Last summer I stopped to talk to a man in Lilburn, a small town
here in Georgia. He had a 60's Bentley parked beside his garage in
a bad but restorable state. I mentioned that I had a '61 MGA and he
said that he used to have a MGA transmission and tried to give it
away but couldn't find anyone that wanted it. I asked him what he
did with it and he said,"I buried it !" I looked around to see if
I could locate the Candid Camera. The guy did excavating for a
living and when you have your own bulldozer you can bury anything.
I asked him if he would mind if I dug it up. He said he didn't
mind and that it was down by the creek somewhere.
I arrived the next Saturday with my Honda, 100' of rope, a
shovel, and a hoe. The weeds were about 5 feet high and I knew
that somewhere there was at least 2 water moccasins waiting for
me. I found a part of the bell housing exposed and started
digging. It was buried with the small end down and the shift
lever was wedge under a buried pine tree. I dug as much as I
could and then tied the rope to the bell housing, tied the
other end to the Honda and starting pulling. It finally came
out. I rolled and drug it over to the Honda and managed to
put it into the hatchback.
The aluminum housing was in great shape. ( It had been
buried about 1.5 years) I assume that it is still filled with
oil so the gears should be okay. Part of the steel mounting
hardware has surface rust but I think I can fix or replace it.
He told me that he had actually buried 2. I may go back
this summer. I decided that if anyone walked up and asked
me what I was doing while I was digging for the first one,
I was going to tell them I was digging for worms! No way I'm
going to say that I'm digging for transmissions!
Don Mathis
Bell Labs
Norcross, Georgia
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