Barney Gaylord pondered:
> The MGA with an attitude is half way around the third time. I wonder why
> they didn't think to put the last didgit on the left end of the main odometer?
I don't know. It would be a big help. The project '67 B shows 24K on the
clock, but I don't know if that's 24K or 124K. Maybe the list can give me their
opinions on the subject and I'll select the car's mileage based on the
concensus.
It was last registered in '79 and left sitting in a back yard in California long
enough for the floors to rust through. Based on how the brake master cylinder
was replaced (pivot pin replaced with a bolt), I'd say that that was the only
repair performed because nothing else was repaired that stupidly. The hole in
the top of the clutch pedal was badly out of round. The hub splines are like
new. The brake rotors are only a few thousandths shy of new and still have the
barrel spacers and grease cups. It had stock A-arm bushings that were smashed
and split but all there. It had never been driven without A-arm bushings. The
brass bushing in the bottom pivot of the kingpin had lost about half of the
depth of the grease grooves but a lot of this had transferred to the distance
tube.
It still has an 18GB engine in it, which I assume is the original one because no
one bothered to put the correct year engine in these cars in the 70's. (The '67
B I bought in '79 had an 18V engine.) The crank and pistons were stock. The
car had obviously been parked when the piston in cylinder #2 broke the top
ring. That caused the block to need to be bored to 0.030 over but there were
only slight ridges in the cylinders. There was nothing wrong with the pre-smog
head and it didn't need a rocker shaft. The timing chain and oil pump were good
enough to re-use.
I don't know what parts it had that usually disappear (radiator packing,
overflow tubes, etc.) because the people who rescued it from the back yard
removed all of the peripheral engine parts and swapped with parts from other
cars before selling it to me. I no longer have the tranny from it.
So what do you think? Is there anything else I could look at to determine the
mileage? Would someone really park a 12 year old car with only 24K on it? Or
is the slight wear consistent with 124K?
TIA,
Denise Thorpe
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