The Morris Gazette

BMC-NO is affiliated with:
North American MGB Register (NAMGBR)
and
Vintage Triumph Register (VTR)

If you are a member of these or any other national register or club, please let us know.

Inside this issue:

Calendar (click here)

Meeting Minutes

Officers (click here)

All Club Cruise Info

Natchez Show

AH Caliper Nightmare

MGB-V8 Conversion pt. 3

Baton Rouge GOF Info

For Sale

Membership (click here)

Club Regalia (click here)

President's Message

We have lots of events in the next couple of months. Some are ours, some by other clubs. There are events for everyone: Eating, drinking, music, cruises, car shows, un-car shows, Funkana, Time/Speed/Distance Rallye. Something for everyone.

In the midst of all this activity we also have our elections. Most clubs have a small group of members that end up running the club. Their dedication is good for stability and continuity but it can also stagnate with a lack of fresh ideas.

Two current Board members will be unable to serve next year and we need someone to fill those positions. If you have any interest in serving on the board please let one of the officers know and we will put you on the ballot. Do not be embarrassed to ask. We need new officers to keep the club fresh and active. The Board will present a slate at the September 30th meeting. Nominations will be accepted from the floor. Elections will be held at the October 28th meeting.

Harold O'Reilly

July 29 Minutes

Harold O’Reilly opened up the meeting at 7:25 pm discussing the Mystery Cruise Held July 13th. It turned out to be a cruise “over land, sea and into a foreign country.” The group started at the Lakefront, went over the river on the Canal Street ferry, cruised to the Chalmette ferry and crossed the river again and dined at the infamous Rocky & Carlones. The cruise was a great success.

Upcoming Events: The next scheduled event is the Richard Wolf’s Uncar Show set for August 17th at the Tap Room in Covington. Then September 7th is the cruise to Middendorf’s, which is being put together by 6 or 7 of the area car clubs. Plan to meet at the Kenner Welcome Center at 10:30 am. A ride to Pontchatoula is scheduled after the meal and the police will be present to watch over the cars. On September 21st, plan to attend the Hayden’s Funkana. September 28th is the Montgomery, AL Car Show. October, as usual, will be a busy month. Watch the newsletter. Susan Bradley talked about the Jazz N Vines outdoor concert event at the Pontchartrain Vineyards in October. Cost is $8.50 per person and wine can be purchased by the glass or bottle.

Member’s Projects: Frazier and Beverly Rice attended the National NAMGAR in Welches, Oregon. This was the 9th regional they had been to. There were lots of activities with 160 of the 200 cars registered. Roger Nagy attended the PGH Vintage Grand Prix in Pittsburgh, PA on July 19-20. They had different car shows all during the week and a cruise night with 500 cars in attendance. There were 550 British cars including 35 Healys, 20 Bugeyes and hundreds of MG’s & TR’s. Bill Breithoff has put a new clutch into Sally’s MGB, but was having problems getting the car into gear. The bleeder connection was in a different position after converting. Bill Harris recommended a solution, which Bill was going to try. Harold O’Reilly mentioned that McGuire’s had us on their website as Club of the Month. Keith Vezina is interested in a smog pump for his MGB. Joy Watts brought some British car parts catalogs from England to share with members. Martin Straka talked about his experience of ordering tires and wire wheels. He had ordered Michelin ZX tires from Coker during their once a year vintage car tire sale and ordered his wheels from Dayton. He waited 10 weeks for the wheels, but by then Coker had sold his tires. Coker worked with Martin and gave him the better XZX tires for the price of the ZX. Needless to say, he is very happy with the final outcome.

New Members: Richard & Debbie Reynolds from the Northshore just picked up a white’76 TR6 from the original owner. The car has 61,000 miles and needs some work. They hope to have it on the road soon. Win Stouts owns a ’79 MG Midget and Richard Long came to “rediscover his youth” with British cars.

50/50 Drawing: The $25 pot was won by a new member, Jim Lilly. License plate holders were won by Sally Breithoff and June Harrison. T-shirts were won by Frazier Rice, June Harrison, who passed and Harold O’Reilly.

Reminder: Elections coming up October 28th with nominations in September! §

All Club Cruise to Middendorf’s by Charlie & Barbara Maher

The British Motoring Club New Orleans, along with ten other area car clubs, are cordially invited to particpate in an “all Clubs Cruise” to Middendorf’s 30160 Hwy 51 in Manchac LA, followed by antiquing in Ponchatoula on Sunday September 7, 2003.

Middendorf’s, which does not accept reservations, is aware of this rather large group and they are making accommodations to seat us all together. Separate checks (which include gratuity) will be acceptable. The restaurant is opening early for our group at 11:30 am, rather than their normal noon opening time on Sunday.

After lunch, we will then caravan to Ponchatoula, Louisiana's Antique City, via LA Hwy 51 N. for shopping and browsing for hidden treasures. The Ponchatoula Chief of Police, Tim Gideon, has assured us that police officers are to be visible in our parking area in order to offer the antique cars some level of protection. We shall be parking in the lot adjacent to the train engine on S. W. Railroad Street.

Convoys from:
Kenner Welcome Center, I-10 @ Loyola, 10:30 am
North Shore Regional Medical Center 10:15
Baton Rouge: contact Charlie Matthews, 225-272-6161 or Wade Giles, 225-261-7034

Brits on the Bluff Car Show by Gene Johnston, MSEMC

The Mississippi English Motoring Club has decided to change our show this year from "Brits on the Bluff" at Natchez to "Brits by the River" at Vidalia, LA. Vidalia is just across the Mississippi River bridge from Natchez. They have a new Riverwalk Park there and we felt it would be a nice setting for the show. The host hotel is the Comfort Suites Riverfront, Vidalia, LA 1-318-336-1655 (Ask for special EMC rate available till Oct 3rd: $80 levy side, $90 river side) There is a very good restaurant (Lorraines) there, too. A block of 40 rooms has been set aside for show attendees. The hotel and accommodations are much nicer than last year and a full course breakfast (not continental) is included in the charge.

The show date is Saturday Oct. 11, 2003, there be lots of folks there Friday night the 10th. Appetizers and a cash bar will be available Friday evening at 7 pm. We are mapping out an unescorted and voluntary cruise around Natchez and Vidalia before the show. Please pass the word to your other club members.

We look forward to seeing you there.
Gene Johnston arboangler@aol.com
Mississippi English Motoring Club http://www.msemc.org
Al Adams 601-825-3635 adam2402@bellsouth.net

CLICK ON BUTTON FOR LINK TO MORE INFO AND REGISTRATION FORM

NOTICE TO MGB OWNERS! Our club is affiliated with NAMGBR, the North American MGB Registry. This affiliation provides our liability insurance for events. BMCNO must maintain 8 registered NAMGBR members in our club to be affiliated. If you own (used to own, or would like to own) an MGB, please join NAGMBR, then tell the newsletter editor, Cathy Greensfelder. (She’s the keeper of the membership list.) NAMGBR dues are $25 and the newsletter MG Driver is worth it. Cathy will have NAMGBR membership applications at the next meeting.

ATTENTION TRIUMPH OWNERS! Our club is a Vintage Triumph Register (VTR) zone. We need 10 VTR members in our club to become an affiliated chapter. There are insurance and other benefits to becoming a chapter. If you own (used to own, or would like to own) any type of Triumph, please join VTR, then tell the newsletter editor, Cathy Greensfelder. (She’s the keeper of the membership list) or Harold O’Reilly, the VTR liaison. Cathy will have VTR membership applications at the next meeting.

Austin Healey Caliper Rebuild Nightmare by Jim Jones

I have had my first experience at rebuilding a set of late Austin Healey disc brake calipers. The actual rebuilding presented no problem to me. The installing of the caliper piston through the dust shields (Moss catalog Ref. 21 inner 2 of the 4 items shown) did.

All of the units that I have worked on before this did not have this type dust shield. Peter Brauen, owner of BMC Restorations, loaned me a tool that he had fabricated for the job. He said that even with the use of his tool it was not an easy job.

I began attempting to rebuild one of the calipers and he was right. It was not going to be an easy task, “tool“ or no. I became very frustrated on my first attempt and gave up for the moment. The next day I forged onward. The “tool” that Peter had given to me proved useless. Perhaps that was because I did not fully understand just how to utilize it properly.

I concluded that a machine could not have been able to do the job. It must have been done with the use of human hands. If that was so, I should certainly be able to do so myself. But, how?

I thought about the problem for a while and came up with a method that worked very well. It would be very easy to demonstrate the procedure. Explaining it with the written word is another matter.

Well, here goes. After all the preparatory work has been done, insert the piston seal (Moss catalog Ref. 21, outer 2 of 4 shown) into the larger lower groove. Next, insert the dust shield into the smaller upper groove. The two grooves must be very clean. The caliper halves have been separated. (I cannot imagine just how anyone could rebuilt calipers without doing so. No matter what the repair manuals say. The rubber seal used at the passage way between the two caliper halves is available from Moss Motors in the TR6 catalog as item #583-820. I do not know why it is not shown in the Healey catalog.) Insure that the dust shield rim is properly inserted into its groove. The shield is slightly smaller than the groove it seats into and will not seat all way in at all points. Do not let this concern you.

Coat the piston seal and dust shield seal working surfaces with a coating of brake fluid for lubricating proposes. Place the new piston on top of the dust shield. Work the center edge of the opening in the dust shield up around the piston. How you accomplish this is up to you. But, I use a small pocketknife and a small piece of wire with a hook formed at its end.

Hold the piston down on the dust shield seal and push the dust shield’s inner opening downward on the piston. Tilt the piston at an angle past the dust shield seal and push the seal into its groove. Repeat this at the 0, 45, 90 & 180 degree points. Let the piston rest on the dust shield’s seal. Tilt the piston such that one edge of its base passes the dust shield seal. Apply downward pressure as you wiggle (Now that’s a technical term!) the piston and if you are lucky, the piston will pass through the seal. Pressing at different points around the top of the piston will get it pass the lower piston seal.

If you are not lucky, do this. Hold pressure against seal where the piston has passed the seal. Now, 180 degrees away from that point pull the dust shield’s inner opening’s edge away from the piston. This action will seat that portion of the seal and you will be able to work the piston pass this point as well.

I hope that this procedure has been understandable to you. §

MGB-V8 Conversion Part 3 by Rick Huber

(Continued from August 2003)
The MG factory put the Rover 3.5 liter engine in the MGB GT, but unfortunately for us, only in the UK market. The engine, as installed with twin SU carburetors, was rated at 137 HP, not terribly powerful, but a significant increase from the MGB engine, which was around 90 HP in those days. From ‘73 through ‘76, 2,591 of these cars were produced. Actually, 7 were built as "pre-production" left hand drive cars to North American specs, and presumably shipped to the US for testing. I won't go into the long story of why British Leyland chose not to sell the V8 MGB GT in America. It wasn't BL's idea anyway. Ken Costello put the first Rover V8 engine in an MGB in ‘70 and he did small-scale production of the conversions. When Ken started getting rave reviews by the automotive press, BL got interested. One critical success factor for the idea was that the aluminum V8 engine actually weighs 40 pounds LESS than the cast iron 4 in the MGB.

The engine was actually originally designed by Buick in the late 50's / early 60's and used in several small Buick / Olds / Pontiac cars in ‘61 to ‘63, like the Buick Special and Skylark, the Olds F-85, Cutlass, and Jetfire, and the Pontiac Tempest. The engine was made in the 215 cu in version and then later a 300 cu in version, approximately 750,000 in total. It's a popular engine to soup up and put into small American cars, so there are a number of people, represented by Dan LaGru, who I mentioned in the last article, that can help with finding a BOP engine and getting it installed in an MGB.

As the story goes, a BL executive was visiting a Mercury Marine workshop in the mid- ‘60's where he noticed one of the aluminum Buick engines. Interested in upgrading the 3-liter engines in BL cars, he was told the GM engine was out of production. Apparently, the anti freeze in those days adversely reacted with the aluminum, causing corrosion and overheating, so GM stopped making the engine in ‘63. British Leyland approached GM for a license, and the rest is history.

Rover installed the V8 engine in the 3500 (P5B), P6B, and SD1 sedans from ‘67 to ‘86, and the Land and Range Rovers and Discovery from ‘71 to today. There are also several uses in non-Rover products like the MGB GT's, the Triumph TR8 in ‘80 and ‘81, the MG RV8 from ‘93 to ‘96, and the Morgan +8 from ‘90 to today. Sizes range from 3.5 to 4.6 liter, with 3.9, 4.0, and 4.6 liter fuel injected versions still in production. With various forms of performance upgrades, horsepower goes all the way up to 320 !! I'm not sure how you'd keep tires on an MG with that much power, but to some people, when it comes to power, like money and a few other things in life, you can never have too much.

One advantage, in my opinion, of a BOP (Buick / Olds / Pontiac) engine is that parts are GM, available, and generally less expensive than Rover engines / parts. Upgrading the engine is popular, so high performance parts are available. The disadvantage for a relative newcomer to this sort of activity (like I was) is that fewer people are doing the MG conversion. Therefore, less documentation and assistance exists for making the BOP engine work in an MGB than the Rover engine. However, neither of these reasons may make a hill of beans difference anyway - the key is finding an engine at a reasonable price, and matching it up to a transmission. The effort required to match the engine to the rest of the drive train also affects the choice. The Rover engine, when it comes with the bell housing and 5 speed transmission makes a pretty simple installation without having to mess with matching up other bell-housings and transmissions. That was for me !! I ran across a Rover engine / transmission close to my house in Baton Rouge, La. so it was a pretty easy choice. I've managed to bolt a few American parts onto my Rover engine without too much trouble, so I believe it’s been a good choice.

I wouldn't say used engines are plentiful around the US, but they are available. I’ve heard / read stories of people finding Rover P5B, P6B, or SD1 sedans in junkyards with engines intact for $500 or less. I stumbled across several in a Houston parts yard a few years ago, and it’s likely that many parts yards with British cars will have one. Glen Towery, who I mentioned in the last issue, is a good source for locating one of these engines and getting it set up to put in an MGB. If you're up for a visit, he's in Cheswold, Delaware, about an hour and a half south of the Philly airport, where you can visit his shop, see, and maybe even drive a V8 MGB or GT. There are also cars and engines for sale in the British V8 Newsletter. An advertisement by Barrie Robinson of RPI Engineering lists rebuilt engines for $1,500. I've read in the V8 newsletter that people have bought new fuel injected Rover 4.6 liter engines for their MGB, so that option is also available.

Those are the two most popular engines used in MGB (and A) conversions, but there are several others. Although I'm not very familiar with them, and their installation in MGs are more rare, the GM 327/350 and Ford 289/302 V8, the GM 231 V6, and the GM and Ford 2.8 liter V6s are all lurking beneath MGB bonnets driving around the country. In addition to less information available to help with the conversion, I believe these engines are all heavier than the 4 banger that you'd take out, and will affect handling to some extent. I believe that was one of the primary drawbacks to the MGC, which had the heavy 3-liter straight 6 engine that upset the delicate balance and nifty handling we MGB aficionados enjoy. §
PART 1
PART 2
PART 4
PART 5

Gathering of the Faithful by Fred Fabre

The English Motoring Club of Mississippi invites you, with your British motor car to a British Car Fun Day at Fred Fabre’s Carriage House Garage, Baton Rouge, on Saturday, September 20, 2003.

A few years ago, Fred and a few more of the “Faithful” thought it would be lots of fun to have a get together with like-minded British car owners / drivers. No entry forms, no disclaimers, no judging, no fees, and no prizes. Actually, being there was the prize. Car stories ruled.

The format has been kinda loose, but fun: breakfast at Frank’s Restaurant, head to the shop about 11:30 or noon, line the cars up in the green side yare and stand around and tell car stories. There are sometimes drinks and snacks, if someone remembers to pick them up. It’s ok to bring some.

We will gather to hear stories from the past from the hardy souls that bought, drove, mechanized, raced and loved these lovable (most of the time) automobiles. Fred has about 20 chairs and they might fill up. It’s okay to bring your own chair or sit on the floor. If you have British bits for sale, bring them and a blanket to put them on. Flea markets are always fun.

Please join Fred, Jason & Ashley, and the English Motoring Club for this “Gathering of the Faithful”. If you ain’t having fun, you don’t have to stay. But we know you’ll stay.

For Sale

78 MGB - runs good, needs interior work. Removable hard top. New, uninstalled vinyl top and windshield included. New Tires, cooling fan, horns, brakes. Asking $1500.00/OBO. Call Laurie or Mike, 504-282-5002 or lalee0523@cox.net (9/03)

61 MGA 1600. Stored in garage, covered for 10 years. In fair shape, very restorable. Asking $3,000 Bryan LaHaye, Opelousas LA,
blahaye@communicom-inc.com (8/03)

74 MGB (chrome bumper) Ground up restoration. New paint, leather interior, wood dash, Mini-lite wheels, stereo, more. 106,000 miles. Asking $8,900. Mike Swiber, Morgan City LA, 985-385-0482 (8/03)

56 MGA. Wire wheels, Red. Engine & mechanicals redone with no miles on them. Frame & body sound. Interior in bad shape. Has been stored awhile. Tim Shrewsbury, Louisville, KY. (757) 623-3635. timshrewsbury@juno.com
7/03)