On Mon, Aug 31, 2015 at 12:48 AM, Bob W-PDML <p...@web-options.com> wrote: > I like driving. The last car I owned was an MG B Roadster, but the times I > got to actually enjoy it were so few and far between that the hassles > massively outweighed the pleasures.
I love to drive my MG B, back in my younger days. It was always a pleasure to drive, despite the "hot foot" it gave the driver. As you said, however, it was a nightmare when it came to maintenance and repair. Almost no one in the US knew how to take care of them in the US back in the 1960s, except for the sports cars specialties shops, which were far apart and extraordinarily expensive. Parts were almost impossible to find, and took forever to deliver. The "resonators" or "silencers" were so close to the ground they were constantly in need of replacement. On Sunday evening I was driving from New Jersey to North Carolina, when my throttle cable snapped, in the middle of tobacco fields. I managed to jam a stick in the throttle to keep it open enough that I could drive about 12 mph on the road, pulling over quickly whenever lights appeared in my rear view mirror. I finally located a service station, but it was closed. I blew the horn a few times, and the owner came out from the little house behind the station. I asked him if he knew of any place that might be open on Sunday evening, and he said there was nothing for 50 miles or more. When I explained my problem, he offered to try to fix it. He replaced the cable with baling wire, and it worked, although it was quite still and jumpy. It got me back to the Marine air station, and the next morning I telephoned a local mechanic who specialized in foreign cars. He ordered the cable, but it took two months to arrive. For more than eight weeks I drove all around with the baling wire throttle cable. It was a bit tricky when shifting gears, as my control over the engine rpm was a bit marginal, but it worked. A few year later a had a neighbor who liked Jaguars. He had two, plus his wife's station wagon. During the four years he lived there, I never saw both Jags in service at the same time, but they were at times together in the repair shop Style over reliability seems to have bee the keynote of both brands. Dan Matyola http://www.pentaxphotogallery.com/danieljmatyola -- PDML Pentax-Discuss Mail List PDML@pdml.net http://pdml.net/mailman/listinfo/pdml_pdml.net to UNSUBSCRIBE from the PDML, please visit the link directly above and follow the directions.
