Six Cylinders Motoring Notes

[beko1987]

Oooh exciting! 

I won't know if I'm going until that morning though tbh

[richardmorris]

22 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

I have had little response to the Festival of the Unexceptional prep day so I am setting it a Saturday 13th July.

It can carry over into Sunday and camping is available.

God, we look like a men’s therapy session.

[richardmorris]

6 hours ago, Mrs6C said:

If it's as hot as today then this will be waiting...

 

Well, we could all sit round and dip our toes in! Having skin akin to a Vampire’s that bursts into flames in sunlight that’s as close as I ever get to bare flesh outdoors.

I’ve put the date in the diary, I was just about to say I’ll stay over and realised that the camping gear is all in the back of the 2cv in my parent’s garage as it wouldn’t fit in the fiat.

[Mrs6C]

4 hours ago, purplebargeken said:

Mrs 6C, do you do a nice sweet still cider?

Still and dry, but happy to stir in some sugar or honey at the point of consumption, if you'd prefer?

[purplebargeken]

As long as it's so cold little icebergs are floating in I really don't mind

[beko1987]

If its cold there won't be many icebergs. Maybe an acorn? 

The kids will have that full of grass in a second! I'll bring my patented grass removal device! (an old bat with a mesh bit, grabs it all a treat!) 

[Slowsilver]

15 hours ago, richardmorris said:

God, we look like a men’s therapy session.

It was a men's therapy session. That's the way we shiters do therapy.

 

[Six-cylinder]

My MGB GT got a run out on this lovely evening to the MG meeting I have always gone to so 100 mile round trip after work.

One small fail the n/s main beam failed on the way home so a job for tomorrow.

[Cavcraft]

On ‎6‎/‎17‎/‎2019 at 10:35 PM, Six-cylinder said:

What a pleasant change I enjoyed a 54 mile drive out this evening going nowhere. Recently where ever I drive I seem to grind along in traffic but this evening even the 03 plate Toyota Yaris Verso managed to cruise at 60 mph in a 60 limit!

There was a purpose, Mrs6C had asked me to get the Daimler Sovereign S1 out of storage so on Friday she could take her friends daughter to her prom. S1 had started to have sticky brakes in storage and yesterday after 6 miles I could smell hot brakes when we stopped for petrol in Tesco. The battery was still flat when I went to restart it so my friend pushed it backwards slightly downhill  away from the pump before we used the jump pack. I felt the brakes free up the moment we went back and it started to roll. Today it was my duty to risk spending 3 hours on the side of the road waiting for the RAC to ensure the brakes had really freed off and it was running fine. 

The result is all is well and the bonus is I had forgotten that when we did some bodywork on S1 we fixed the second fuel tank so I went back to Tesco and put 10 gals in the other tank as well!

 

 

Quite simply, beautiful. Still very probably the best looking car of the era.

[1970mgb]

13 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

My MGB GT got a run out on this lovely evening to the MG meeting I have always gone to so 100 mile round trip after work.

One small fail the n/s main beam failed on the way home so a job for tomorrow.

What a great line-up of MGs.

As much as I love the MGB, you can't beat the lines of the A, and a Magnette is a want list car for me.

[Six-cylinder]

Another great evening of sunshine and cars this time the DS at Turweston airfield.

[SiC]

21 hours ago, Six-cylinder said:

One small fail the n/s main beam failed on the way home so a job for tomorrow.

Mine has decided to stop working on the main beam flasher - despite pushing the stalk away still happily turns on the main beam. 

Not sure if it's your thing, but I've fitted one of those Moss short shifters on mine. Made a massive improvement to the shift quality in my opinion. 

Size comparison:

It fits much more naturally and ergonomically for me:

I'll be bring it to the FoTU (all being well) if you wanted to have a gander at it. Which reminds me, I need to find out where the FoD is!

[AnthonyG]

One of Bucketeer’s books I gave him at SF19 was actually for LightBulbFun - no surprises for guessing which one, I think the title was ‘Lamps and Lighting’ - a big technical tome from the 1970s. 

I think it ended up in the boot of the DS - as BK left early - if it is in Bucks can it be given to LBF if he comes up? 

I will be around for the 20th but unlikely to be for the 13th. 

[Six-cylinder]

4 minutes ago, AnthonyG said:

One of Bucketeer’s books I gave him at SF19 was actually for LightBulbFun - no surprises for guessing which one, I think the title was ‘Lamps and Lighting’ - a big technical tome from the 1970s. 

I think it ended up in the boot of the DS - as BK left early - if it is in Bucks can it be given to LBF if he comes up? 

I will be around for the 20th but unlikely to be for the 13th. 

It is currently sitting on our coffee table making us look like a rounded and educated family not only interested in newts!

I am aware who it is for and at the first opportunity I will hand it over.

[AnthonyG]

Excellent stuff ?

[Six-cylinder]

15 minutes ago, SiC said:

Not sure if it's your thing, but I've fitted one of those Moss short shifters on mine. Made a massive improvement to the shift quality in my opinion. 

It fits much more naturally and ergonomically for me:

I'll be bring it to the FoTU (all being well) if you wanted to have a gander at it. Which reminds me, I need to find out where the FoD is!

I am not sure it is, part of the character of the car is the narrow gate long throw, I think I would miss it.

[LightBulbFun]

6 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

It is currently sitting on our coffee table making us look like a rounded and educated family not only interested in newts!

I am aware who it is for and at the first opportunity I will hand it over.

 

oh goody! I was wondering what became of that

thanks to all who have been shitely it around so far  (and of course to @AnthonyG for giving it to me in the first place ) 

[SiC]

48 minutes ago, Six-cylinder said:

I am not sure it is, part of the character of the car is the narrow gate long throw, I think I would miss it.

I can completely understand that. Especially as the shift feels very different to what it was originally. Almost feels possibly more modern. It's why I didn't cut the original down and weld it shorter, as it allows me to go back. 

However as a driving experience, it feels a lot nicer and if anything I think the shift is easier. So much so, it makes one wonder why the engineers designed it with such a long stick. 

[Six-cylinder]

4 minutes ago, SiC said:

I can completely understand that. Especially as the shift feels very different to what it was originally. Almost feels possibly more modern. It's why I didn't cut the original down and weld it shorter, as it allows me to go back. 

However as a driving experience, it feels a lot nicer and if anything I think the shift is easier. So much so, it makes one wonder why the engineers designed it with such a long stick. 

Strange it is easier, I thought shortening it would make it heavier.

[1970mgb]

I think context is important the MGB shifter. It was advertised as "short throw" when the car was new, and it's not hard to see how-to a buyer in 1962-it was. That was even more true with the 4-synchro box(68), although the 3-sync MGB/MGA box is also not too bad. Cars like the Mogie have a 2ft+ long stick coming up from the floor where you just kind of dig around until you find the gear you want(I'm sure with practice they're easy to find, but the ones I've driven there's seemingly no rhyme or reason to just how you have to move the stick to get to 2nd or whatever, not to mention that you're arm is flailing all over the place to go from 1st to second or 2nd or 3rd or whatever). Most American cars were the same way, or had column shifters that were even more vague and disconnected feeling. Even American trucks up into the 2000s-or at least the ones where you could still get a manual(I'm looking at you, Ranger)-have a shifter throw more reminiscent of a typical 60s car.

Fortunately, 4-synchro shifters are cheap and relatively available. I paid $10 for one and had the machinist at work cut and weld it it ~3" shorter. I lasted a week with it-I'm biased since I learned to drive a manual in the MGB, but both the travel and the "crispness" of the stock shifter just feel right to me. I changed it back. BTW, I'm not alone in my like of the shifter as it is-I've heard many people talk of it(primarily from memory, but still) in good terms, but one comment that stuck out at me was that it "feels like working the bolt on a high quality bolt action rifle." I heard that and thought it was an apt comparison-you still have to move it some, but the feel when it engages is very reassuring.

IMO, many modern cars have too little feel in the shifter. Honda and Toyota boxes(probably the most common manuals in the US...aside possibly from Pony Cars) are notoriously vague. Less resistance in the shifter is good up to a point, but I still like to feel like it's doing something. Probably the best modern box I've driven was in a BMW Z4, and although there was a nice "crispness" when I engaged a gear, there was so little travel and resistance that I've compared it to a video game controller.

This is DEFINITELY an individual preference, though. I can see why someone use to relatively short throw moderns shifters might find the travel on the B too long. Just remember that it can be a lot worse.

As a somewhat unrelated side note, I mentioned that 4-synchro shift levers are easy to find and cheap. A while back, I was talking to someone who was trying to sell me an 18GA engine(3-main) and O/D transmission that had been pulled in good running condition and "preserved" well from an otherwise rotted out low mileage '63 B. It was being offered to me as a drive train for my '58 MGA that's sadly languishing for the time being(I have an 18GA block/crank/rods for it that I need to build-3 main B engines make a really, really nice upgrade to As, especially considering that the 1500 engine that came with mine is in pieces and missing the crank, rods, and big end caps). We were a few hundred dollars apart on price, and I somewhat lost interest too after finding out how much work is involved in fitting even a 3-sync O/D B transmission to an A(with a rear plate and flywheel off an A engine, which I have, a 3 main 1800 bolts onto an MGA transmission without any trouble-fitting an MGB transmission requires basically reconstructing the tunnel and you're on your own for mounts). One of the biggest red flags, though, was in the fact that it was missing the shift lever. On 3-sync boxes, the levers are different between O/D and non-O/D, and neither is interchangeable with a 4-sync. I'd have eventually found one, but likely would have had to part with $200-300 just for the lever. My friend Dick said that he'd have wanted to pay about $700 for the whole package, while the seller wouldn't budge off $1K, and in addition to the lever I'd have wanted to spend a few thousand having the somewhat fragile and cantankerous early O/D gone through. It was a lot of money when, with the big MGA wheels and the extra torque from a built up 1800 engine, I can probably "afford" to swap the 4.30 MGA rear end for a 3.909 MGB one and get in the ballpark of the same final drive ratio as putting an O/D in a stock MGA drivetrain.

[LightBulbFun]

9 hours ago, 1970mgb said:

Cars like the Mogie have a 2ft+ long stick coming up from the floor where you just kind of dig around until you find the gear you want(I'm sure with practice they're easy to find, but the ones I've driven there's seemingly no rhyme or reason to just how you have to move the stick to get to 2nd or whatever, not to mention that you're arm is flailing all over the place to go from 1st to second or 2nd or 3rd or whatever)

[RayMK]

2 hours ago, LightBulbFun said:

............Gear Stick........

That made me laugh a lot.

[Six-cylinder]

New day new treat, today's outing was in the MX5 topless on a beautiful summers evening to Kineton Classic car gathering.

[mrbenn]

May be a touch too far for a day trip, but I wonder if I might make the FOD 2019.

PM on the way re the location....

[Bucketeer]

Whilst you were la-di-da-ing it up with your classic car crew, I was in the FoD doing some proper mechanicing.

The hesitations under throttle on your new field bike have been getting more frequent and pronounced so I had a furtle about underneath and discovered some pretty dodgy wiring.

In the absence of a soldering iron, solder, anywhere to plug one in, and pretty much anything else useful I stripped back the wire ends with nail clippers, attached/connected them more securely, and then applied a big dollop of black tape.

I then fired it up and gave it a whole tin of beans across the paddock to see if it was cured. The grin on my face and the stain on the seat showed that I had indeed done a fix. It properly shifts now.

[SiC]

Do I need to bring a pair of crimpers and spade terminals with me?!

[beko1987]

5 minutes ago, SiC said:

Do I need to bring a pair of crimpers and spade terminals with me?!

Yes! Yes you do

[Bucketeer]

Thanks but there are plenty of tools and whatnot. Unfortunately none of them were in the same place as me.

[1970mgb]

3 hours ago, Bucketeer said:

Whilst you were la-di-da-ing it up with your classic car crew, I was in the FoD doing some proper mechanicing.

The hesitations under throttle on your new field bike have been getting more frequent and pronounced so I had a furtle about underneath and discovered some pretty dodgy wiring.

In the absence of a soldering iron, solder, anywhere to plug one in, and pretty much anything else useful I stripped back the wire ends with nail clippers, attached/connected them more securely, and then applied a big dollop of black tape.

I then fired it up and gave it a whole tin of beans across the paddock to see if it was cured. The grin on my face and the stain on the seat showed that I had indeed done a fix. It properly shifts now.

That's a wiring job fitting a BL product

In all seriousness, a good friend who has opened his house and garage up for me for things like engine pulls(he has a 68 GT and 77 Roadster, and when mine is parked there his neighbors joke about them multiplying) is an engineer but in a prior life was an airplane mechanic. At one time, I was a "solder if at all possible" person, but he's convinced me of the value of a good crimp done with a proper crimping tool. After investing in a tool that got his endorsement, I now crimp almost everything. The fact that I don't need power(my garage doesn't have it) helps swap me.

With that said, I also have a little Hakko iron that runs on AA batteries. It's not the best in the world, and struggles with soldering larger diameter wires(when I changed my alternator, I tried using it on 10 AWG with no success) but works fine with smaller wires.

[Six-cylinder]

8 hours ago, Bucketeer said:

Whilst you were la-di-da-ing it up with your classic car crew, I was in the FoD doing some proper mechanicing.

 

You have set the expectation high now. I am out at another car show this evening, what about the Peugeot 50cc!