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  • June 10, 2020 1:00 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Dear Houston MG Car Club,

    My name is Lori Seto; I am Russ Seto's oldest daughter. I wanted to share this announcement (below) and thank you all very much from the Seto family for being one of the initial contributors to help fund this scholarship in my dad's memory. The first recipient, Cristobal Aguilar - a self-described "devoted automotive enthusiast" - received his award this past winter and just graduated. In his three-page thank you letter, he wrote: 

    "It is people like yourself that make the world a better place by contributing to the education of students in need such as myself. My future plans are to finish my Lone Star program, get promoted at my current job from a quick service technician to an all-system technician, and work at a better dealership or even open my very own shop, a dream I've had all of my life."

    I think that my dad and Cristobal would have had a lot to talk about!

    Thank you for helping future Russ Seto's hone their skills and earn a living from their love of cars. My dad's spirit and generosity lives on through this scholarship, thanks to the contributions of his many friends. Thank you!

    Sincerely,

    Lori Seto


  • June 07, 2020 3:28 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Dear Members and Friends,

    Click on the link below to watch a recording of our June 6 meeting.

    Safety fast!

    Mike.

    https://us02web.zoom.us/rec/share/4c9oDYv69E5LT4nWznvPHbZ7FIrVT6a82iJN_fsJxUp0PFpfWNmdQogB-a7csL-h

  • June 06, 2020 10:31 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    by David Terry

    The Problem

    Driving my MGB at night using either the auxiliary lights, overdrive, or fan would cause the ignition light to glow, indicating that the battery was augmenting the alternator to power these items. Resolving this issue would require an alternator that generated sufficient power in excess of what the original Lucas 18ACR could provide.

    The Remedy

    First, I needed to charge the battery. Since the previous owner (PO) had reworked much of the engine bay with nonstandard wiring colors, I had to trace the wiring against a wiring diagram.

    I ordered a CS 130 alternator from 123ignitionusa.com and removed the Lucas alternator. On installation, I cut the plug off of the existing alternator (I cut it about two inches below the plug), then connected the brown and yellow wire from the loom to the brown wire on the new alternator plug. The next steps were:

    ·       connect the medium brown wire from loom to battery post on alternator

    ·       connect the red wire from new plug to battery post on alternator

    ·       connect thin brown wire from loom to battery post on alternator.

    Finally, I installed the fan belt and tensioned it appropriately and started the car. The PO had connected the wires from the ignition relay to the Lucas alternator rather than the battery post on the starter. Once I was able to address this anomaly, connecting the wiring was easy. The new alternator now generates sufficient electricity to power the headlights, overdrive, wipers, and aux lights at night without causing the ignition light to glow. My headlights have never been brighter.

    Conclusion

    Upgrading from the Lucas alternator to the CS 130 was an easy project that took about thirty minutes to complete but resolved the power issues I was experiencing. If you are interested, order from Ed Madak at 123ignitionusa, LLC. The unit comes complete with pulley and ready to install. You may have to adjust the spacer provided to align the belts but, again, this is straightforward and easy to accomplish.

    A big THANK YOU to David Terry for submitting this article. It will be a benefit to many of our members and followers.  If you would like to submit an article to the ROARS, either technical or social, please do, we are always looking for content.  Don't worry about your writing capabilities our editors, Dave and Linda Renner, will work with you to make it stellar.  You can submit articles by sending them to HoustonMGCarClub@gmail.com

  • May 29, 2020 11:36 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    This week’s winner is….

                                          Scott Hardy!

    LBC 1: Car Capers in Cleveland

    Corona Competition entry, week 10

    By Scott Hardy

    My wife Trish and I are the current car(e)takers of a 1972 MGB that I christened Leicester B. Carlysle III (LBC III for short). Leicester shows every sign of being a stalwart, even reasonably reliable, little British car (notwithstanding the rather unfortunate incident involving gasoline spouting from a disappeared carburetor screw onto a hot exhaust manifold; having survived that, he now travels with a fire extinguisher onboard wherever we travel.) This story, however, concerns the first of Leicester’s predecessors, the little British cars that preceded LBC III in my life. In the interest of technical accuracy, I will mention that even though the body of my late, lamented Volvo 1800S was stamped in England by Pressed Steel (who also did the MGB), by 1966 final assembly had moved from Staffordshire back to Sweden.

    LBC 1 came into my life in 1970 when I was a car crazed high school sophomore in Berea, Ohio. My mother drove a 1965 Rambler American 660, with two-tone aqua paint, automatic transmission, and vacuum wipers. It was the prototypical box on wheels, and she hated it. My mother was a stylish, progressive woman, and the Rambler just was not her cup of tea. I was also embarrassed to be driving it, on those too-rare occasions when I could finagle the keys to the car. Sensing an opportunity, I searched through the Plain Dealer classifieds, and finally found something that caught her interest – a 1967 MGB GT. It was owned by an ex-GI who had returned from Germany with it, and it was a tidy little motor: BRG with wire wheels and an Italian Stebro exhaust. My mother loved it, and so did I – figuring that I might finally be noticed by the girls in my school. But like many youthful loves, there was both joy and anguish in our relationship.

    While the MG was not technically “mine,” I did inherit the not-inconsiderable job of keeping it on the road. So I bought my first workshop manual, went to Sears for some Craftsman wrenches, and got to work. I quickly learned intimate secrets about SU carbs, so I sprang for a Uni-Syn. So equipped, and with occasional help from MG Motors in Lakewood and a sympathetic independent mechanic, I kept it on the road. But I could not solve the starting problem. Like other MGs, ours had come standard with two six volt batteries. Unlike other MGs, ours was never converted to one 12 volt, and the dual batteries kept dying with alarming regularity. My mother was less than amused at the car consistently failing to get her home from the office; I was not thrilled at having to go with my father and tow the car home (via a dangerously short cable); and my father was generally pissed at having to replace all these 6 volt batteries, each which cost twice as much as a 12 volt would have.

    I resolved to solve the problem, so I found myself in familiar territory under the aluminum hood. Anticipating this moment, Lucas engineers had helpfully installed a switch on the starter solenoid, so I could start the car from the engine bay. Over time, I really appreciated their foresight. On this occasion, I held down the button and the engine reluctantly – very reluctantly – turned over. Slowly. And even slower. As I watched, the engine ground to a halt, while the throttle cable went up in smoke!

    Convinced that Demons sent by the Prince of Darkness were occupying my Mom’s car, I gave up and went to call the mechanic. His telephone diagnosis proved to be correct. The car was being grounded primarily through the throttle cable, and a simple grounding strap proved to be the cure. And the batteries started lasting longer than the Dunlop tires, which were generally good for a maximum of 10,000 miles. More often 5,000 miles.

    My mechanical skill set expanded the longer we had the car, culminating in pulling the engine and transmission not one, not twice, but thrice when replacing the transmission. The MGB GT taught me how to rent tools, browse auto shops, and prowl through junk yards. I do miss the last of those skills. It was such a sense of expedition and discovery to prowl though a weed-choked and mud-soaked salvage yard in search of foreign automotive gold in the form of half crashed, rust ravaged carcasses.

    I would like to say that LBC 1 is these days in the hands of a grateful collector, but I’m afraid that would be a lie. After I went off to college, my mother eventually had the local vocational school replace the steel front fenders with fiberglass, hoping that would keep the rust demons at bay. The fender and paint job she received were written up in a nice story she did for the local paper, and the car looked great for a couple of months. However, the fender rust was only one symptom of a far greater cancer, and when the floor mats eventually provided more structural support than the floorboards, she sold the car. I’m sure it went off to one of those salvage yards within a year or two.

    The good news is that her replacement for the MG was a new model, the first-generation Honda Accord that came out in 1976. That was a landmark car, marking the first movement of Honda into mainstream automobiles. I really enjoyed driving it – but it taught me absolutely nothing about automobile mechanics!

    To read part 2 of this story, Click Here.


  • May 22, 2020 2:40 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    This week’s winner is….

    Greg Ulrich!

    This ‘n’ that…

    Corona Competition entry week 9

    by Greg Ulrich

    SU Carburettors

    Did you ever wonder where the name “SU” comes from in the SU Carburettors that are fitted to most MGs? Two brothers named Skinner invented the carburettors in the early 1920s. Their family was in the shoe manufacturing business and the brothers named their carburettor business “SU” for Skinner’s Union. William Morris (the Morris of Morris Garages) was so impressed with the carburettors that in 1927 he bought the company and, with Carl Skinner still in charge, built a highly successful business. From the time of the takeover in 1927, all Morris cars were fitted with SU Carburettors.

    (From the book, LORD NUFFIELD, by Peter Hull)

                                                                                              

    Rally Tip from the Past

    Everyone knows what a terrific job Wayne Moore has done in educating THE ROARS newsletter readers over the years about the proper way to conduct an MG rally. I recently came across the very first rally tip from our own Dean Kring, Houston MG Car Club Member #2, in the very first ROARS newsletter, dated June 1971. And I quote:

    If you have a temper but want to win, don’t have your spouse as your navigator. Good navigators are easier to come by than good spouses….maybe.          

    Seems like good advice in 1971 and it still is today!

    SAFETY Fast!

    Did you ever wonder where the MG slogan “SAFETY Fast!” came from? According to an article by Norman Ewing in the December 1978 MG Car Club’s magazine, Safety Fast, the slogan originated in November 1929. Ted Colegrove, the MG publicity manager at Abingdon, was driving through Oxford one day and came up behind a bus. On the back of the bus was a large triangle with the words “Safety Fast!” to indicate that the bus had brakes all around— a new innovation in 1929. Mr. Colegrove altered the slogan to read “SAFETY Fast!” and eventually sold the idea to Cecil Kimber. By the way, to be proper, the slogan should always be shown with an exclamation point.


  • May 20, 2020 5:09 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    The Unfinished Road Test

    Corona Competitionentry, week 9

    by Ray Holtzapple

    It all started out while surfing eBay for MGC parts in June 2016. I had recently made my first venture into the world of MGCs when I purchased a complete left hand drive MGCGT from a fellow in West Texas and I was starting to make plans for its restoration. To my delight and dismay, however, that plan was about to change as I saw a 1969 MGCGT listed in Atlanta, Georgia that was right hand drive. Many of you know that I am deeply smitten by the RHD fever. My stable of MGs includes a 1974 factory BGT V8, a ‘64 MGB, ‘75 BGT Jubilee and a ‘36 MGPB former Lancashire police car, all of which are RHD.

    Looking at the pictures on eBay, this car checked all the right boxes: first, it was RHD; second, it had a Britax sunroof like my V8; and third, it was here in the States. After my challenge of shipping a 1975 Jubilee edition MGBGT from England, this looked like it would be a cake walk. I followed the car auction for six days and corresponded with the dealer about the CGT. Satisfied with what I heard, I placed a bid, won the auction and arranged for shipping. The adventure began.

    On its arrival, I found the car was lacking brakes and a clutch. No problem for an enthusiast like me, right? I got to work sourcing parts and said to myself, “Let’s just tidy up this wonderful engine compartment.” That concept had never worked for me before and, being true to the faith of a purist, it did not work this time.

    Before I knew it, the car was in many pieces, no two together. The engine was tired and the crank thrust washer was gone, causing metal-to-metal contact. Luckily, the crankshaft could be saved and I had it welded at a very reasonable cost. As I read about rebuilding the MGC engine, I found that common wisdom said to lighten the flywheel by 25%. That is a lot, but just picking up the hefty flywheel made it obvious it was the right thing to do. The machine shop undertook the necessary machine work; a road test would prove the benefits. Hence, the plan for a road test is the subject of this article.

    During the introductory road test of MGCs back in 1967, the press was not very kind to the performance and handling of the subject cars. The 1969 MGCGT I purchased is the first and only CGT to be road tested by a magazine after the original poor reviews. When Road Test 334 was published in Autocar magazine, ("Used Car Test: 1969 MGC" Vol. 135, nbr 3940, 30 September 1971, pp. 18-19), the car performed very well when compared to the earlier factory tests. It was this road test history that drew me to the car. Along with subsequent references to that road test in two other publications, a picture of it appears in the book The Mighty MGs. What a neat history to preserve!!

    This brings me back to my multiple buckets of bolts, miscellaneous parts and the daunting restoration project facing me. Before his relocation to the Atlanta area, the previous owner, William Williams, had worked on the car in the UK. New rear wings were installed—but not exactly right, as the right hand door had more than a ½-inch gap at the back edge. New front wings were installed, too—but by now they were gone at the bottoms—and the right headlight bucket was rusted through. The English weather has never been kind to anything steel or aluminum, so it was no real surprise that I also found major rust in the frame rails, front floor boards, right hand rear area of the inner fenders and the boot floor. The internet proved to be a wonderful place to find new bits, and a very good West Texas rust-free MGBGT provided donor parts.

    When all of the rusted areas were replaced or repaired, the process of going back together began.

    The impressive, big six cylinder engine was great fun to assemble. As always, I started by painting the inside of the block as was done to the original castings. I have learned that is a great way to keep the inside from carboning up over the years. One part after another went on until the beast was complete.

    With the refurbished engine, transmission and running gear in place, the CGT was approaching completion and seemed nearly ready for a road test. Sadly, the clutch decided to become problematic and that has taken time to sort out.

    On examination, I discovered that the clutch master cylinder push rod was too short, a manufacturing flaw. Once I was able to overcome this, I conducted my own quick test up the street.

    It was time to close my longtime shop and move everything to my new home workshop.  As is so often the case, other projects have made their way to the front of the queue, so the CGT will have to wait its turn to get on the road. To complete the real road test and compare it to the Autocar test, I will have to get it off the lift in the next couple of months.  Stay tuned.


  • May 15, 2020 9:54 AM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    This week’s winner is….

                                          Bob Chalker!

    The Unplanned Adoption of Tiffany

    Corona Competitionentry, week 8

    by Bob Chalker (with incredible patience from Kim Chalker)

    In 2014 we became the unplanned owners of Tiffany, an Aqua 1972 MGB, our first MG, actually our first classic car of any type. Our love affair started when I spotted an article titled, “Five Classic Cars You Can Buy for Under $5000.”  Well, as a car guy, I couldn’t resist reading the article. You see, I spent 23 years of my career working in the auto industry. Now, I have to admit it had been a long time since I considered buying a classic car and I had sort of lost track of pricing… but under $5000, how could I not take a peek? To my surprise, on the list was the MGB. I found it hard to believe and was intrigued enough to go to eBay and check out the claim.

    Sure enough, I found several rubber bumper MGBs listed for under $5000. They were of all colors– yellow, red and white. The red one looked nice and I knew my wife, Kim, always liked red sports cars. So I hauled my iPad over to where she was sitting and showed her the car. She looked up and said, “Well, that’s nice, but I really like that one,” pointing to the car that eventually would become our beloved Tiffany. That led to my second surprise of the morning; when I suggested putting in a bid, she didn’t say no. So being someone who doesn’t miss an opportunity, I did some quick research to get an idea of what a reasonable price might be. This is where I learned my first lesson of MGB ownership. Those chrome bumpers are worth about $7000. Once I made up my mind on what I wanted to pay, I set my max bid and watched the auction over the next couple of days. To my surprise I was the high bidder but, to my disappointment, I was not above the auction reserve price. I thought the deal was done, as I was not going higher.

    Then a day or so later, I received an email through eBay, asking if I was still interested in the car. Well, of course I was, so I replied. The seller and I exchanged a few emails about the vehicle through which I asked him all kinds of questions about its condition, drivability, history, etc. We also came to agreement on a price with the caveat that the car must be in the condition he described. Now came the next challenge; the vehicle was in Colorado and we were here in Houston. I decided it would be a good idea to let Kim know that we may have just bought a car and that she might be flying to Denver with me to pick it up.

    We arrived in Denver on a very, very early flight, rented a car, and headed out to the home of the seller, approximately an hour up the road. When we saw the car, it was love at first sight. We checked her out all over, using my kitchen magnet to search out rust. We then headed out on a test drive. Boy, did she run great. The engine purred (well, actually rumbled as she needed a new muffler) and the transmission shifted like butter. The car was as good as the owner had described.

    We loaded her up with our luggage, which wasn’t much, and headed south for our 1000 mile trip back home. Now at this point all of you experienced MG owners are saying, “Are you crazy, you drove a 40 year old MG that you know nothing about, 1000 miles across open country?” “What do you mean you didn’t have a mechanic check it out first?” “Why didn’t you rent a truck or trailer to bring it home?” “You could have shipped it?” Did I mention that I really knew nothing about MGs or classic cars? If I knew then what I know now, I would have done one of those things, but I didn’t. I was blessedly Naive.

    We made the trip, taking back roads the whole way, and Tiffany ran flawlessly. We stopped at a hotel for the night and I have to admit I was up every hour or two looking out the window to see if she was still there. It also got a bit hot driving across central Texas on a late spring afternoon. On this trip I learned my next lesson of MG ownership. Everywhere you stop, people want to talk to you about the car. If you are pumping gas or eating at a restaurant, plan on it taking much longer than it should as you will be the most popular person in the parking lot.


    Kim and I are not necessarily the adventurous types, but this trip—going from not even thinking about owning a MG to being the happy owners of Tiffany in less than six days—has put us on an adventurous road filled with great cars, good friends, fun road trips and a tremendous amount of learning about cars.



  • May 12, 2020 6:05 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    First Zoom Pub Quiz held

    Saturday, May 9, 2020

    During the Saturday morning Zoom session, a dozen or so members gathered on our screens and two teams sought their best collective answers in their virtual break-out rooms. Twenty MG-related questions, some with 2 or 3 responses required, were to be answered, such as: 

    Q: What was the old speckled hen?  

    A: 1) the factory parts car that spent too much time near the paint booth; 2) a premium bitter beer first brewed in 1979 in Abingdon to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the MG car factory

    Q: Which brewery produced this beer?

    A: Morlands 

    The competition was close but the winning team claimed 22 points out of a possible 33 correct answers. With a little more time, both teams would have done much better.  

    The winning team included:  Marius Chanson, Jim Chase, Jim Early and Dwight Dawson.  


  • May 07, 2020 6:31 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    This week’s winner is….

                                          Vernon Jones!

    Spring Break 1975

    Corona Competitionentry, week 7

    by Vernon Jones

    I first made the decision to attend college out of state at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The Arkansas back roads were great fun to drive in my 1957 MGA, but you just couldn’t buy a beer in that town as a freshman. And I had my first real girlfriend at home. So, having my priorities as I did at that time in my life, I made the move back in-state to the University of Oklahoma after my freshman year. By March it was appearing that my third major was actually going to work out (mechanical engineering, a vocation in no small part dictated by my first MG— but that’s another story). I maneuvered my brother out of his 1966 MGB after he dropped out of college, convincing Dad that I needed the “newer” car.

    Spring Break was here! A group trip was planned for about a dozen of us to caravan to Texas’ South Padre Island and stay in a motel right on the beach. The caravan shaped up with my white with red upholstery/wire wheeled/wood plank mounted 8 track player-equipped MGB; a ’66 VW with interior air flow enhanced by a rotted out bonnet seal; a robin’s egg blue Plymouth Duster that was the only new car in the pack; and others I can’t remember, but all well-used and all unlikely to make the 1,500+ mile round trip without mechanical difficulties.

    My car, as the only convertible, was clearly the most desirable way to make this trip. I had no shortage of offers from others to drive it, and I coolly agreed as a means to build favors that might come in handy during the coming week.

    Sadly, by San Antonio I had run out of drivers and even my girlfriend refused to ride with me. It seems the ride was just too harsh. How could this be? Just the month before, I had “rebuilt” the seat suspensions because the spring mounted rubber diaphragms underlying the upholstered padded seat bottoms had rotted to collapse. My solution seemed so elegant and expeditious! I simply crisscrossed the bottom seat frame with a weave of nylon straps that were pop-riveted into position. The whole fix had taken less than an hour. Unfortunately, the 1-¾ hour drive from home in Tulsa back to school in Norman had not been quite long enough to reveal the shortcomings of my solution.

    The seven hours after San Antonio were brutal, even with the cast iron ass I possessed at the time. My inebriations over the course of Spring Break week were largely an effort to forget about the upcoming drive back to Norman. In the course of the beach partying I also got the worst sunburn of my life, adding yet more misery to the trip back.

    I required many, many stops on the way home. I had no trade offer valuable enough to entice alternate drivers. By San Antonio my friends (and girlfriend!) could no longer take my whining and solicitations at the too-frequent stops. I never saw them on the rest of the road north or until school restarted the next week. 

    I still have that 1966 MGB. To this day I sometimes run across a little collection of sand in the trunk, a corner of the floor pan, or a crevice in the engine compartment, and think back to that hard party trip. If only I could remember all the fun they told me I had that week!


  • May 04, 2020 7:40 PM | Anonymous member (Administrator)

    Rain drops keep falling…

    Corona Competition entry, week 7

    by Dave Renner

    Back in the early 1990s, I had the once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to work with my MG Car Club friend and cinematographer Gary Watson on creating a documentary film about the history of the MG Car Company, known as Inside the Octagon. I played several roles during that experience, but none more memorable than the time I drove with Linda in our 1974 MGB while Gary filmed us on our way into downtown Houston on I-45 from Houston Avenue to Pierce Street.

    Gary intended this segment to describe the ongoing roadworthiness of the MGB in contemporary traffic of the time. While the oldest MGB was most of 30 years old by then, the final version was less than 15 years old. Our MGB was still a barely well broken in used car to us. Gary’s approach involved filming our car from multiple vantage points, which would be edited together to show a carefree drive into the city.

    The plan was for Shot One to be created using a camera secured on our boot rack so he could film over our shoulders as we happily cruised down the freeway. Shot Two would be filmed driving the same stretch of road with Gary shooting beside us from the open door of a van. Shot Three would retrace the route one more time, with Gary shooting from an overpass looking down as we drove under. Melded together, the three views would portray a happy couple enjoying a delightful afternoon of open top motoring. We imagined shades of Cary Grant and Marilyn Monroe, cheerily driving an MGTD in the movie Monkey Business. What could possibly go wrong?

    Linda and I met Gary and his wife Roz one overcast Saturday morning at the McDonald’s restaurant on Houston Ave, ready to make our movie debuts. He securely lashed his precious and valuable 16mm camera to the rack and explained that he would start the camera just before we left the parking lot; he would then follow us to another lot just off the exit ramp on Pierce St, where he would hop out of his car and turn off the camera. He did not have the luxury of a remote control for the camera— tight budget, you know.

    On cue, Gary turned on the camera and we accelerated smoothly toward the entrance ramp for I-45. As we pulled into traffic on the highway, a fine mist began to fall. In the spirit of the scene, Linda and I chatted to each other as if we didn’t have a care in the world. As we drove along, however, the mist became a sprinkle, and the sprinkle a drizzle. Did I mention that there was no exit ramp until we got to the Pierce exit? No way out. We were committed.

    We did our best to pretend to be having a wonderful time as the drizzle turned into a steady downpour. Caught on film was the rain running steadily down our noses and our hair becoming elegantly plastered to our heads. I finally gave up and turned on the windshield wipers when I could no longer see the road. All pretense was abandoned. By the time we got off of I-45 there was not a bit of film that could be used. When we came to a halt, Gary rushed up to turn off the camera and cover it from the rain. Linda and I leaped out of the MG, put the top up and stood dripping in the parking lot, too late to worry about being wet.

    Not much was said as we parted company after the camera was removed from the car. We agreed that a reshoot was no doubt in order, once a weekend with a better forecast should arrive. That did happen and the shoot went without incident, but the best shots never made it into Inside the Octagon. Too bad really.

    Getting ready for a dry run


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Houston, TX  77088


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