MG Sports Cars

Where you from, Trevor? I know Jim used to get around quite a bit....:)

Hay! That's not Funny! ;-)

Here's a photo of this weekend's work in progress:



As you can see, Graham is hard at work while I'm off messing around with the camera and stuff like that. Under those conditions it's quite surprising how far we got, and we continue at this point to be ahead of schedule. All of the interior is out except for the headliner, most of the trim is removed as well, and we even managed a couple of the mechanical bits such as the driveshaft and exhaust. The wiring harness is out as well. So next week when Dave gets here we will first concentrate on the final configuration of the upper radiator hose, after which we can remove the radiator, the brake parts that need to come off, and the rest of the trim. That will leave the simple task of hoisting the engine and transmission out and Steve is bringing a cart we plan to use to store that when he comes. In the meantime I will talk to Steve and Terry about possibly modifying our delivery timetable since Steve and I won't need a day and a half to pull the engine and load the car.

The project is coming along very well guys, and I sure can't wait to see how it looks with paint.

Now, a quick word about our finances is in order. At present we have something over $500 in the bank. Truthfully, most of that is money we managed to carry over from the V8 meet a year ago in Virginia. For whatever reasons we were much more effective that year in fund raising than in this last meet and that is going to cost us. I really appreciate those of you who bought T-shirts and made donations but sales were down dramatically and donations were hardly enough to even make a comparison. Obviously we were not as well organized, and of course the economy played it's part as well. But the bottom line is that we do not have the money we need to assemble the car. That is a crucial problem if we expect to have it at the meet next spring. Few, if any of the soft rubber parts are usable. We must buy door and window seals, door panels, and a variety of other parts that you are all familiar with to put the car back together, including new hardware. I'm fully aware that it doesn't have to be perfect but a ripped and wasted door seal or a panel with the lower half rotted away is simply not acceptable. Better to put it together without any at all like a race car in my opinion. And then there's the insurance, which we have one or two members looking into, and finally there are the tires. The tires on the car WILL rub paint off the body if they are left on there. We must go one size smaller. They hit the bulge in the inner fender in front and wheel spacers are not an option. I know we'd like to use them up first, so maybe we can go one size smaller on the front and use these on the rear until they're slicks before buying new ones there and that will spread the cost out some. And lest I forget it, there is also the cost of fuel for delivering the car to Terry for paint (Schulte Management Company, Chrysler,Dodge, Jeep, Subaru, Sioux Falls, SD). So, if you can see your way clear to do it, now would be a good time to send a donation to Steve DeGroat our Treasurer. [forum.britishv8.org]

JB

I'll be sending a check to Steve after the first of the month when the interest checks come in. As for tires, what size do we want? Front and Rear will be the same size? I'm hoping we can get some sponsorship in that area, after all the tires are very prominent on the car and the car will be shown all around the country so the sponsor would certainly get good bang for their bucks.

Thanks Bill, that will help.Anyone else who would like to contribute, it'll be a big help this winter when we are putting the car back together. As it stands right now we don't have enough money to do the job and that is the one thing most likely to cause us to miss our deadline.

Bill, the tires on the car right now are 245/50-17 and they rub just a little too much on the front inner fender bulges and touch the frame extensions as well. On the back they are probably within 1/8" of touching in several places. So I'm guessing maybe a 225 would be what we'd want, or perhaps a 60 series might work also. I think we can tolerate a little extra height possibly, depending on the profile.



Dave did a lot of work this weekend, while I took picture...(just one). I think we have it ready to transport and we even loaded it up on the trailer before he left. Among the items left undone, we didn't remove the headliner, as we felt Terry's guys would do a better job on that, and we neglected to remove the chrome strips from the doors. But I think we took care of everything else that could reasonably be expected to be done to prep it for cleanup, bodywork and paint. Hopefully the bodywork won't amount to much other than smoothing and covering some seams.

In the days ahead I'll get to work on our travel plans. We are expecting to stop by Putnam Park to check out the Chump Car series on Saturday morning. Can't say yet how long we'll be able to stay but if anyone else is curious about it we'd be pleased to meet you there.

JB

My sister gave me some tires we can try on the car for fit. They are a couple sizes smaller than the ones that are on there, 225/45-17. Should at least give us an idea of final tire selection.

Saturday is the day. The plan is to leave early enough to stop at Putnam Park and check out the Chump Car Series before heading on up to Terry's place to drop off the car Sunday morning. Anyone who would like to meet up with us at the race track is certainly invited. I don't know much about this racing series but it sounds like a lot of fun.

JB

I talked to Jim a while ago. They were in Iowa, planning to make Sioux Falls, SD this evening, spend the night, and drop off the GT body with Terry in the morning. Thanks to Jim and Steve for making the trip.

Also, Happy Birthday to my OLDER brother.

Dan B.

Happy Birthday, Jim!

I spoke to him a little over an hour ago, he & Steve were almost to Sioux Falls. Didn't think to wish him Happy Birthday, though.

Happy birthday, Boss!

Thanks for the birthday wishes guys, it was indeed a day to remember. But first off, I am now back home and partially rested, but Steve DeGroat is still on the road. The guy is a real trooper. There is no way I could have made the trip without him and yet he drove about 7 hours to come here and is doing another 7 hours to go home, having left here a little after nine this morning. We got in about 4 AM. So how he could be doing anything but running on fumes is way beyond my comprehension. I traveled about 1800 miles, but Steve? Well you'll just have to ask him. Have a safe trip home Steve!

To hit the highlights, naturally our visit with Terry Schulte at Schulte Subaru in Sioux Falls, South Dakota was the apex of the trip. But I'm going to approach it more chronologically and start with the main event of Saturday which, despite what some may think, was not driving through Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Minnesota and South Dakota, not to mention Ohio and Kentucky. Hitting seven states in one day and then coming back the next may be a pretty good accomplishment but instead I'd have to pick the visit to the Chump Car Series races at Putnam Park. We only stayed a couple hours, but ever since then Steve and I have been asking each other, "How about that car?" The basic Idea is that of a very low budget way to go racing, and actually be somewhat serious about it, and we came away wanting to take a close look at the rules to see what we could do to campaign a car in a few races possibly next year, and have a reasonable chance of winning. Well, heck, OK I'll admit it, I want to dominate. But hey, that's only natural, right? Because they place a $500 limit on the purchase price of the car (not including safety equipment) and then have a provision for the purchase of the winning car at a fixed price (not often used but there has been one instance this season) it helps to even the field and the low cost keeps tensions down. It's an endurance event, with 12 and 24 hour races being common, although at Putnam Park they were running a 7 hour race each of the two days. So it is a multiple driver effort, with each driver limited to 2 hours of continuous racing. That's about all most people would want in one stretch anyway. Minimum number of drivers is 2 and there doesn't seem to be a maximum, so I can think of a pretty good sized group among us that might be interested. As far as costs go, each driver pays $100 per race and if they need driving school that is another $25 for about an hour and a half. Team registration starts out at $500 for the first race and drops by 10% per race and then the 6th race is free. For that to apply two drivers must participate in all of the races and the team name must stay the same. After that I don't know. Their provision for purchase of the winning car is around $1500 but it seems there may be a provision for buy-back for another $250 but here we're getting into the details that we need more research on. The overall mood was quite relaxed, there was nowhere near the kind of intensity on pit row that many of us are used to seeing, and track action was altogether more of a gentlemanly sort, although we did see a decent amount of sliding, agricultural racing, and at one point even a large cloud of smoke rising over turn 8. The range of cars was striking, with everything from a Neon to a Volvo and a Buick Regal, with a fair number of small cars that we just couldn't quite seem to identify. The level of hokiness was surprisingly low for such an event, although one car did have a chicken on the roof, another had a pair of bat wings, and the Regal had the shaft of a golf club sticking out one of the back windows. Our impression was that it would be a lot of fun.

As for other highlights, we saw an amazing number of wind turbines, and quite a few trucks carrying blades and other parts. We thought they should put high intensity LED lights on the blades to make a light show at night. On the way back, Steve noted that some of the turbines were turning clockwise while others were anti-clockwise and I thoughtfully informed him that this was so that the rotation of the earth wouldn't be thrown off. We then speculated on whether the wind was turning the blades or the other way around. As you can see, by that point "Rapture of the Road" was peeking over the horizon. Through upper Iowa and Minnesota we collected so many bugs on the windshield and the front of the car that it looked fuzzy. The next morning we left our motel and discovered that in addition to all of the bugs we had a bunch of flies which had landed and were feeding on the bugs and they stayed until the wind blew them away.

And that brings us to Schulte Subaru. I want to thank you all for sticking with me through the rambling build up, and I realize it was more fun for me than it was for you, but just the same I hope some got a chuckle out of it or found a useful nugget.

Terry's Subaru dealership is a nice medium sized facility somewhere in the middle of town and you wouldn't suspect there was anything special about it other than a decently large number of cars waiting for their new owners until, passing the building at the end of the lot you glanced through the large front window and saw a Ferrari red Griffin sitting inside, Or his fabulous MGB-GT, or sandwiched between them a very slenderized and mean looking black Mercedes, or any one of the other cars he keeps and rotates through the show room as his whim dictates. It could be said that a tour of the facilities has a way of overwhelming the senses. Now I have a confession to make. I have not been a student of the esoteric in the automotive and sports car world, so the names of many of the cars Terry owns do not simply roll off my tongue as if I were born next to the tracks they were racing on. I have seen them, heard of them, and in some cases even know a little about them. But for me to sit here and try to tell you about them in intimate detail of any sort would only serve to display my own ignorance. I mean, how do you describe "that beautiful bright yellow exotic sports car with the big honkin' V8 engine that they only made 27 of but Terry has the 28th one that was sold only after the company went bankrupt, only for the moment the name escapes me"? Oh, and it's worth boatloads of money. I mean, change a detail here, a detail there and it fits any of his cars. I'm at a total loss! I'm really just praying that Steve can help bail me out here. If only someone like Pete or Rick had been able to go along! Each of these cars has a history, some of which we were privileged to hear, and to his credit, Terry has collected the cars that have some sort of significance to him personally. He is a true enthusiast, and even has a basement full of spare parts to prove it. The complex has two separate buildings, one of which is the dealership building, and the other, with the aforementioned showroom, is Terry's office building, to which he has essentially retired and left the day to day dealership operations to his son Mike. It seems to me a fine sort of retirement. The office building appears deceptively small on the outside, yet once inside it just goes on and on and on, room after room, and I'm not just talking offices here. Offices he's got, and his own personal office is fittingly lavish. But I think the man has happened across some sort of space warp device somewhere in his past because there's just no way you can fit all of those rooms, cars, parts, space, showroom, offices and other facilities in a building that size. As a fitting side note, I'm pleased to say that Terry honors his father in a way I found quite right. It turns out that in a back corner of the showroom on a stand he keeps a go-kart. At a casual glance you might not notice anything special about it but there is, oh yes. This was the kart lovingly crafted by a father for his son, using only the parts found at hand and the ingenuity God had given him. The transmission was taken from a Maytag washing machine and had an over-riding clutch that made it a 2 speed, by far just about the most glorious thing that could be imagined. It didn't end there. For the steering he crafted a true rack and pinion, using a small straight cut gear and a flat rack that from all appearances he might have cut himself out of a square bar, the whole works cradled in a simple bent metal bracket. Ingenuity at it's very best. Then for a nerf bar he adapted an inverted set of bicycle handlebars.

This is the stock that Terry and Mike come from, true Americana at it's finest. They've worked hard, succeeded at the American Dream and are rightfully enjoying the fruits of their labors. I for one am pleased and happy to be able to count them as friends and co-conspirators in the MG-Roadmaster project. If you can arrange it, pay them a visit sometime. I'm pretty sure you will find it worthwhile. Oh, and Mike is a fine salesman with an extremely good history so if a Subaru could be in your future it sure wouldn't hurt to talk to him.

I could stop now but there is so much more to tell. To begin with, Terry is most proud of his and his employees' accomplishments not only in assembling the car bodies (in many cases going to great lengths to replace or repair long since unobtainable parts, trim and components) but perhaps even more so in their craftsmanship when it comes to the car interiors. Now I've done some interior work, made some custom pieces, and even done some seam work and having that experience really does give me a true appreciation of what these guys have the skills for. Time after time we looked at one-off restoration or custom interior pieces and never was there a stitch out of place or a crooked line. I don't honestly believe I could ever do that, no matter how much I practiced. And I'm really not that bad at it. These guys simply are on another level entirely. I'm thrilled to death that Terry has taken on the paint and finish body work. But at the same time I'm afraid we will probably embarrass the paint with our interior. Steve made a valid point of course, we don't want the car so nice we are afraid to drive it, but it sure is nice when all the edges are nicely and properly tucked in for instance, and that just isn't one of my strong suits.

So maybe that is a good spot to discuss some of my shortcomings on this project. Paint, obviously (take a close look at my roadster for instance), interior, and then wiring and general tidiness. I do try but, well let me just say that within our group I'm not within the top ten percent. Or twenty. Or thirty... You get my point I hope. I do very well in other areas but not those. Steve has informed me that Jack Austin (Twigworker) has offered to install the wiring and I think we should look into that. As for the interior, I don't have any answer yet for that other than to just slap in the old stuff. There could be some possibility Terry might have some interest in that part as well but I think it's best to wait until he's done with the paint to even explore that possibility. I know Mike was mentally watching his workload go up in order to pay for what Terry has already taken on and I respect that. So we'll just have to see how things go. As for the time-line, Terry said that the first of the year would be too soon to expect the car to be done so finishing the car before May is probably out of the question. With luck though we may be able to have it there to show off it's new paint.

JB

Cool!

Thanks for that Blackwoodian type summary......sounds like you had an interesting trip.

Awesome update, Jim. Not sure how you managed it, since you just landed a few hours ago!

Thanks for the update.

Wish I could have made it...it would have been fun. Alas, I was in St.Louis at a corporate meeting.

Have we discussed final colour of the Roadmaster yet?

As for wiring install....I would trust Jack Austin with this task; he's a VERY capable mechanic.

I think Ferrari Red would be a good color.

I'll let Terry pick it out, he'll make a good selection. As long as it isn't pink or plaid! ;-)

I think this needs to be a joint decision.

You guys already know how I feel about red.

I only said that because Terry likes Ferrari red, and he is painting it.

I don't think we are going to get a joint decision Rick. Last time around everybody wanted the car painted the same color as their own car, so the votes, such as they were, followed that order almost exactly. If we got two votes for the same color it was because we had two owners with the same color car. Like Steve and Pete with white and a blue stripe or me, Carl and Joe with Burgundy, or you Mike and Steve with purple. There was no consensus anywhere. Anyway, as far as I'm concerned it's pretty much out of our hands anyway. I can't see accepting the donation of a free paint job and body work and then laying down terms about how the job is going to be done. Personally I'll be happy if he doesn't paint it metallic blue and gold like the WRX on his lot (a suggestion he did make, in jest I hope) or bright yellow, another color he likes if his cars are any indication. Far as I'm concerned Ferrari red will be just fine. Not my pick by any means, but one I can live with, and a choice I think more of our members can get behind.

Red is a predominant color for good reasons. It has a strong association with fast cars and I think that is a good thing. It draws attention, and for promotional purposes that is what we want. Let's not forget that promotion was a large part of the incentive for our biggest sponsors to put up valuable assets so that we could build this car in the first place. Now is not the time to start getting conservative.

JB

I didn't suggest purple.

I sugggested a lighter colour such as white or silver in order to keep things a little cooler in the cockpit.

I see, and I generally agree with you (I only assumed you like purple because of your other car, plus it made for an easy counterpoint to burgundy), but then, I generally agree with most reasons for selecting any given color so I'm sort of glad it's out of my hands. But I think it's safe to assume it's going to be Terry's favorite color. I guess it has to be someone's. As a practical matter, if anyone hates Ferrari red enough, I suppose they could go get the car and paint it a different color. But it'd have to be done right now, before they start working on the car, and there's the finish bodywork to be done also. I'd have no problem with that, but Terry might not especially like it so it'd be a good idea to call him right away.

Should I hold off on sending out the promotional T-shirts I was going to send to Terry, Mike, and the 5 guys on his crew who will be working on the car? I mean, if someone else is going to step up and do it I really need to know this morning because that's going to put a real dent in our stock of t-shirts and I might not be able to do that twice. Those guys need the incentive to feel a part of the team and they need it now. I can't wait on fence-sitting.

JB