FYI: Dec 12 MythBusters: Airplane Hour

My father bought an MGB for the family (mostly me) off the show room floor.
It wasn't new, but it was completely redone inside and out. I had zero
knowledge about auto mechanics. I learned quicky. Within a month, it
wouldn't start. Turned out to be a problem with the ignition wires under
the metal and wrinkle-coated dash.

One of my favorite stories was when it broke down by a stop light. I
usually carried a tool box in the boot, but that day I had nothing with me.
I quickly saw that the wire from the coil had popped out of the top of the
distributor. I check the boot, and since I had just really cleaned out the
car, there wasn't a thing in trunk except the spare tire. The metal ferrule
had fallen off the wire, and there was enough spring to the wire that it
wouldn't stay in.

In the old days, people smoked alot. The emptied their ashtrays at stop
lights. I looked at the curb, and saw a pile of cigarette butts. I took
one and wedged in between the ignition wire and the terminal on the top of
the distributor. It worked, and I was on my way. I forgot about it for
weeks. My family was sitting around the dinner table one night and my
brother said that the MG was running rough. I asked him whether he had
checked the cigarette butt in the distributor. My father, who was a
stickler for doing things right, went ballistic when I told him how I had
"fixed" the car.

It served me well, though. We got 100,000 miles off it, rebuilding the
engine only once. It had 150,000 miles before I finally drove it to a
friend's farm. He said he was going to restore it. I don't know what
became of him or the car.

When I look at my Sundowner's starter, it sure looks like the one I took off
the MG years ago. Same thing with the starter solenoid (with the exception
of the rubber-coated switch you could use to bump the MG's engine to TDC).
I learned more about mechanics from that car than anything else.

The car had what was called a double-yellow line suspension. When you
passed (illegally), you should have felt each yellow line as a separate
"thump" crossing in each direction.



They were fine, really. Mine was pretty reliable. At least as reliable
as an old Ford would have been (OK, bad example) and easy to look after,
really. It was great fun to drive and actually handled well, but not as
well as the more primitive TC. The ride was abyssmal, though, and the
brakes diabolical.


Bertie