I have been doing something that I normally assiduously avoid - perusing parts
catalogues.
I avoid it, because I find it either boring or tempting. I've been doing it
because I have resurrected an MGC from hibernation and find myself in need of a
few bits and pieces.
Upon reading a couple of these masterpieces of hyperbole (Victoria British and
Moss), it makes me wonder if someone didn't drive a pickup through the JC
Whitney warehouse with a giant electromagnet - you can buy things to make your
car run better than it ever did, curing ailments you never knew it had, grow
hair on hairless places, remove hair from where you don't want it, make you
twice as sexy, make your dog obey you, attract women......well maybe I
exaggerate a little, but the panoply of things that I can't imagine anyone ever
needing is a true wonderment. I mean, you can buy a nice crossflow head, and
then install a downdraft Weber fer Crisake! Sort of like buying a new exhaust
and having them insert a potato in it. Strange accoutrements, odd distributors,
weird spinners for that Ben Hur look (if Ben Hur had been afflicted with bad
taste)...the list goes on.
The things I actually DO need, of course, are notable by their absence.
A steel cap for the diabolically designed MGC clutch master cylinder reservoir
- the one that leaks, but in a subtle way, so you aren't sure why the formerly
pristine paint on the firewall now has more wrinkles than a Shar-pei - is
apparently not obtainable (I solved that by stealing one off a TR-3 master).
The angle drive for the speedo seems to be made of very expensive unobtainium.
The air filter element on the brake boosters seems to be a constantly out of
stock item (Moss doesn't seem to admit that MGC's exist, so they are no help).
Local locksmiths seem never to have heard of FS key blanks (Heaven help me if I
needed an old FA or something for an older car). The spare can of brake fluid
that she-who-must-be-obeyed cached in the trunk some years ago managed to
escape the confines of the can and distribute itself all over the boot. At
least the paint in the boot now matches that on the firewall...
Oh yes - and a rear bumper that the chrome will stay stuck to for more than a
year still seems to be beyond them all.....but are we having fun? Sure, as long
as the weather is good and I don't drive through a radar trap witout benefit of
a working speedo!
Bill
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