Trailer Tuesday

On my last vacation day, I finally got the Morgan to the technical inspection. It was a bright, sunny day. Even before I picked up the trailer, I had the feeling that this made people drive like crazy. And sure thing – it was nerve-racking experience. A couple of detours due to accidents on the Autobahn around Cologne and more than two hours later (for just 60km…) I was able to unload the car at Auto-Color Heinen in Solingen. By the way – the new green car cover I got as present this week is nice but cannot be left on while towing the car. Experience points collected after a 100meters….

Although I really tried hard to get everything ready for this day – there are always last-minute issues and items that come up. Firstly, the new oil pressure line that I order was supposed to have 1/8 BSH connectors.  But the way that they are cramped to the to line do not allow the threads to grip to the smith instrument or the engine adaptor. The second problem was that I added a Brantz sensor to the Ford T9 gearbox. This means that I either need to switch to an electric Smith speedo or get a speedo cable with a M18 1,5mm female connector on the gearbox side. As the speedo cable is less expensive, I meant to order it a while ago – but failed to do so in time at the right place.

Peter Gamble from Speedograph Richfield helped me out with the MGB a while ago. He is brilliant and I had a great phone call with him on the speedo cable and angle drive (I used to use) for the MGB. I should have ordered the oil pressure line and speedo cable from him directly in the first place – due to Brexit and delivery hassles I had in the last couple weeks I tried other options. Today I corrected this mistake and sent him an email. My advise to you: if you need a special cable, angle drive or oil pressure line – contact Peter Gamble !!!

After I dropped off the car and did the handover, I started to realize that I most likely made some mistakes with the wiring loom. The battery was fully charged to test out my wiring. When I got to Solingen it was flat. The 44AH Bosch battery is quite new – so assume I must have some “silent consumer” somewhere. Quite a bummer. In addition, I got worried about the lack of relays in my wiring. The 1988/1989 wiring diagram only shows a relay for the ignition on Plus8 models. As the Autospark loom also had no indication for a relay – I left is away. Same applies to the relay for the dip and main beam. Well, maybe everything is fine as I got no call from Solingen so far. We will see.

Tonight I (one the day exactly one year and 7000km after I drove home my Mini Cooper after restoration for the first time) I almost finished engine removal on the Mini. The gearbox and diff need an overhaul. It is 2^nd time I am getting the engine out Mini. Most of the job was easy and straightforward. Even though I has the Hayes manual on my desk – I pretty much just used it to double check the steps after I have already done them. Getting the pin for the gear selector out took a bit more time. Mental note: You must put the car in reverse gear to get the right angle and clearance for the pin. Oh and: the gearbox bias barrel slickshift I added from Minispares need to be undone before….

The additional lower engine steady is also a bit of a pain in the rear (part for the engine of course)… I forgot that I had in on the engine and then attached it to the subframe. Getting off the upper ball joint of the swivel hub took forever. A ball-joint separator needs to get on my tool list asap. I the past a simple tap with the hammer was enough to get the bail joints separated… tonight I struggled big time with this.

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