MR JOHN P ELWOOD wrote:
>
> You all might remember me, I'm the one who got stuck with $900 in
> unexpected car bills <SNIP> Is a Triumph the answer?
>
> John
John:
I'll just throw in my tuppence here; stick with the MG's. I drive an MGB daily,
winter summer
and nighttime, too ... it's a ragtop, and I do quite literally mean ragtop ...
Rags was
originally so named because that's the state her top is in. She looks very
nice with the top
down, but wouldn't win any beauty awards with it up. I drove her through last
winter without
a heater or defroster, because I didn't have the luxury of pulling her off the
road to
rebuild it; I had to drive her. I've sold off most of the rest of the fleet,
excepting a 63
Ford flatbed truck and a 1993 Dodge Spirit which is Herself's car. I finally
broke down near
the end of last winter and bought a VW rabbit because I had to take Rags off
the road ... her
passenger side bearing race disintegrated and locked up the wheel against the
rotor. I'm
lucky I wasn't killed .... this was in traffic, mind you. Nine months and one
suspension
rebuild later, Rags is back on the road. Still not perfect. Still needs some
work to the
steering column. Has a vaccuum leak someplace (I'm still trying to find it).
Still my primary
vehicle, since the Rabbit has more problems than the B does and the truck,
aside from being
not what you'd expect a professional to drive to work, gets about 8 mpg on a
good day with a
following wind.
When I first got Rags, she needed, according to the DPO, a little work and some
tyres. Lying
sod. He'd wired the battery backwards because he thought all British cars are
positive earth;
fried the VR in the alternator, the tach, and some of the connexions around the
car. The 3rd
and 4th gear synchros in the tranny were shot. The carburetter had been
tightened on by hand
(not to mention needing a complete rebuild). The manifold looked all right,
until you touched
it. Swiss cheese. The car had sat so long in storage that every rubber bit had
started to
dry-rot. The headlamp switch was hanging on by it's teeth. The car had
previously been in a
front-end collision that bent the subframe, wrecked the motor mounts, and
collapsed the
steering column. Every bloody thing on the car leaked ... gas line, brake
lines, clutch
master cylinder, radiator, hoses, exhaust ... not to mention the top, which
still leaks. It's
a 75, but I discovered it's got a 79 motor and a 74 distributor. Virtually
every one of these
things has, at one time or another, left me on the side of the road with a
rueful grin and a
cel phone, calling for rescue. I still love the car, and, as time goes on with
my
daily-driver-cum-pay-as-you-go-restorer, the problems get fewer and fewer. I'm
getting better
at anticipating her problems; in fact, after the first major one (the
electrical system) I
did a running inventory of what was likely to go next, what I could afford to
fix and when,
and what I was just trusting to God and Luck would hold on until I could get
the cash and
time together to do. I have a Master Plan. And, I've been rewarded by fewer
surprises and
more enjoyment. So, to make a short story long, stick with it. The curve of
things that may
go wrong should get flatter with time, as you renew more and more items.
Someday, you'll have
a brand new car, in reverse. Since you've got three, however, I'd work on
getting one to the
status of reliable, rather than work on all three at once. As I said, just my
tuppence.
Corey
75 MGB 'Rags'
RD#373750
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