Beck's wheels sported probably a dozen coats of paint in various colors, and worse yet, the wheels had not been prepped properly, so the finish was rough, uneven and flaky. I had the old tires removed and properly recycled, and got to work in the sandblast cabinet. After blasting the first wheel and priming it, things were looking pretty good:
There was only one problem - blasting that one wheel took about three hours, and it was the cleanest wheel to start with. The prospect of 12-15 more hours sandblasting didn't seem like much fun, so I decided to use a chemical stripper to remove most of the finish, and then sandblast the rest. Research showed that the most effective stripping agent is called "aircraft stripper," but that stuff is also the most unhealthy to use, and therefore hard to buy over the counter. I decided to try one called "KWIK-STRIP" from Lowes, and followed the suggested practice of wrapping it in plastic (in this case, a garbage bag) to slow the rate of evaporation. After three hours, the finish was impressively bubbly:
The ever-patient Troy Nace was around to help, and we got to work with steel wire brushes. A lot of the finish gave way, and I rinsed the stripper off the wheels in the shop sink.
Even after that, the remaining paint was very tenacious, so I applied another coat of stripper. I covered that with regular kitchen Reynolds wrap, which I could fit more closely to the wheel, and left it overnight. Then I used a scraper instead of a brush, and got nearly all the finish off. The remainder was sandblasted away pretty easily.
I chose a three-step system from Eastwood of etching primer, wheel paint in Argent Silver (a GM color), and clear coat. I think it turned out rather nicely!
I have five hubcaps for Beck, but they were mostly in poor condition, with rusty spots in the chrome finish. I chose the least worst, and carefully repainted the red background for the MG emblem, wiping the inevitable boo-boo's away with a Q-tip soaked in brake cleaner. Not bad for a non-artist...
I mounted that one hubcap on the spare to give a little more finished look to the rear.
So, why did I go to all this trouble? It's because my tires were WAAAAYYYY past their discard date. For example, here's the date code on my new tires:
The tires on the ground, however, didn't have a date code at all. That means they were made before such codes were mandatory. I couldn't find the exact year that practice began, but it was in the 1970's. Thus, my tires were over 50 years old! I close an Asian tire that had high reviews from the classic VW community, since VW Beetles and MG TDs use the same tire size. I am very pleased with the result! Better braking, better ride, and much easier steering than the dead old tires.
I got those tires mounted on a Friday, and the very next day was the first of two shows I wanted to attend. It was very near the Grant St. Garage, in Neffsville, PA. The weather was perfect, and there were hundreds of cars there, including 13 from the LANCO MG Club. Here's our row - it's a panoramic shot, so expanding it will help.
The second show was today, and it was a much longer shakedown cruise. It was the MGs on the Rocks show in Street, Maryland, about a 40 mile drive from Lancaster. As seems to have become a tradition on my show trips, I wound up in a two-car convoy. This time it was with the mostly stock MG TD of Russ Vollmer. It wasn't planned, we just managed to converge on the route:
Once there, we were sorted into groups by car model and vintage. The MG T-series group (including TC, TD and TF) had 15 entries. Here's the start of the row.
That's Russ' TD on the right end, followed by Beck and a lovely TF that eventually won 2nd in class. The red TD right behind the man in the blue shirt is Charlie Baldwin's Volvo-powered TD. He's the guy that found Beck for me in the first place.
It was really gratifying how much attention Beck received from folks at the show. The TF owners said, "All the gearheads love your car!" While on the hill to take the previous photo, I became fascinated with a young lady that took picture after picture of Beck. After a few, I started taking pictures of her taking pictures, and made a little montage of her working. After shooting those pics, I walked down and talked to the couple for several minutes about Beck.
This was the 40th Anniversary MGs on the Rocks show, and to commemorate that the organizers created a special "Ruby Award" - essentially a Best-in-Show award given by judges rather than the ballot-style judging of all the other classes. The winner was a very unusual Triumph TR2, rebodied in aluminum:
The display board in front of the car tells a bit of its story:
The top group on the show field was the "Premiere" class, consisting of group winners from the prior year. The top prize in that class went to a lovely MG Magnette:
There were many, many other wonderful cars there. I was particularly taken with this MGA Coupe, which won the top award in its group:
A couple of hundred great cars and an endless stream of interesting people eager to talk with me about my car made for a great day. But there was another important reason I was so eager to attend. The selected food truck for the event was from Uncle Moe's Soul Food in Gettysburg, PA. Uncle Moe is Eldridge Moses, a Bogalusa, Louisiana native whose "...cooking roots run deep and come directly from a family of strong southern women." When I saw that fried catfish was on the menu, my soul leapt for joy!
Here's the fish and fries basket, with enough food for two or more. Of course, I ate it all myself. Sorry the photo is blurry - my Southern-boy hands were probably trembling with anticipation!
Glad to see you made it. The road shot looks like a good driving road.
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