What a Trip

I haven't posted anything since August of last year, and in October, Greg and I took the MG on a 3-day road trip. We had a great time and since the Midget played such a large role in the excursion, I wanted to make sure the experience was documented here. We purposely had no set itinerary upon departure, just a general direction and some ideas. I'm not a big fan of planning; I think it only makes things stressful.

10.01.10

We left my house on Friday night after work. Led Zeppelin's "D'yer Mak'er" got us started off on the right track. We got a bite to eat at Zoup! and headed down to York, PA. We found a crappy motel at nightfall and made a short trip to my college alma mater stopping at a Friendly's on the way back for ice cream.

10.02.10

We made the same trip in the morning where we discovered some kind of Fall Festival event happening at the college. By chance, I was able to meet with my old design professor and she was nice enough to give me a tour of the art and design facilities. I got some Nitrogen ice cream, and from there we headed to Baltimore, MD.

Upon arrival, we parked and walked along West 36th Street and discovered some interesting shops there: a lot of antique thrift stores and under-the-radar kind of shops. We lunched at a very hipster-ish place called Cafe Hon.

From there we enjoyed the sights provided by the Baltimore Museum of Art. I hadn't been to a museum since college, and it was refreshing to go to one without having to take notes the whole time. Greg later recalled this was probably his favorite part of the trip.

We said goodbye to Maryland and made the long journey to Front Royal, VA. We found another questionable motel and had enough time to catch a late movie. Luckily, we didn't opt to see an action movie because the theater, especially the speakers, was poop. But of what we could hear during The Social Network, we enjoyed very much.

10.03.10

I think we missed the free breakfast at the motel the next morning, so we opted for a quick stop at Dunkin' Donuts. Then we anxiously headed to Shenandoah to take on Skyline Drive, a 105-mile national scenic byway among the Blue Ridge Mountains. There are a total of 75 overlooks where you can stop to take in the beauty. We certainly didn't do the whole thing, but the portion we did was just the right amount. The smooth, pothole-less, curvy roads were perfect for the little MG.

The Midget reached 77,777 miles on its odometer (how cool!) as we headed toward the tiny town of Luray.

There, we happened to drive by a small collection of other Midgets and found an odd, house-like brick-oven pizzeria for lunch. From there we headed back into Pennsylvania. We dined in Gettysburg (I think at a Friendly's again) and stayed the night at the most questionable motel yet.

10.04.10

Our luck ran out as we got hit with some rain for the remainder of the trip. After some shopping, which included Adidas purchases from both parties, we headed home.

For the almost 700-mile trip, I believe all I packed tool-wise was a mini toolkit, duct tape and some zip-ties. Luckily, all we needed to use was the duct tape to patch the convertible top during the Gettysburg rain. The Midget ran gloriously....from the 80mph speeds of Route 95 to navigating the confusing back roads of York to the rapidly ascending inclines of Skyline Drive. All we had to do was fill her up once in awhile and she served us well.

Above is a very rough overview of our route. Aside from some of the major highways, I don't remember what roads we took where. Greg had adopted navigation duties during the journey, and I can't recall now the specific routes we took

Greg and I are already in discussion for this year's trip. We may head West with a stop in Pittsburgh. Or maybe not. But we'll definitely do it over the summer instead of waiting for fall. Thanks to Greg, and the mighty Midget, for the fantastic memory!

Three's Company

It's been awhile since my last post, but I've been thoroughly enjoying my cars over the summer - especially the Midget with the hotter temperatures we've been experiencing. I can't get over how great the Midget has been in recent months. It's running so smooth and it's always a blast to drive. In fact, consistent with past summers, car troubles all around have been kept to a minimum. At this time, the only problem is a malfunctioning gas gauge in the Mini. I think it's the fuel sending unit but haven't looked into what swapping in a new one all involves.

In bigger news, I purchased a third vehicle: a 2003 Mini Cooper S. I had been searching for an inexpensive "replica" of the 2002 S I sold two years ago for quite some time. It has more mileage (almost 70,000 on the clock) and more dings and scratches, but it was also half the price. It's kind of nostalgic to drive it which I think is also kind of ironic.

It really is a completely different car than my classic mini: 400% faster, 50% bigger, 70% heavier and all the modern day luxuries like leather seats, air conditioning and power steering. Still certainly not as fun as the classic but fun nonetheless.

It's crazy for one person to own three cars, I know. But I'm happy I got it. And I hope people aren't so quick to judge me on my decision. I plan on using the new car for longer, non-vacation related trips and during the winter when the salty roads would normally erode my two most loved cars.

Hellertown Car Show

Sunday I took the Mini to the 17th Annual British Motorcar Gathering in Hellertown. Friends and family visited and it was good fun. It rained some.

Nice Rack

Years ago, I had gotten a whole bunch of used Midget parts from a fellow at church. Amidst the collection was everthing from body panels to doors to seats to mechanical parts to whatever. Most of the stuff is old and rusty and unusable. But among the stuff was a luggage rack and a boot lid. The luggage rack itself would've cost me $300 from eBay, but we paid just $100 for the whole collection of stuff.

Anyway, with thoughts of getting the car painted soon, I thought it'd be neat to get both boot lids painted (one with holes for the rack and one without) so that I had the option to choose. I think I prefer the cleanliness of the car sans rack, but I like the option of being able to use the rack if I was going on a trip or needed the space.

So today I affixed the rack to the lid, and then the lid to the car - to see how it all came together. It's hard to tell with the unpainted lid, but I think it looks nice.

Back Up Lights are Back Up

Finally got the 'correct' reverse lamp switch from Moss. Not sure if they labeled it wrong, or if my transmission is actually a 60s model, but I put it in earlier this week with minor setbacks. I should be all set for inspection now!

Spring Time

The Midget is equipped with 1/2 elliptic leaf springs as part of its rear suspension. In preparation for inspection, I went about replacing all of the worn bushings on the right side. Dad and I had done the left side back in 2008, so I won't go into a lot of detail since it has been covered before. But it was certainly more difficult than I remembered. I got off to a good start with disassembly, but I eventually had to enlist Dad's help on two occasions.

The first, I was only able to remove half of the bushing on the front side. Dad helped me hammer out the rest with a chisel. The second, upon reassembly, I somehow cross-threaded one of the nuts welded to the floorboard of the car. Dad showed up tonight with his tap and die set, and we were able to clean it up. He stuck around to help me put the rest of things back together for which I was extremely thankful. Some things are so much easier to do logistically with two people. Like when screwing in the 3 bolts in the rear plate, one person had to hold the bolt steady from underneath the car while the other secures the nut from inside the boot. It was quite difficult for me to remove them by myself, and I'd imagine putting them back in by myself would have been crazy difficult. It was tricky. It went relatively smooth with Dad here.

So thanks again to my dad for his assistance. When I called him, I was so frustrated that I could never seem to finish a task (of a certain magnitude) on my own. But I just keep reminding myself that I'm slowly learning new things (which I am) and continuing to acquire a respectable tool collection (Dad is 'lending' me his tap and die set and brought me some chisels) - both of which will help me in future projects.

I still don't have a vise though. So I improvised.

Rear BEFORE

Rear AFTER

Front BEFORE

Front AFTER

Completed leaf spring.

Getting it back on the car.

Looking Back

I took a drive down to my parents today for Mother's Day. I went across the street to visit Amy, an old neighbor, who has owned two Binis. A red hardtop which, from what I understand, was quite the lemon. And more recently, a red cabriolet. An '07 I think.

We each took a turn behind the wheel of each other's cars. Although she doesn't normally drive stick, she was comfortable enough going up and down the cul-de-sac. Then I took her automatic out on the roads. One of my favorite things about my gray Mini was the interior, so it was pretty nostalgic sitting inside of her car. I felt immediately comfortable. Her interior was quite nice too - chrome trim, additional gauges, leather seats. And although hers wasn't an S (nor a manual), the experience has fueled my desire to get another one of these beasts.

Crazy Sunday

I got up this morning and headed out for a drive that ended up lasting several hours. I drove toward Zionsville in the Midget to stop at a few nurseries (I need some arborvitae for my backyard) and to try and locate some billboards I had designed at work. I only found two billboards but ended up stopping at 3 or 4 different nurseries. I definitely got some color from the sun, and the car drove great. At this point, the only thing I haven't been able to fix yet on the Midget is the reverse light switch. I've ordered two from Moss whose product descriptions fit my year/engine, but both have been much too small. So I'm not sure what now. I have a month to sort it out until inspection is up.



Then when I returned home, I changed the oil in the Mini. I waited much too long to do this...especially since the engine and transmission share the same supply. Although the manual says to get the car up in the air, it can somewhat easily be done without doing so. The drain plug is located near the front of the car and can be accessed from underneath. The filter, though also accessible from the bottom, can be reached more easily by removing the front grill. This is the approach I took.




As I was working on the car, a guy and his dog stopped at the foot of my driveway and asked if the car was a Mini (the guy did; not the dog). Turns out he's originally from Britain and guess what his first car was? He's not the first person I met that this was the case. For some reason, he didn't want to walk up the driveway and take a look at it, even though I presented the invitation. So we conveniently yelled out our conversation for the next 10 minutes at an awkward distance. He asked the usual questions and went along his way. He had a British accent, which is cool. I couldn't pick up the dog's dialect.

A Striking Trike

Since I spent some time at David's over the past few weeks, I thought I'd share with you his current project. I don't know how else to describe it other than a three-wheeled chopper with a Ford truck bed on it's back. I've been tracking its progress throughout the winter and it's pretty amazing what David's able to do. He still has to fabricate the seating and he's addressing a transmission leak, but it's neat to actually see it driven.

It's certainly not something I'd keep in my stable, but I admire it's uniqueness and ridiculousness.

Steered in the Right Direction

As you may recall, I had some issues with the Mini's steering at the beginning of the year. Recently, the symptoms returned. To reiterate, the steering column has a spline shaft (with serrations, or ridges, around the inside of the shaft) at the bottom end. This female end joins with a male spline shaft that extends from the steering rack (under the car) through the floor board. The two pieces are held together with a bolt through a clamp on the column. So I removed the column and examined the spline shaft. Once again, it was quite worn. The splines on the rack looked okay.

I mentioned it to David and he came up with a solution. I let him know the specs of the spline shaft (36 serrations, 9/16" diameter) and he was able to source a piece with which to replace the original. I forgot what this piece is called, but it's the jointed piece in the photos below. The three photos show the progress of how he welded this piece onto the steering column.





The whole ensemble simply slips onto the steering rack. It certainly looks much more durable than the original setup, and the way it clamps to the rack is much stronger. This all assures me that my steering problems are solved for good.

Changing Gears V

After the second transmission swap, the Midget was still making noise. It was making noise while pulling back into second. And after the car (and gear oil) heated up, it would make a rubbing/grinding noise every time the clutch was depressed. The former wasn't as big of an issue as I learned to adjust my driving habits to avoid it.

Then one day, I lost all resistance in my clutch pedal and I had a hard time bleeding it. So I went about replacing the whole hydraulic system for the clutch. This includes the master cylinder, the 5 feet of 'brake' line, a short hose, and the slave cylinder. The most difficult part was replacing the line. Since they don't sell the size thread I have on either side of the line, I had to buy the 5 feet of line and cut off an end. Slipped off the new, incorrectly sized threaded bits and slipped on the original ones. But now the end of the line that was cut off needed to be double flared like it was initially. I enlisted David's help for this portion since he had a double-flare tool (and I was too cheap to buy one). And then I rented a line bending tool so I didn't kink the line while bending the straight piece into the curvy snake it needed to be. It took some time and it doesn't look real great, but I got it all back in. I outright replaced the master cylinder with a new one, and I rebuilt the slave cylinder with a kit. I was now able to bleed the clutch system.

Then I called the fellow from whom I got the tranny and discussed the noise situation. He ended up sending me a new transmission neck (this time with an allotment for the reverse light switch!). Then I scheduled to take off of work on a Friday and drove the car to David's for transmission R/R round three. I also brought the Mini to fix a steering problem.

This time around I did most of the prep work myself before we removed the engine/tranny from the car. We got it out (which went very smooth) and assessed the situation. We put on a new pressure plate, disc and release bearing. Nothing looked drastically wrong with the old parts, though the pressure plate looked "burned" and I think there was minor wear on the thrust bearing. We also swapped on the new neck (seen in the last picture above).

Before dropping everything back in, I was adjusting the reverse light wiring when I snapped the head off of the bolt. Luckily, this area can be accessed with the transmission installed through the shifter hole inside the cockpit, so it didn't hold up the installation. A new switch is currently en route.

At this point, we also had to bleed the clutch system since I replaced the rubber hose during all of this. Once we had it bled, we started up the car. I tried shifting it into first and it wouldn't go. Even after a test drive, it was grinding real bad into first and reverse. And it was still making the noise in second gear.

We called it a day, and I returned later to pick up the car...not wanting to overstay its welcome at David's. Before doing so, David and I examined the linkage between the clutch pedal and the master cylinder. More specifically, the push rod. When David disconnected the linkage, and forced the push rod into the cylinder with a screwdriver, I was able to successfully shift. So this added travel distance (which was before limited) of the push rod enabled the pressure plate to fully disengage from the flywheel; and as a result, there was no grinding. To permanently remedy this, we removed the master cylinder and David welded an additional 3/4" or so to the push rod. So as of now, the car shifts smoothly. I'm still trying to adjust to the longer throw of the clutch pedal.

And after a couple days of driving it, I've yet to experience the horrible grinding noise from before. So hopefully that will remain the case. I still get the noise in second gear, but David has convinced me this will go away in time. It'll be 75° tomorrow, so I'm pretty excited about that!