Well, I managed to steal half a day last weekend for a parts cruise
in southern NH. Needed a used oil cooler for my '79 Midget.
One place I'd been meaning to check out for some time was the Old Car Barn
in North Hampton, NH. They advertise MG parts in several of the auto
restoration magazines. Called them up and ended up talking to the father
(now retired) of the current owner. He said he had driven and worked on
nearly every kind of MG there was, but his son ran the business now.
Cruised up to check it out. They're on Rt 1 three buildings south of the
Rt. 111 intersection on the west side of Rt. 1.
Turns out they don't have much for spridgets. A lot of MGB parts and some
Triumph stuff. A lot of cross-referenced stuff that fits many marques,
Lucas instruments, tune-up stuff, bins of weird hardware (only place I've
seen lately that actually had Tenex fasteners). They handle used parts
and might have NOS stuff. Worth a stop if you're cruising by and have a B.
Contact Arthur @ 603-964-7100.
But they didn't have a used oil cooler I could use. So I headed west to
Epping Auto Salvage in Epping NH. This boneyard always had a couple dozen
LBC's (mostly of the Morris/Austin America persuasion) but they sometimes
had a ragtop lying around. The neat thing about the place was that you
could wander around and pull off anything you found interesting, and they'd
sell it to you for nothing. I was also looking for a longer generator mounting
bracket I could use to improve my access to #1 spark plug.
Get there, find place surrounded by immense fence that didn't used to be
there. They're closed, and a big sign states "Insurance regulations
prohibit customers from entering the yard." Harumph! What's the world
coming to when a parts vulture can't pick over the bones?
So I kept going to Raymond, NH to the boneyard I mentioned in a post a few
weeks ago, run by two brothers I've known for ages. I knew there'd be good
stuff there. These guys have been buying every LBC they can get their hands
on since the 70's. Anyway, turns out that they now advertise in Hemmings,
and are slowly mining the chrome bumper MGB's for their own restoration
projects. There's still about 20 cars there, but this isn't going to be
a source of pre-'68 VIN plates; look to the Southeast for that (and maybe
a rust-free car under the VIN plate).
My parts car, a '73 Midget, is still there undisturbed. The philosophy of
this place is that you buy a parts car and stash it there and get picking
rights to whatever else is around. They have 7 MGB's which still have oil
coolers (with the hoses still intact). I ask, they say "Sure, just pull
one off." So now I have a free 13-row cooler, but I decide to defer yanking
it until I figure out mounting brackets and especially spin-on adapter.
They sell parts by mail and have smog pumps (not sure if they're NOS for
MGB's). Contact Duke Drowne @ 603-895-2845. They'll be coming to the
August NE BBQ, in what may be the nicest B there.
I had an uncle, now passed on, who got me into wrenching when I was a kid.
When he went on vacation in England with the aunts, they went to the
museums while he went to the boneyards. They couldn't understand it;
makes sense to me.
timd@ptltd.com (Tim Dziechowski - Phoenix Technologies - Cambridge, Mass)
"Yay! Now I got an oil cooler."
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