub if you have that, not because of the fact that you’re a smoker, but the fact you’ll want to talk about MG’s” . James May discussing classics, Richard Hammond driving modern sports cars, and Jeremy Clarkson bashing everything for not being as good as he’d like them to be. It pokes fun at the things that deserve it, and praises the things that are worthy.  Clarkson whipping a Corvette into a corner and yelling out “WELL DONE FAT MAN FROM KENTUCKY!” is one of the notable quotes.

The episode when they take 3 classic British sports cars to Blackpool; James May in a TVR, Richard Hammond in a Lotus, and Jeremy Clarkson in a Jensen Healey. It’s comical seeing even them take on 30 year old British sports cars, that have their vintage issues. But while they compare their cars to the ones that replaced them in the market place, specifically hatchbacks, Jeremy Clarkson laments the state of the British auto industry; “It’s not that we don’t make cars anymore, it’s the fact that we don’t make ANYTHING these days” So true. The Episodes when they revisit the glory days, such as Eagle’s E type Jaguar reproduction, the Re-vamped Jensen Interceptor (at $150K) really excite me when they put on the rose colored glasses of days past, realizing that revisiting is far more practical than actually using a vintage Triumph as a day to day driver. And while they put a celebrity in a cheap car to do a lap each episode, they’re given mid priced cars. It's an interesting show, well done and extremely opinionated. But if I'm not behind the wheel, it's one of those shows that makes me forget I'm on the couch.

I’ve caught the US version, and while I like the idea, at this point, I really haven’t come around to go out of my way to watch it. But who knows, maybe I’ll come around.

Cars & Coffee

Cars and Coffee. the concept is simple; car enthusiasts gather early on a weekend morning, before the soccer moms & the honey do-er’s hit the road. Bring your car to a desiginated location, usually an out of the way place, hang out, and then be gone. No “civilians”, no kids dripping ice cream over that freshly waxed paint, no little dogs running about like at a cruise night or a regular car show. Start at 7:00 and be done by 10:00 and home by 11:00.

Lars Anderson’s Museum of transportation, in Brookline, MA, started one in recent years, and I went to a few this past summer. It was a blast. The first one Dad & I went to, I don't think he was really psyched about it when we got  there. Not alot of vintage cars, at least at that weekend. The funny thing was watching people with $50K+ of new automobile, not being able to parallel park, or back up into a spot without 5+ gear changes.

I went one on my own a few weeks later, and it was ok. But I felt out of sorts. It's tough to relate I’m too young for the old guys with vintage Porsche’s and too poor for the investment bankers that have the new Ford GT. I’m too old for the young crowd that brings a whacked out Subaru STI that has more horsepower than all of my cars combined. But later on I found my speed. The older guys are psyched to see and talk to a younger guy that likes that 68 Jaguar, and the young guys like hearing stories about the days when your first car was 20 years old.

The last one I went to was with my brother in law. Bringing an MGB to one of these events is pretty wild. Your intentions don’t get questioned, you know your cars, you respect what everyone brought. My Brother in law was suprized at how I’d get into a conversation with a total stranger about a Lotus Elise, and shift into the merits of a vintage Chevelle vs a 442.

As this year’s car season winds down, I’m already looking foreward to an early dew covered morning, and unleashing all 60HP of my MGB down the Jamacia way to next year’s cars and coffee.

CD

OK I'm Back...

First off, as usual, I have to apologize for not posting in forever. I've had a lot of things happen in the past year or so. Getting married, searching for, and finally getting a new job. Life changing events aside, I've had some great car related activities; many fantastic car shows, tons of cool people I've met, and lots of little and big projects underway. But this post is to bring you all up to speed.

As I said before I started a new job and it's close by where I live, a 9 mile commute to be exact, with an average commuting time of 15 minutes. As well as a regular parking lot. Which means that I get to drive my MGB to work on most days. The only downside is that it takes about 8 minutes to really warm up the MGB, even on a summer morning, So the ride is a little rough for about half of the way. But the weather was so nice this year, I was able to drive the ragtop to work 80% of the time. Even better was the fact that we were able to get the blue 1977 MGB on the road, and drive that one to work too! Having both MGB's out here was pretty wild...

Here's how we got there!

Well, remember that parts car we had? We used the front fenders and hood for my Dad’s 1970 MGB GT. And the rest of the car we pretty much butchered for parts. One thing that was also good was the engine.

My cousin and Dad ran the engine, and realized that it sounded quite good overall. So they threw the blue car’s engine in the scrap heap, and placed the parts car’s engine in the Blue 1977 MGB convertible. The blue car had a Weber 45dcoe Carb on it. Back in the day, my cousin had a mechanic that told him that the SU carbs he was having a hard time tuning were junk, and told him to go with a weber. Apparently he was also a Weber re-seller, go figure. So this 1969 MGB GT engine with it’s lack of smog pumps and higher compression now has a Weber carb on it, which gives it a pretty strong performance.

There was some damage during storage though. During one of the winters, snow banks were pushed up against it, more specifically under it, denting the gas tank. So a new one was procured from Victoria British. The rear deck lid was damaged, so I replaced it with one from a 1970 MGB, It didn’’t quite fit right, but It’ll get sorted. In the meantime it looked badass in flat black primer.

After all that work The car was sorted out wiring wise, and during the one day off between jobs, I went and registered and insured it, Driving it to work at the new place, and around town. The only Issue the car had was a throttle cable breaking. A quick trip to a bike shop and I was all set, as it’s the same as a brake cable. Go figure, what stops a Schwinn, makes an MGB go.

A soda blaster was purchased, and the fenders were blasted, revealing pinholes in the lower sections. My Dad had purchased all the replacement sheet metal, rocker panels, doglegs, and lower fender sections. The guys at AB Fab in Woburn, did the metal work for a great price, and the work went well. re fitting the fenders went well, although they still need a bit of fitting.

The next step is paint. and this is where things are going to get complicated. but that's for another blog post, that will not be 13+ months in the making.

Happy Motoring.

CD

Parts car update:

When you get into restoring an old car, a parts car can be a huge resource. Usually they're beyond restoring for one reason or another, and for that reason can be picked up real cheap! We bought this one for the hood and fenders, but so far we've scabbed the following off of it:

Hood
Fenders
Seats
Seatbelts
Switches
Engine
Wheels

We’ve sold some stuff and between that and the money we saved buying an individual part (new or used) has worked out well for us! We've also sold the seatbelts and I've heard from a guy that has interest in the glass, so I think she'll live on in other cars.

There are some parts we're checking into seeing if they can be restored, like the wheels, but between the engine, fenders and hood, we're doing ok..

Things have a way of cycling around, it seems l live between the music world and car world, right now I’m in orbit around the car world..

CD

MGB Stuff

So the season is starting to wind down, the last big show is Stowe, VT on the weekend of September 16th. Which should be a good one, over 700 cars last year. We're planning on bringing up the GT and the convertible. The GT is running well, it still needs a grille, and some of the paint work needs some touchup (as it looks like a critter walked along the roof!).

The red convertible won 3rd place at the Larz Anderson park's MG day. There was a bit of confusion, thinking the GT won, but regardless the award hangs in the Devine family. My cousin also won best MGA..well over due! During the raffles, I won $15 of Dunkin Donuts gift cards, and the 50/50 raffle, bringing home a whopping $61!  We also sold some parts that we brought! Overall a great day

I sold those silver and black rostyles wheels. I have to say I don't mind doing them but as soon this next set of red & silver ones go south, I'm switching to minilites!

I'll have a post later this week (and I mean it) on the NEXT project

MGB GT Update!

You may note that a couple of years back, my Dad bought a 1970 MGB GT. It looked a bit rough, but ran really well. So he bought it, and admittedly states that he paid too much for it. So after some tuning and some maintenance it's on the road and he's pretty happy, it needs a paint job though, badly.

So I started in the fall of 2009 taking a class at the local Vocational School. I took the car in, and started to sand off the old paint, thinking that at the least, if we want to get the car painted, we can save some money by doing alot of the grunt work. Every night I dropped off the car, with the statement "I have bad news." Every class I'd uncover some new hell; bondo, rust, dented panels. The worst was the rear quarter panel behind the driver side door. It looked like the hulk punched it. I uncovered it by chiseling off 1 1/2" thick of bondo out of it. It was a super bummer. I'll admit it kind of took the jam out of my doughnut.  I felt like I was in over my head, and I was.

So this year Dad decided that he wanted it done. I wasn't looking forward to putting the time in getting this completed, as I knew that it was gonna be a long process, and if I was lucky it would be done in about 6 months or so, If we were lucky.

We stripped a junked MGB GT for a rear quarter panel, and we had bought a parts car, and stripped it for whatever else we could. I knew the metal work was gonna be out of my abilities, and I started to think of finding someone that could do that work, but I was drawing a blank. Good body guys that don't charge an arm and a leg are few and far between these days.

My Red MGB had the infamous "crack of doom" on the driver side door. So I cruised craigslist and all sorts of places trying to find a replacement door. My idea was to refinish this new door, and replace it on my car. My search brought me to Burnett's garage in Wenham; I asked if they had a driver's side MGB door that was in good shape. The guy at Burnetts said, why don't you send it to this guy, and gave me a phone number for a guy that does all their body work. "It'll be cheaper than doing a compete door panel, and he'll have it done in no time at all". Funny thing is, the guy that gets us supplies for auto body class, mentioned the same guy to me awhile back.

So the wheels were turning in my head. So I called the guy and we made an appointment to see him, and mentioned we needed the GT done, and he said he'd do it. We dropped off the car, and every time we went up there, progress was made. We later found out it was in a couple of fender benders, and also was fighting off rust and starting to loose that battle. The body guy said it wasn't easy, and that it was tough task, even for him. All of I sudden I didn't feel bad that I didn't get to do all this work, as it became apparent it was well over my skill set.

My Dad ended up in the hospital during all this going on, and when I went to visit him, the first thing out of his mouth was "did you talk to the paint guy today?"

It's almost 100% complete. It's passed inspection, and has all of its safety stuff sorted out. Just the interior and some small trim items like a grille, British Leyland markers, and mud flaps. But from here on in, it's a car again, and shouldn’t have to be taken off of the road to do any work on it! (Hopefully)

I am however a bit bummed, as when we went to car shows; we did it together, talking on the way down about what's going on, and on the way back about what we saw at the show. Now we'll be taking 2 cars to shows, I'll miss that chit chat on the ride down and back. But we’ll have a lot to talk about when we get to our destination.

Yes It's been awhile

But now I actually have something to report; Dad's GT is almost done. We're hoping to have it at British Car Day at Larz Anderson Park in Brookline on June 26th. Here's a Pic to tide you over until I give a more detailed report on what it took us to get to where we are now. I know it needs a new grille, but so far Dad can't decide what he wants for one yet!