[Tigers] Fuel pump fix

[Jay Laifman]

Ha!  Let's not forget that dad first had an MG TD, then a Jaguar XK120,
later a Sunbeam Alpine and finally a Sunbeam Tiger.  In the middle, he had
a Porsche 356 and a Porsche 911.  As he was apt to let people know, he was
a bona fide rocket scientist, and engineer's engineer, who worked and lived
for precision.  Yet he stuck with English cars time and time again, and
even went back to them after owning teutonic engineering perfection.  Hmm.
 I'm going to guess that his jabs at all things British were deeply encased
in loving admiration.  He'd clearly rather have a car with that starter
knob than a perfected starter!  Then again, the Ford starter didn't really
have that issue either.

Interestingly, he loved the Lotus 7 and F1 Lotus' - but never seemed to
have any interest in ever owning one.

On a tangent, I don't think there were any politicians that he spoke of
more frequently than Churchill and Chamberlain.  And I don't think there
was a channel on his TV more than the BBC from Holmes to Rumpole to Who to
No. 6.

But heck even the Flying Circus couldn't resist poking a finger or two or
three at their beloved country!

All the best,
Jay




On Wed, Apr 23, 2014 at 4:00 PM, Marc Small <marcsmall at comcast.net> wrote:

> On 4/23/2014 4:50 PM, Jay Laifman wrote:
>
>> Dad always used to talk about how the English wouldn't fix the engineering
>> problem, only create extra solutions.  For instance, the starter would
>> jam.
>>   Rather than figure out how to make a starter that wouldn't jam (like the
>> Germans and Japanese did), the English added a little knob on the starter
>> that could be turned with a wrench to unjam the starter when needed. Pure
>> genius.
>>
>> So, rather than move the fuel pump down low, away from the muffler, and as
>> close to the fuel tank as possible (or add an impact switch), I've decided
>> to mount small fan next to the fuel pump that is wired to turn itself on
>> whenever the engine gets too hot.   Moreover, I'll be extra efficient and
>> I'll run the power straight from the ignition switch.  Better yet, I won't
>> even use a ground wire!  I'll mount the fan with sheet metal screws, and
>> let the screws be the grounds.  Oh, and I'm sure that if the British were
>> to do this today, they would source the product from the best vendors
>> equivalent to Lucas.  So I'll be sure to get a Chinese fan as well.
>>
>> D
>>
> Jay
>
> Your father and I often spatted but I always respected his approach to
> things.  Note the jackleg manner in which t Fod produced the Mustang.
>  Rootes was on its last legs financially following the death of the first
> Baron Rootek who had been the salesman.  His brother, Sir William, was the
> corporate genius and even he could not save Rootes.  It was dead as a
> door-nail by 1962 and while His Lordship did not accept this, Sir William
> did.
>
> There was no reserve of money. Sir William deserves applause from us all
> for his insistence on funding the Alpine and Tiger lines.  There simply
> wasn't the money on hand or the promise of sales to keep the matter afloat,
> so it sunk to the bottom of the sea, like HMS HOOD, like RMS TITANIC.
>
> Build a time machine. Go back to, say, 1955, and place outrageous bets at
> Harold's Club in Reno.  Once you ave accumulated ten million dollars, call
> Sir William and buy in, and tell him that you have more at hand.  Take a
> grand sports almanack with you. YOU could keep Rootes alive, if you only
> had a time machine.
>
> It did not help that the British PM, Harold Wilson, kept devaluing the
> British pound.  He did that three times.  Every time he did this, the
> sticker price on UK cars in the US went up by 15% or more.  He slit his own
> nation's throat and did so neatly.  (He is the only British PM I have ever
> meet.  I had twenty minutes with him but that was a matter of Doctor Small
> to Lord Wilson and, for once, I  had common sense, so I asked him about his
> WWII experiences and avoided having to  ask him just why he destroyed
> British industry.
>
> Marc
>
>
>  ad would be most proud.