Two weeks ago, I finally took the MGB to Valley Wire Wheels and let
them do their magic. It's amazing how much better the car looks
without dead vines woven through the spokes. It's also amazing how
much better the car drives with new tires instead of 5 year old tires.
This was the first weekend since then with a forecast dry enough
to drive around in a topless car. (I haven't wanted to have to drill
holes in the floorpans to let the water out and have been figuring
with the dry season approaching there's more pressing items than the
top, so the motorcycle is the better wet weather vehicle for the time
being.) What a fun car. Tooling around this weekend made all the
work worthwhile.
Unfortunately, on Sunday, I ran into a starting problem. Each time I
went to restart the car, I'd turn the key, get a solenoid click and
that was that. The red "not charging" light would dim slightly so
something was drawing power, but the starter wasn't turning. Each
time, after letting me sweat for a while, on the umpteenth attempt to
see if it would start, the starter would work normally, the car would
start and away I would go. I didn't get a chance to look into it
when I got home, so haven't started debugging it. Before I jumped in
too deeply, I figured I'd check here in case this is one of those
well known problems with some clean, elegant solution like hammering
on the fuel pump.
Also, the speedometer is on the list of things to be fixed. In the
mean time, does anyone know off the top of their head what the tach
should be reading for 55 in 4th gear? Mine is a '69 if that matters.
I made my own estimate, but either everyone in LA has started
driving much slower or I'm off by a little bit.
Thanks,
Scott Alexander
salex@devvax.jpl.nasa.gov
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