Steve Lyle's Journal

This was the 18th annual show put on by the Greater Ozark British Motor Club. They're in SW Missouri, lots of members live in Springfield, but they put the show on in Carthage. Carthage is a small town, very pretty, and the show is held on the town square.

This was our third time at this show in the last 4 years - we missed last year due to a family obligation. The club does a great job of hosting - a parking lot party on Friday night, a well run show, a driving event, a very nice awards banquet, and a Sunday morning breakfast at a members restored Victorian home. And they make it a point to serve you the meals at the dinner and breakfast - they are simply great hosts.

The show was moved from July to June this year, and they really got great weather. Our drive up was in the 80's, with low humidity. Saturday weather was great, too. Same Sunday - a little warmer, but nothing like the heat they've generally gotten in July.

As usual, the chrome bumper B class was the largest in the show - 12 VERY nice cars. Somehow our car won first place - probably due to all the shining and bug removal Pam did once we got there. Anyway, it was quite an honor.

If you haven't been to this show, you ought to give it a try. Great people, very nice cars, nice setting. Very nice experience.

If it's early September, then it's time for the Brits in the Ozarks car show in Fayetteville, AR.

The show is put on by the British Iron Touring Club of Northwest Arkansas. They've been at this for 15 years, and they put on a great show. The proceeds go for tech scholarships, and to benefit the ALS Association of Northwest Arkansas, an excellent cause.

This was our third trip to the show, and we had our usual great time. Lots of Tulsa folks make this trip, it's by far the most popular show for our local MG club.

Marques included were the usual suspects: MG, Triumph, Austin Healey, Jaguar, Aston Martin, Morgan, even Land Rover, Bentley and Rolls Royce. Something for everyone.

I went around and took some pics of the cars that caught my eye - you can see them here at https://1drv.ms/f/s!AsQ7-WjsT0UsjneZzDlKESNZOck9 .

Guest speaker at the dinner was Mike Dale, CBE. Mike was an executive with BMC, Jaguar, and Ford - and told tales of Austin Healeys, MGs, Jaguars. Great speaker. And he and his wife paid for their own travel, and donated their fee to the show's charity - ALS. Wonderful people.

His best line - "I saw a lot of beautiful Austin Healeys on the show field. Much better cars than we ever produced at the factory".

As I mentioned in the MG2016 entry, the car ran great for the 1400+ mile trip. Except....

I pulled into the hotel we were staying in on the first night of the "to" trip, shut the engine off, went in, registered, came back out, hopped in, turned the key, and got a "click". That's it. No cranking. Tried the key several more times, same deal. Let it sit for a few minutes, tried it again, and it started.

This is a practically new starter - last October, before our Arkansas trip, the car wouldn't start - same symptom, but wasn't intermittent. I threw in a new starter, taking advantage of the O'Reilly's lifetime guarantee, and the problem went away.

Did this new starter die after only 8 months or so, most of it spent hibernating?

Next day - no problems. Day after, got the same problem. From there it was sometimes ok, sometimes problematic. Didn't seem to matter if the car was hot, or cold, or anything. Just sometimes it wouldn't crank. But eventually it always did.

Once back home, I took the approach that the simplest thing to go after first was the starter relay. Yeah, it could have been the starter solenoid, but: 1) the starter/solenoid were only 8 months old; and 2) you can take the relay off the car without jacking the front end, crawling under the car, or getting dirty. So let's start with the relay.

I took the relay off, opened it up by bending back the cover crimps with needle nose pliers, and observed that there seemed to be some roughness on the switch contacts. So I ran some 220 grit wet/dry paper over them, and shined them back up. Put the cover back on, and reinstalled the relay. I pulled the hi-tension lead out of the distributor, and cranked the car maybe 30 straight times without any problem.

Success? I'm thinking yes, but crossing my fingers.

Oh yeah, I mentioned a tail light problem. That was a bad connection at the fuse box. Power for the running lights comes to the top fuse position, and is split left/right to the top two rear connections. The top one was a little loose - moving it a bit restored connectivity, and lights. Again, another electrical part that's original to the car - I'll get a new one in my next parts order.

Every 5 years there's a gathering of all of the MG clubs. 2016 was the fifth of these, scheduled for Louisville, KY. "Maintaining the breed".

We went with 4 other couples from Tulsa - another MGB, and two TD's. Louisville is about 700 miles from Tulsa, so we took it in 2 days, stopping for the night at Poplar Bluff, MO, each way.

This was good exercise for my new cruise control. It worked well. When setting, speed drops about 5 mph before coming back up to the set point. And every now and then, it cuts out. When it does that, it seems the only fix is to turn it off and reset - hitting the resume button doesn't seem to work.

In any event, the car ran great. But of course, there's always something. This time, the something was an intermittent "click" when turning the key to start the car. Sometimes it would then crank on the next turn, sometimes after several more turns. But it always started. Hmmm.

The other problem was the tail lights were half non-functional. The right rears and left fronts didn't light up.

More on those problems in the next post.

Back to Louisville.

Sunday we drove to Poplar Bluff from Tulsa - I44 and US60. Monday to Louisville, via US60, US62, and I24, I69, and I65. Monday night was a tour of Churchill Downs and the Ky Derby Museum - both highly recommended.

Tuesday I went to some Tech Sessions, including Dave Braun's "Tuning By The Numbers", and Kelvin Dodd on "Why Did They Do That?". In the afternoon we took a self-guided drive east of Louisville along the Ohio, stopping to put the hood up, just in time! Tuesday night was a nice dinner, and dancing to a great 50's-60's band.

Wednesday, more tech sessions - Lloyd Faust on originality, and Hagerty Insurance on car values. A quick car wash for the B in prep for the show. An afternoon self-guided drive south of Louisville through Bourbon country. Dinner in the hotel bar and a chance to meet some fellow MG Experience people, including Lloyd himself.

Thursday was the car show. Met John Moore and Chris Roop in person - both their cars were in the same class with us. Over 800 MG's of all sorts on a grass field by the Ohio river. In the heat. Thursday night was the big dinner and handing out of awards.

Friday we took US 60 back to Poplar Bluff. US60 pretty much follows the Ohio river in Kentucky - a longer drive but very pretty. And Saturday US 60 and I44 back to Tulsa.

A great week overall. Saw lots of "old" friends, and made some new ones. Looking forward to MG 2021.

On Sunday we leave for Louisville, KY, and MG 2016 - a gathering of all the MG model clubs. About a 1,300 mile round trip.

This weekend was prep time. Some cosmetic stuff, but mostly mechanical prep. Lubed the front suspension and brake cable, adjusted the rear brakes, changed the brake fluid, swapped out the oil cooler (there was mysterious few drops of oil near the base of the original), changed the engine oil and filter, and checked the transmission, differential, and coolant levels. Pretty simple stuff.

The big breakthrough was figuring out how to find the source of the faint gas odor in the boot. This has been there since the car was back on the road 2 years ago. I knew there was a problem, but I couldn't figure out how to find the source.

Eventually I hit upon pressuring (slightly) the fuel system. I went into the engine bay and detached the rubber hose that connects the hard line from the vapor canister in the boot to the carbon canister, and stuck the nozzle of an air gun into the free end. I dialed my pressure regulator down to 5 psi, and tied down the trigger of the air gun. Now I had a pressurized fuel system - the tank, the vapor canister, and all the lines and fittings between them.

I mixed up some soapy water, took a cheap paint brush, and started painting the connections and lines, Voila - both lines to/from the canister in the boot blew bubbles. These were the original, steel braided lines, and the rubber underneath the braid of both had split.

After removing the hoses, I took a mini die grinder with a cutoff wheel and carefully cut off the compression fitting of both fittings on the two hoses. A trip to the auto parts store scored me 3 ft of 1/4" gas line, and 4 hose clamps. The hose from the tank to the canister is 18", and the one from the canister to the hard line is 15".

Yippee - no more gas smell in the boot!

One of the Mrs.'s requests for the car was to install cruise control. It will no doubt come in handy while driving some of the more boring (i.e., long, straight, flat) roads in Oklahoma.

There are two options for our cars - the older, vacuum-actuated Audiovox CCS-100 unit currently sold at the Murph's Kits web site, and the newer, Rostra, electrical unit available from multiple sources (Amazon, Summit Racing, Jegs, multiple eBay sellers, etc.).

I went with the Rostra unit, primarily due to the manufacturer's support (Murph makes it clear that his unit basically has no support, mitigated somewhat by the support available from current users via the web).

I got my kit from Amazon, including: the base kit (part #250-1223), a control switch (250-3032), and the speed signal generator kit (250-4165).

Installation involves locating and attaching the servo in an appropriate location, connecting the servo cable to the throttle, installing a switch, installing the speed sensor, and wiring everything together.

I located the servo on the passenger inner fender, just aft of the windshield washer pump. I was able to utilized an existing, previously unused, #10-32 mounting nut welded to the fender, and drilled a hole to add another. This location does violate Rostra's spec to have the servo be no closer than 10" to the coil, but in practice it hasn't seemed to cause a problem.

This location enabled a smooth, curved patch for the servo cable to run to the throttle, see the pic.

For the throttle connection, I wanted to terminate the servo cable directly in-line, above the throttle cable attachment, on the other side of the linkage from the normal throttle cable (i.e., the forward side). That was a bit of a problem, because there's nothing but air in that location. So I welded some steel onto the existing throttle cable / choke cable termination plate, and drilled a 1/4" hole for the cruise cable termination point.

Rostra directs you to ensure that the servo cable reaches it's travel limit before the throttle does. This helps avoid the servo motor burning out by trying to pull the throttle past the wide open (WOT) position.

My throttle cable has a bit over 1" of travel, and the servo cable pulls 1 5/8" at full travel. I followed Rostra's recommendation and added 3 chain beads between the end of the cable and the throttle, to provide additional slack. Basically, this means the servo cable will take up about 3/4" of travel before actuating the throttle at rest, and gives me about 7/8" of throttle travel with the servo - meaning the servo will never fully "floor" the accelerator, but be about 1/8" short of throttle travel before WOT.

I used the eyelet connector in the kit for the throttle attachment point. The kit has several options for various applications, but this seemed to fit best in my case.

Rostra has several switches available. The one I went with is installed over the top of the existing turn signal lever (you pull the existing lever out of the switch, cut off the end, slip the barrel of the switch over it, tighten the set screws, and insert the base of the lever back into the turn signal switch). You'll need to remove the steering column cowling to run the switch wires down to the based to join up with the cruise harness.

The speed sensor installs on a bracket that's bolted to the fixed crossmember, such that the sensor is located directly under the drive shaft to transmission flange. Two magnets from the kit are then attached to this flange. The kit comes with a strap for that purpose, but I couldn't get my strap to work, so I taped the magnets around the flange with packing tape. That's worked ok so far, but I'm looking for a more permanent method.

Wiring everything together involved sorting out the harness and understanding the purpose of every wire. Since this is a generic kit, not every application uses every wire, nor do the wires run to the same location on every car. So study the diagram carefully, and hook everything up and test it before you cut any wires or tailor the harness.

The Rostra manual includes diagnostic procedures to test that all switch functions, the speed sensor, the brake pedal signal, and the tach signal are all being received by the servo. Make sure you execute each of these tests.

Once I passed the tests, I cut off the unused wires, shortened the harness down to just what was necessary (for instance, the speed sensor harness is maybe 3' longer than necessary for our cars), and wrapped it in the blue harness tape that matched the rest of the car's harness.

I did have one confusing episode. I thought I could test the system by putting the car on jack stands, and fully testing the cruise - putting the car in gear, accelerating to 50 mph, hitting "Set" on the switch, etc.. Well, it turns out this test doesn't work, because the servo is built to manage an engine under load, not one running against air. So don't bother...

Finally, you have to program the servo by setting the 12-position DIP switch built into it. The settings I'm currently using are 4, 7, and 12 "ON", and all others "OFF". 4 = "ON" signals 6000 pulses/mile from the speed sensor (MGB drive shafts turn 3200 revolutions/mile, and with 2 magnets we're generating 6400 pulses). 7 = "ON" signals a 4-cyl engine with a "LOW" setup timer, and 12 = "ON" signals a closed circuit switch is installed (which is what a 250-3032 switch is, so set this based on your particular switch, per the manual).

These settings are working for me, but I may play with varing the gain/sensitivity (i.e., switches 1-3), trying higher 4-cyl setup timers (switches 7-10), and maybe even claiming 4000 pulses/mile (switches 3-4).

There's a bit of work involved, but I'm sure there will be times when my right leg/foot appreciate it. In any event, what the Mrs. wants, the Mrs. gets!