After sitting on the edge of my couch watching Jaguar's hopes get
dashed on the Nissan rocks in the Camel Continental at Watkins Glen,
it was time to retire to the garage. At the moment I stood up from
the couch, I was greeted by the unmistakable buzz of Scott's MGB
pulling up out front. He came in and I broke the news to him. He
expressed his sorrow.
The mourning was short-lived as we almost immediately climbed into his
roadster and made a run to Orchard supply for drill bits, sheet
metal screws and spray paint (gloss black, #003, and chrome yellow,
#632). The plans for the day: put fender flares on my E Prod BGT
and work on fitting a front rubber bumper.
We got back, snarfed down a couple sandwiches, and got to work.
Cars were shuffled, leaving Scott's B on the street, my street B on
one side of the driveway, and the other house vehicles suitably out
of the way to roll the race car out of the garage. It hasn't been
started since the the Shelby American drivers' school at the
beginning of June. Since the internals of the starter were turned
into so much slag at that event, I had a good excuse.
I figured this was a good time to try turning it over, so we pushed
it out to the street. Linda came out to assist in this effort by
acting as a driver. Oops. Oh, yeah. The exhaust pipe got
mangled last time we took it off the trailer. I cut away the
offending piece of flex tube and the grating, dragging sound
stopped. Ok. Should be able to push start it at this point.
Turn on the kill switch. Turn on the ignition. What? The
alternator light didn't come on. Flip the fuel pump switch on. Uh
oh. No satisfying little click-click-click from the right rear
fender that houses the SU fuel pump. Putting a voltmeter across the
battery shows 12.59 volts. Wait! What's this? The ground cable
looks kind of bubbly and like it might have semi-liquid sometime in
its recent life. Our unproven analysis is that the positive post
came in contact with the body while it was being trailered. Oh
well, the battery is 6 months into a 65 month warranty. The ground
cable is an easy replacement. Analyzing other damage is a task we
decided to delay to a later date.
We pushed it back into the garage to man-handle the task at hand.
The squeamish British car purists might want to skip the rest of
this paragraph. Now, back in the garage, the the sawzall came out,
and rear fender modification started. We held the flare up to the
drvier's side rear fender and determined how much sheel metal could
go away. Well, actually, a lot could go away. But since it's a
double layer, we decided to take it easy on the fenders and out ears
and only cut about two inches past the existing fender lip. On the
other side, I was a bit more ruthless. After figuring out a way to
cut the two layers one at a time, I cut away about four inches.
The front fenders required almost no modification, but in the
interests of saving weight, I cut them away to the limit.
SQUEAMISH PURISTS rejoin here. Scott got to work drilling and
screwing the flares in place. I decided against Zeus pins because I
don't really think I'd have to many occaisons to be pulling the
flares off. Also, the flares had been stored for quite a while
and hadn't retained their shape real well. Using screws all around
the edge should help pull them back into shape. While Scott was
longing for his electric screwdriver, I drilled out the rivets that
hold the plactic portion of the front bumper to metal frame. To all
the nay-sayers: the entire front bumper can't weigh more than 60
lbs. The plastic portion alone weighs 18 lbs. I can live with that
kind of weight penalty. When Scott had finished attaching the rear
flares, he worked on pulling off the grill. I puzzled over how the
front flares were _really_ _supposed_ to fit.
Since we had broken one of the two 3/32" drill bits in the house,
Scott ran off to pick up a couple more so we wouldn't be caught out
after stores closed. During the interim, Sam showed up in his ITB
MGB. He demonstrated how his rear anti-roll bar squeaked and his
ability to pick out fine wrenching beer: Watney's Red Barrel.
Scott returned with the bits, and he and I set to work on the front
flares, which I had finally figured out. Sam drained his radiator
at the end of my driveway. We had pretty much a line of MGBs:
Scott's in the street, Sam's (in full ITB trim, including SCCA
stickers, number, class designation, and "FizzBall Racing" stickers
all in place) at the end of the driveway, my street B further up the
driveway, and the EP BGT in the garage.
A freindly neighbor, with his wife and what we guessed were
grandkids in tow, stopped by. He, and the kids looked over the cars
and commented on them. He asked "So you race at Laguna Seca, why
weren't you down there this weekend?" I scanned my brain for a
moment ... oh yeah, Trans Am was running there this weekend. I
explained that we just did amateur racing. He replied "Oh, so I
guess you aren't really into it that much." All of us resisted the
urge to pummel him with tools laying around the garage and said
nothing. Scott's comment later was that we weren't into it so much
that we spent our own money to go racing rather than someone else's.
Scott took off shortly after that. Sam, Linda and I gorged on Cajun
Catfish. Larry stopped by unexpectedly. We showed off the day's
progress and then all dumbed ourselves up on the Simpsons. I'll be
back in the garage tonight. "Not into that much ..." Bloody hell.
Thanks again, Scott "Is that fahrvegnugen in your pocket or at you
just oversteering to see me?" Fisher and Sam "Was that my apex?"
Sjogren.
andy
banta@sco.com
uunet!sco!banta
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"I generally repack a couple dozen bearings every morning before breakfast
just to keep my testosterone levels from raging completely out of control"
- dave barry
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