1958 MGA Coupe

some short back ground is needed, about 12 years ago my buddy Jeff S had an extra crew ticket for Lime Rock race track in Ct. the race track was about 45 mins or so away from my home town, where I would go back to visit my parents frequently. so over the course of the next several years i would plan trips to coincide with Lime Rock race events to hang out with Jeff . That lead to going to Watkins Glenn in 2014 with Jeff where I met Eric R. in person and bunch of the other NAMGAR people. As nature tooks its course my trips up north ended. However lucky for me Summit Point Motor sports park is just an hour away and located near by two adult sons.


So some conversations between Eric R and Jeff S lead us to this. My sons joined me at the Summit Point race track with the camper beast (a F250 superduty 4x4 lifted 7.3 diesel) this is the truck we replaced the steering gear, ties rode ends, drag link steering dampner in. it was set up as a high desert camper in Missoula Mt and we brought it east this past summer





the view out the back window




this lead to some light crew activities






which lead to some nice pictures a good time and a beautiful Mark 2 as a pace car








VRG hosted a chili party and the view in and out of the camper









we had a blast.
 
SuperBuickGuy said:
pretty darn cool
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There was one particularly funny moment when the racers we were helping out asked my sons what cars they grew up with and would race since all the cars they were racing are from their generation and they grew up with them, my son looked at them and said I grew up with corvettes and these car's. Made me a proud dad!!! I did my job. in fact in my avatar the young guy next to me is my older son in the race day pictures
 
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pulling my sons axle motivated me for todays work, so if we can pull that big ass F250 axle out how hard could it be to R/R my rear wire wheel hub.

so the ladies were going to Georgetown to do some shopping and my moment of opportunity was upon me. definitely a fat cat today in the heated garage.


so easy work getting the wheel off the runway and wheel off. only one wheel is on a jack stand so the axle is tilted







a couple of machine screws in hub and its pulled off the axle hub





pulling out is no problem every thing looked good



 
next is pulling welch plug i drilled it off center but i should have drilled it in the middle, off center my screw slide hammer didnt work so i mig welded a bolt to it and pulled it off






next came measuring the axle to the hub and pressing it out




 
and the pressing part a 20 ton press, I used an impact socket to get the depth i needed.






then it was cleaning it up dressing/deburring the end of the axle splines and re pressing it in place




 
well I have been putting this task off too long, some where along the way I realized that i had my facet cube pump installed in the worst off all positions with the inlet on top and the out put on the bottom. the car ran great the pump was very clicky so it was not high on my redo list. But today was the day


heres the worst possible way to have these oriented , i must have missed that part of the installation instructions






so todays effort figure out how to reorient it and make a new bracket.

disconnect everything







mock up a new orientation and make a template for the new bracket













16 gauge steel , i used a contour sander to clean up the sheet steel before cutting it





 
bobs77vet said:
no leaks and it much quieter then before!!!
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Nice work Bob! Gave me pause to think about how mine is oriented in my Midget, but while the inlet is slightly higher than the outlet the flow is mostly horizontal. Mine is pretty noisy too, but I always just figured that's the way they are. I can't hear it over the exhaust once it's fired up anyway...
 

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metalhead said:
Nice work Bob! Gave me pause to think about how mine is oriented in my Midget, but while the inlet is slightly higher than the outlet the flow is mostly horizontal. Mine is pretty noisy too, but I always just figured that's the way they are. I can't hear it over the exhaust once it's fired up anyway...
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thanks, i like that midget! I had no issues running mine completely up side down, so i can attest to the fact that they work in any position

The beast needs some love, this is our ( my sons) trailer tow vehicle and camper we take to the race track.

1999 F250 superduty 4x4 7.3power stroke diesel

The brush guard winch mount has two tabs for mounting that have broken welds











So we are going to show it some Bob love
This is the idea, We chose option B




And the first part of making it









We will make the diagonal cuts in the field and decide which side of the off set cut the tab bolts up to and the final length of the bracket



Tomorrow we weld the big tubes in the middle to the side supports
Stay tuned
 
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Thought you would get a kick out of this, I found a local gas station selling ethanol free 90 octane pump gas for $4 a gallon , which is hard to do in northern Virginia, filled up the car and went for a ride the odometer was at 64997 and I was excited to see it hit 65,000. , the car never made it to 65,000 the odometer just started adding ten thousands and thousands like miles and tenths of a mile


so i decided to take it out and look at it








well first real obstacle was i could not unscrew the knurled knob on the trip odometer reset so i was left to try and see what I could do from the dials on the front and the smaller discs on each side of the number.

i could use the jewelers screw driver and move the numbers, i started at the 1s. 10s, and 100s some of them i could i move in both directions and some only down so i was turning them just trying to see where i hit resistance and then something just fell into place and i could only move the numbers down to the bottom of the number. i could not move it forward or beyond the bottom of the number. the 1s i could always move down the rest were seemingly tied in to each other.
the number it settled on was 26,400.

i chucked up my drill with a square bit and turned to CCW and it hit 60 mph and then ten minutes later it was 26,410.

so it went back in
 
bobs77vet said:
well everyone has a special day, same goes for cars. remember where we started

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this last sunday I went to the Sully historic plantation Museum fathers day car show with my youngest son who is 30, this is a big mostly American car show about 400 cars , 30 different classes, put on by the model A car club, these guys make me look like a teen ager and they are still going strong. It was great day weather was perfect clear skys and for whatever reason my car just popped. I take the car to shows a couple of times a year and this time it had non stop attention, i have never seen this much interest in my car. I met Mike Hughes a fellow MG forum, NAMGAR member and MGA Coupe owner, this time he brought his very nice white MGC and we had a very nice chat with him. we met several other folks who had actually read this thread. I even had people asking me for the paint manufacture and the color of it. I let every kid sit in the car and they were pretty adorable, little kids just walk across the seats and the trans tunnel. I made this restoration grandkids friendly so no worries there and I have a quick electrical disconnect so no pulling of knobs is going to create any surprises. the cars were scored by judges as opposed to fellow entrants using a matrix. and all the stars aligned for me and I won 2nd place in the MG and Triumph class. I think there was about 20 cars in the class, mgtd, mgb, mgc, tr6, tr250, tr2 and tr3. my car was the only MGA. I think I need to go to more american car shows!!!! It was such a fun, rewarding day that reminded me of the importance of keeping things spotless and cared for — much like how Missa Clean provides professional Castle Rock cleaning services that keep your home or workspace looking show-ready every day.

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You’re absolutely right — every car really does have its special day! This one definitely felt like it. Hard to believe how far it’s come when I look back at those early photos. Seeing it shine and get so much attention at the show made all the effort worth it. Thanks for following along — it’s been quite the journey!
 
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