Chicagoland MG Club: Driveline

March 2016

books The Library Muse

I am sure that most of you are aware that a group of CMGC members, including myself, attended the Detroit Auto Show this past January. While there I stopped by the Volkswagen display. They had several diesels on the floor, but they were missing all information on MPG and emissions. I wonder what’s that all about? VW did have a nice battery powered car that they were touting as being emission free.

But that got me to thinking, where does the electricity come from? Nuclear fission power plants (Chernobyl, 3 Mile Island, Japan), what could go wrong there. Coal burning? Acid rain and smog, that’s not very green. Wind turbines, hydroelectric, tidal? All have problems and currently (pun intended) can only produce limited KWHs. And the mining for the metals and rare earths for the batteries? Again an environmental nightmare. There is no free lunch when it comes to electricity. At least until someone comes up with nuclear fusion. VW did not have any diesels or the electric car on display several weeks later at the Chicago show, while they are ‘sorting out issues.’

-- ~~ Bill Mennell

Fix It With Steve...

Hi Folks,

Well things are looking up at the “Fix-It” garage, jobs are moving forward and the weather must be improving as I had a member visit on Sunday in his B with the top down! Not bad for hibernation season to end in February. Saturday we got the TR6 back to ‘four wheeled’ status. The rear camber was set, the half shafts connected and the brakes bled. The car is now outside waiting for APEX to finish the engine machine shop work. So my B GT is back inside warming up.

Sunday I went back to the Morris Minor, fitted the new fuel pump and fixed a couple of problems with the SU Carb. The jet hadn’t been centered so the needle & piston were stuck, locked in position. The engine would not run like that at all. Loosening off the centering nut with the jet all the way up sorted that out. The float valve wouldn’t have worked well either with the connections from the float to the pivot pin all being messed up. A second hand spare fixed that. Then she started! After about 10 years silence a running engine was had and a nice thing it was too. Couple of ‘blips’; first the ignition

warning light was on. I’m hoping the loose fan belt is the culprit. The new one Moss sent was too big so I got another at my local NAPA. Will be fitting that at the next session. Then she wouldn’t crank at all. I’m hoping the starter motor has just jammed after sitting for so long and a bit of persuasion will fix that problem. I did a few other things like top up the gearbox oil, change the broken choke cable and quit for the day while I was ahead! This coming weekend the ‘Fix-It’ garage will be closed while I make a quick trip to England. Normal service will be resumed on Saturday March 12th when I will be back at work on the Minor & hopefully doing a test drive. Famous last words.
Sunday 3/13 we will return to the MGB engine we have been building up. It’s probably got a couple more sessions to go. Next up is to get the timing chain fitted, then the oil pump and sump.

As always feel free to drop by and see what’s going on.

Cheers,

-- Steve Skegg

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