Newsletter - September 1997

Another quiet month at the Cambridge MGOC, with many members still away on holiday..The club secretary and his wife has been away to France, in his his MGB roadster, along with the clubs treasurer and his wife, in their roadster. Hopefully they will be telling us all about their trip shortly.

A few member's made the trip to Harrogate in early August Report Here

A recent quiz night at our usual watering hole was fairly well attended despite all the absentees. Jacqueline Deakin,and husband John produced a quiz, (report further down the page!) which kept the gathering amused for most of the evening.

On the same evening we had even more new members join us, which is great news, and keeps me busy trying to keep the membership list up to date! Here are the names of some of our most recent new members: Gavin & Liz Dyer, Allen & Helen Richardson, David Drake, Chris Harrison & Steve Hendon-Webb. If you are new member and I have failed to mention you, then accept my apologies, there have been so many, it's a job to keep track of you all.
Anyway, WELCOME!

If you live in the Cambridge area or are just passing thru then pay us a visit, we will always make you welcome. Check our Diary

In early July I had the pleasure of meeting Paul Kile, and Michael Buck, who were visiting England for a couple of weeks. Paul and Michael had flown over from California, to go to the British Grand Prix, visit a few aircraft meseums and of course to visit Abingdon. Paule Kile brought with him a huge shopping list of parts he wanted to buy for his MGB GT V8 back home. After speaking with Paul on the telephone and of course a couple of the almost compulsory emails, I agreed to take some time off work to visit 'the sights!'

For most of their stay in England, Bedford was their base camp (yes Bedford!). Which actually was a good choice, as it did prove fairly central for some of the places they planned to visit. Cambridge is no more than a 30 minute drive and it proved easier for me to collect them in my MG Maestro, I also had a good idea of the best route between our chosen destinations for the day.

Monday
Our first day out was to go shopping, with Brown & Gammons our first port of call. How excited can you get when you go shopping? Paul has bought parts from B&G in the past, over the phone, but he was so excited, like a small boy being let loose in a toy store.....

After parting with some of his hard earned cash, our next stop was Beers, of Houghton. I took a scenic cross country route, for a moment I got lost, but did not let on at the time!!

Beers of Houghton, a family business which has been involved with the MG marque since just after the war. Beer's garage is in the centre of Houghton, a small & very pretty Cambridgeshire village. What I would call a traditional 'English Garage' has now almost dissapeared, the modern way of doing things, has wiped little garages/workshops of the face of the earth!
But time seems to have stood still a Beer's!! The experience of meeting & talking with Sid Beer,(along with his his family who now run the business), is difficult to explain.

Over the years, Paul Kile has had a lot of dealings Sid Beer & his son Malcolm (Malcolm is a wizard with V8's) and because of this we were taken 'out back', once more my american friends were like kids in a toy store!....

Paul purchased some more parts, and with all the talking and looking around the premises, we stayed for about four hours.

Tuesday
Paul and Michael had arranged a private visit arount the Aston Martin plant, at Newport Pagnell. I was unable to attend as I was on other duties that day, the family pet dog needed to go to the vet. From what I was later told, if you canget permission to visit Aston Martin then it is well worth it.

Wednesday
This was a trip to the Heritage Museum at Gaydon, wher upon arrival we were met by another MG enthusiast, Paul Hunt, who like Paul drives a MGB GT V8. I may have forgot to mention, Michael in fact does not have an MG, his pride is a 'Austin Healey 3000' We arrived a little later than we had planned, but Paul Hunt was still waiting patiently. Once again the Gaydon experince is sonmething difficult to put into words, you just have to visit! I have been on more than one occaison and it gets better each time. There is of course a very healthy display of MG's

Thursday
Another day when Paul and Michael made their own entertainment, they visited The Shuttleworth Collection, which contains many vintage aircraft, dating back to some of mans first attemts at flying!

Friday
Duxford Airfield, the home of the Imperial War Museum's Aircraft and Land Warfare Collection. Paul and Michael met me in the visitors car park just as the museum opened, at 10am. It was a damp grey day, but it seems as nothing can dampen the enthusiam of of Paul & Michael. I had discovered over the last few days that their knowledge of the MG marque was to say the least extensive...well!, their knowledge of military & civillian was amazingly extensive!!

In recent times, the Duxford Museum has formed a close relationship with MG.
MG'96
MG'97

The Cambridge & District MGOC also has close links with the Duxford Museum, Peter Paige, (a former club secretary) runs the Duxford based company 'Duxford Displays', who are responsible for many of the civilian aircraft on show, including 'Concorde'

I had not made any plans to meet with Peter, and we saw his car parked near the guardhouse at the maingate, just after I had got a picture of the hardy enthusiast (the rain was now pouring) Peter tapped me on the shoulder and said hello. We had a chat, and expressed our disapointment at not being able to look around the new 'Hangar' which is to house the museums 'American Collection'. It was in the final stages of preperation prior to being opened by the Queen on August 1st 1997.

Michael, Paul and the Jubilee belonging to Cambrige MGOC member Peter Paige

Peter said "just wait there a minute, I'll see what I can do!"
Well he did it, we got to have a look inside, while other visitors stood outside in the rain.
Natrally we must thank Peter Paige for pulling the appropriate strings.

Remember at the start, I said we had arrived at 10am, well I had to leave at 6pm and my two friends were still there for a little while longer!!
We said our goodbyes, as they planned to move on to London and also get over to Abington to visit, what little remains, of the MG Car Company.

Sadly due to the timing of the visit, Paul & Michael were unable to meet the other members at one of the Cambrige Club nights, but maybe next time?

Kelvin Fagan

As a result of Paul's Kiles recent ride in a Modern Front Wheel Drive MG, (1989 MG Maestro) he has sent me a story of an earlier experience with a FWD MG.

About 20 years ago, my friends and I were living in Davis, California during our college days. What brought many of us together at that time was our mutual love of British cars, and not just any British car either. Yes, we all had that paragon of automotive excellence, the MG 1100/Austin America!

It should be said at the outset that just owning one of these cars qualifies one to be a master bodger. First of all, the cars began to self destruct only 3-5 years after they were new (they didn't adapt well to California freeways and temperatures). This made them easily accessible second-hand to those of us with limited funds and poor judgment. After acquiring an 1100 or Austin, the first thing to do was to invest in a Shop Manual from British Leyland (there were still dealerships then). Being one of the first front-wheel drive cars we had seen in the U.S., they seemed really futuristic and complex. Reading the manual confirmed our suspicions. Who ever heard of a Hydrolastic suspension system, or an automatic transmission that shared the same oil supply as the engine? We soon realized that the manufacturer advocated the use of a plethora of special tools to work on these cars. For those of us whose entire tool collection could fit in a tin box under our bed, we were at a distinct disadvantage. We had to get creative.

Three days before Christmas, around 1975. My friend John Harrington and I are scheduled to drive down to Los Angeles the next day for the Christmas break. We decided to take John's Austin, since my 1100 was in the middle of an engine rebuild. The problem was that his needed a new torque converter. John had a new (junkyard fresh) converter, and all I had to do to earn the ride to LA was to help him put it in. Piece of cake.

We had become so adept at removing the engines from these cars that we could get them out in about an hour, using rented hoists and half-inch box wrenches. I arrived at his house that morning to find that he already had the engine/trans out and the converter housing off. He had even managed to get the humongous converter securing bolt off the end of the crankshaft, using a Stillson wrench and sledge hammer. He was staring dejectedly at the torque converter/flex plate assembly, still attached to the end of the crankshaft.

Unlike normal vehicles, which use sensible bolts to hold the flex plate to the flat end of the crankshaft, the Austin uses a tapered interference fit on the crankshaft. We soon realized that none of our meager implements of destruction were going to dislodge the converter from the crank. The shop manual was no help either, it recommended the use of *Leyland Special Tool #18G304 for this operation, a nasty looking puller that had no equivalent at the local Rent-All store. For a while it seemed that we were doomed to take the bus or hitchhike to Southern Cal.

*Service Tool & Converter

Then it came to me. What we had was two pieces of metal in intimate contact with each other, not wanting to budge. The solution? Heat and Cold!! If we could find a way to heat up the flex plate while simultaneously cooling the crankshaft, maybe we could make some progress. We rounded up a propane torch, a bowl of ice cubes, a sledgehammer, and two crowbars. Soon we developed a system of heating the converter (just to the point of seeing the transmission fluid begin to smoke), deftly applying the ice cube to the end of the crankshaft, and then quickly flailing away with the sledge while prying with all our might on the edge of the converter. After about ten minutes of this activity, we were rewarded with a loud BANG, as the converter popped loose and landed on the floor.

*Editors note: Paul refers to the special tool as #18G.304, the manual I have quotes it as being #18G.1086.
Perhaps the UK & US numbering was different?

The rest was easy. We made it to LA at the scheduled time, with only one electrical glitch for the trip (a loose coil wire which we diagnosed immediately). This and other incidents prompted us to form an informal club known as the Schlock Brothers. To be a member, you had to have gotten your car running using something creative and definitely not recommended in the manual. We painted an old crowbar with gold paint and presented it annually for the best Schlock job of the year. I even wrote a poem to be recited at the Schlock ceremony:

Meet at Tesco's Milton village, in the car park 10.15 am for prompt 10.30 start

The run will take you through some of East Anglia's most stunning countryside, down winding country lanes, through picturesque villages, past historic buildings and will finish on the
" ***** ****** ** *********** "

Apart from a short run on the A14, and crossing the occasional A road, the whole run will be on B or unclassified roads.

Details of the planned route will given to all participants before the start, and if you get lost, the last bit will show where we are meeting up at ***********. You will also be given a map of the route in a sealed envelope, so that you can get back on it if you lose the thread along the way. If you open it though, you will lose points in the competition.

Yes, there's going to be a competition too. This is so that we can have a prize-giving the following evening in the Black Horse. Brian seems to want this for some reason, I can only think because he likes spending the Club money on lots of prizes for people. Anyone want an oilcan?

So there will be a few easy clues to look out for along the way to keep you entertained during those those few boring moments when you are not enjoying the scenery or poring over the directions cursing the idiot who wrote them.

Bring lots of coffee and a picnic lunch to have at ***********. There will be an intermediate coffee stop around midday at Beachamwell, on the Green. We should need a pause by then. There is a pub there for those who might need something stronger.

After the picnic at *********** you are free to do what you like and go where you like - then try the run in reverse without using the directions.

See you on the 14th! It'll probably be your last chance to take the MG out on a club run until well into 1998.
Jeremy Mustoe

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