The Continuing MG Saga, and a Merry Christmas!

It's been a while since writing last, but I have been very busy with work and doing some business traveling that has kept me occupied.  Now that the holiday season is upon us I thought it would be a good time to say Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Merry Kwanza, Happy New Year, blah, blah blah.  I also wanted to update the progress on the MG Roadster as it takes another turn in its evolution.

The little red roadster we call Scarlett, well my wife does anyway, was born with wire wheels.  Always a desirable feature until you have to maintain them; they take a little more work than bolt-on wheels.  You are also stuck with few options for changes as after-market splined wheels are only available in the minilite reproduction version.  So I decided to change the car over to bolt-on wheels.

Amazingly, there is always someone who wants what they don't have so I was able to find a local MG club member who had a bolt-on car and wanted to swap hubs and buy my wheels.  This allowed me to move to a 15" Retro Sport Le Mans style wheel; very 1970's looking as the original American Racing version. So after a few stumbles, like getting the right sized sockets for the front and rear axle nuts - they are not the same size on both ends of the car and are also huge - I was able to make the swap.

Of course the "while I'm at it" syndrome and some needed maintenance led me to also re-do the rear brakes and flush the system and install new brake hoses all around.  This is where it got interesting as the proportioning valve in the braking system decided to lock out the rear portion of the system and not allow bleeding to occur.  A couple of phone calls determined the solution, open both a front and rear bleeder and allow the system to equalize, and we were on our way.

Except I've now had to do it multiple times to get the braking system to bleed properly and I'm still not done as I inadvertently left the key in the on position and drained my new battery to nothing.  We are re-charging as we speak.  Perhaps this weekend I will finally finish the job!

I've also completed the "Garaj Mahal" project; 3 bay double-deep 1,100 square feet of work space with a 9,000 lb Atlas two-post lift!  More on that next time along with some pictures once I figure out how to post them.  Can you say Garage Party!

SF