Too bad it is not an English manufacturer, you can put the smoke back in. We people with English cars fully understand how to cope with the situation.
Lucas, Prince of Darkness. (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-laughing.gif)
Greg Elmassian said:
Too bad it is not an English manufacturer, you can put the smoke back in. We people with English cars fully understand how to cope with the situation.
ROFL, that’s good! 
It’s almost not funny if you own an English car, those of us in that group have ALL endured the pain at one time or another.
It’s an ongoing joke, and Steve completed it, the Prince of Darkness is because that’s what happens to your lights, usually in a rain storm along with your wipers and the fuel pump that sounds like a ticking timebomb.
58 MGA.
I grew up around British automobiles.
One rather arrogant fellow, that no one liked, that I knew in the Navy had one. He was the kind of guy that knew everything about everything. He said it wasn’t running, he couldn’t get it started. I offered to take a look. I asked him to try to start the motor. It turned over fine, but the ticking was absent. I took my time getting to the right rear wheel, inspecting things under the bonnet.
When I finally crawled under the right rear fender to inspect the fuel pump, I discovered that the hot wire to the pump had come undone. I crawled out from under, and told him that it was terminal, and that he should think about parting it out, to try to get some money from it.
I let him stew for a few days, then asked if he had a buyer, yet. As expected, he didn’t.
I told him that I enjoyed working on these cars, but that it would take a lot of money to get it running. I offered to buy it, as a project, if the price was right.
After money changed hands, and the title was in my hands, I reconnected the fuel pump, started the motor, and drove away.
I still have it. It’s not reliable transportation. It’s another hobby.
I owned a Morris mini minor as my first car.
Only the English would put the distributor and spark plugs facing the grill with the East/West engine configuration. Especially bad when I lived in the tropics and was subject to monsoon rains.
Not only the mini but the Morris 1100 and the Austin 1800 had the same design, solution was to drive around with a plastic bag wired over the distributor and heaps of water resistant spray (WD-40) on the plugs.
My father was a motor mechanic and the language he used when working on English cars is not fit for repeating on a forum of this nature.
One of my colleagues when I worked for the Navy had a Jaguar, of wich he was very proud…I only saw it on the road once…behind a tow truck!
I came to the conclusion after several years ownership of an MGB that the British just like to tinker with mechanical things. Just about everything on the car could be taken apart to be repaired. Wipers quit one time, assumed I would need a new motor until I noticed it was disassemble able. Took it apart and found one of the brush holder had gotten rusty. Cleaned it up and put back together it worked fine. Had a loose connection on my fuel pump once, quit on the road. When I got out of the car to check and closed the door the ticking started again. Even the shocks could be rebuild, good thing too as new one were a bit pricey. All that said it was the most fun driving car I have ever owned and wish that I still had it.
The UK “Marina” came with a squarish steering wheel. Everyone laughed…A 2018 car new on the market ( NOT British) now comes with one…not heard any laughs or comments tho!(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
Eric Schade said:
One of my colleagues when I worked for the Navy had a Jaguar, of wich he was very proud…I only saw it on the road once…behind a tow truck!
…and people are paying barrowloads of money for rust bucket Jags AND other older bags of nails…these days…
(Its an investment dear)!!
Ross Mansell said:
The UK “Marina” came with a squarish steering wheel. Everyone laughed…A 2018 car new on the market ( NOT British) now comes with one…not heard any laughs or comments tho!(http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-tongue-out.gif)
That’s interesting. I don’t have enough interest in cars to keep track of such things and know of them.
So how long till one gets a butterfly shaped wheel like some airplanes used to have? (and still might have) And then it is discovered that while square-ish is practical that shape is not?
Very common in dragsters for years…
My MGA doesn’t have shock absorbers. It has “side dampers.” It’s the oddest thing I’ve ever seen. It’s basically a hydraulicly dampened swing arm. Bleeding edge 1950s tech.
It’s still hydraulically dampened I believe, the generations before the arm worked some movable disks that rotated against fixed disks, i.e. “friction damping”…
The first british car I owned was a Morris Mini Minor in the 998 Cooper version.
Yes, with the distributor in front right behind the grill (radiator is connected to the left inner fender well), rain = no spark…
But there was a metal shield that usually came with them that was supposed to block direct streams of water.
That was fun. Also the tool kit with a wrench for the starter motor so when the thing jammed, the end of the starter motor shaft protruded from the housing and was squared off, and you could use the wrench to basically disengage the starter gear from it’s death embrace of the flywheel.
And life was not complete without trying to sync and adjust the SU carburetors, which must have been designed by Price Lucas’ wicked half brother:
Greg
Im still thinking about replacing my SUs weth a Weber. Balancing those buggers is a Weekly 1.
One of the best designs out of the BL stable was the Bug Eye Sprite/MG Midget. The whole of the front body would rotate on a pivot near the front bumper, allowing easy access to the motor. A friend had one, and could sit comfortably on the front tyre to set the valves, timing, and carburetors.
Greg Elmassian said:
Yes, with the distributor in front right behind the grill (radiator is connected to the left inner fender well), rain = no spark…
But there was a metal shield that usually came with them that was supposed to block direct streams of water.
In rainy England? That’s just plain insane.
Memories…I had a '64 Austin Healy Sprite (not the Bugeye, looked like the MG Midget with a different grill), shifter on the dash, or so close to the dash it looked like it was part of it. Bought it from a friend that was rotating out of Hawaii for $100. Loved that car, it was like driving a street legal go kart. Only thing I didn’t like about it, was the Positive+ ground, fortunately, never needed a jump.
When I was a young man in the NAVY and single, I had a 1959 Riley 1.5 . I had all the typical British car problems. I bought an airflow meter and learned to sync the two SU carbs weekly! The wood dash and leather interior was nice, but the non-synchronized tranny needed to be double clutched. It looked like this one. Mine was black. Left hand drive.
You mean non synchro tranny, right? My Mini Coopers all had non-synchro 1st gear. It was nasty getting back into first while you were rolling… gives the term “crashbox” meaning…
Greg
