Beck TD has been a real joy this summer and fall, as evidenced by the lack of blog posts. Mary Ellen and I put nearly 1000 miles on Beck, cruising around the beautiful Lancaster County countryside. But finally it got too cold, and since Beck was running very well... I tore the engine apart! Idle hands are the Devil's workshop, or something like that.
When you've been driving 50 years and more, you develop a certain set of reflexes, covering all aspects of vehicle operations. For me, one of those reflexes is that one sounds the horn by pressing the center of the steering wheel. If you're driving a 1952 MG TD, that's a problem! MG thought it was just fine to put the button (which is apparently called the "Horn Push" in all cars, not just MGs) on the center dash. Here's a web photo showing that horn push:
Many of my readers are involved in my "real" life and know that just last Wednesday, I retired from Lancaster Church of the Brethren after 17 years as their Director of Music. For all of that time, and for some years before taking that job, I used my folding microphone stand to record various concerts and events, and it saw weekly duty during the pandemic while I recorded video and audio for our online services.
As I was cleaning out my office, I was folding up my old stand one last time to take it home, and the aluminum base that holds the folding legs shattered, dropping several pieces at my feet. It was almost as if it said, "If you're done, then I'm done too!"
Here in the US we've always called it the "emergency brake" or "parking brake," but in 1950's Great Britain it was just the "handbrake." Just another brake, with a ratcheting lock that you had to explicitly engage if you wanted to use it as a parking brake. On Beck TD, it was the only part of the braking system that I hadn't renewed, and it was time.
I have continued to mess with the new steering wheel introduced in Part 73, to good effect. The T-series MGs were unusual for the day in that the steering wheel was adjustable in and out, and the chrome hardware for that mechanism on Beck TD was rusted and jammed shut. It wasn't expensive, so I ordered new parts from Moss Motors and installed it just like the old ones. Imagine my surprise when the new cover jammed shut also!
Ever since I bought Beck, I've wanted to replace the steering wheel, because the original wheel was in bad shape. The spokes were loose, and the wheel was covered with a lace-on cover to hide the poor condition of the rim. But that's an expensive proposition, so it took until now for me to finally buy the wheel. Ain't it pretty!
It is an absolute mystery why I had to create this blog post! I have recruited experts from coast to coast, and they are as befuddled as I am. In Part 70, I told of installing an MGA rear end because I wanted to experiment with a different gear ratio. That is a common swap, but when I went to install the driveshaft later, it wouldn't fit - it wouldn't even drop in place!
Back in Part 68, I detailed some work that allowed me to use a digital speedometer with a speed sensor, allowing me to experiment with different rear gear ratios and transmissions, and still have an accurate speedometer. It worked great on the M40 4-speed transmission currently in Beck, so I confidently set out to install it on the M41 overdrive trans I had rebuilt previously. That's when the problems started...
Back in 2018, Part 34 reported how Cor Engelen and Troy Nace helped me convert Beck from the stock 5.125 rear gear to a much more highway-friendly 3.9 ratio. That dropped the RPM at 60 miles per hour nearly 1000 RPM, from about 4100 to about 3100. Here's a photo of Cor as he was doing some of the detailed work in that conversion:
When Beck TD came to live at the Grant Street Garage, the brake and clutch plumbing worked, but was definitely in need of some attention. The brakes used the stock MG TD master cylinder, and the clutch used a Volvo part, mounted on a bolt-on bracket:
Beck TD has had an interesting variety of instruments in the dash since it came to live at the Grant Street Garage in July, 2017. When Beck arrived, it had the original MG TD instruments, consisting of speedometer, tachometer, a dual water temp/oil pressure gauge and an ammeter. The small gauges worked, kind of, but the speedo and tach did not. But they had that gorgeous old look - in 1952, MG was still using the domed glass:
Part of the charm of these old British cars is that there is wood involved. The popular imagination has decided that they have wooden frames, but that's not right - the frame, as you'll see in the first photo below, is a hefty steel structure. The wood is used as a framework for the body, with the metal of the body literally bent around the wooden frame. Very evocative of the period, until the wood rots!
I just checked, and my last blog post was over 3 months ago! Blame Covid-19... November and December are always busy for a church musician, but add in the necessity to prepare everything to be online instead of in-person, and the time demands quadrupled. But there's one bit of that that I'm really proud of, and I invite you to check out our Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols service at this link:
