Bubba's Journal

Alright, I took the plunge on Nov. 26, 2005 by purchasing my very first MG for the purpose of Vintage Racing.

It's a '74 B GT that was converted by a shop in Chicago back in 1999. To my knowledge it has been raced by both previous owners and last raced in mid-2004 in the Midwest.

I am going to run it in 2006 with VSCDA at Gingerman Raceway for the very first time.

I am going to post more detail as time goes by and I am starting to give a little TLC over the next few months in preparation of that event.

Stay tuned.....

Friday Laura and I headed out to Chicago to pick up the mauve GT. That Mirage color really has some interesting hue tones to it depending on lighting conditions. I can tell you it does look somewhat interesting when it is overcast and the vehicle is surrounded by snow; no wonder MG refers to it as "mauve". But it is original and fairly unique, so I am OK with it.
We had arranged for a UHaul auto transport trailer that we had to pick up from a rental center just two miles from Bernie’s garage. That went OK except that the trailer required a four-wire connection and the Jeep has the seven-wire connector. The rental center did not have the adapter in stock but it was our lucky day and just 4 miles down the road was another location that stocked the desired item. First we were going to stop by Bernie’s garage to pick up the GT, though.
We got there around 2 p.m. and the car was ready for loading. As promised Bernie had the battery charged and it fired up no problem. Of course Chicago was hit by snow the night before so there was no way to leave the garage and take it for a spin around the block. Actually, it would have been a spin, i.e. donut-style probably. Pretty noisy affair as one can imagine since there is no muffler installed.
Then we proceeded to push the car onto the trailer. Because of ground clearance we had to jack up the trailer at the tongue just a bit to change the transition angle between the bed and the ramps. Was not a big problem and with the help of another guy we got it up there even though the ground we were standing on was quite slippery. Tied the cargo down and off we went to UHaul so we would actually have some working lights on the trailer.
I also picked up a spare rim, engine block and the original transmission.
We hit the freeway at about 3:50 in the afternoon and as you can expect from Chicago traffic was kind of slow until we made it passed downtown. We got onto I90 avoiding the much more congested I94 and were planning to get back onto I94 at exit 21 where the two roads intersect. About 2 miles before said exit and at about 4:50 p.m. we started hearing a noise that I attributed to the road surface at first, but then Laura noticed something strange going on with one of the tires on the trailer. I pulled over and would you not know it we had blown a tire. That’s when the real fun started.
We called roadside assistance and had to deal with some yahoo that was either smoking something, too young, new to the job, plain stupid or all of the above. Case in point.. we had to spell ‘Grand Cherokee’ for him, he could not grasp that ‘MG’ was the actual make of the car and ‘B’ was a valid model identification. Furthermore he asked us in all sincerity whether we were traveling ‘East’ or ‘East-bound’. You had to have been there to appreciate the situation.
But that was not the end of it, as we sat on the side of the road for an unprecedented FIVE hours before the wheel got replaced. Thinking back, I have no earthly idea how we managed to kill that time not having a cooler stacked with Corona’s. Needless to say that the roadside assistance mechanic first had to go to another remote UHaul location in order to take the object of desire, i.e. tire & wheel, off another trailer and then head over to us. The problem was that his car broke down en-route and now he needed to wait for assistance. Finally they got to us and it took a mere 3.5 minutes to replace the wheel. In the meantime we had been bitching up a storm with UHaul and they were ready to send someone else our way just when the original guy arrived, so we cancelled the service call. So we thought. About an hour later our cell phone rings, we were almost in Kalamazoo, and the second mechanic was looking for our vehicle back in Indiana along I90. He was probably not too happy unless he is getting paid well for such an emergency call.
We finally arrived back home at 4:40 a.m. We had to pull over and nap for a bit since Laura did not want to drive the train and of course we had to limit ourselves to 50 mph because that’s what DCX wants you to do for the first few hundred miles when towing a vehicle.
Next issue was how to get the GT off the trailer. I had to take the same approach and jack up the tongue just a bit. The slope of our driveway made things a little bit easier. With the help of two neighbors we rolled the car safely into the garage. I noticed that coolant was leaking as it covered the trailer and the driveway. That seemed very odd since the car had not leaked anything back in IL. The shop floor was clean and the area outside of the garage was basically covered with a thin layer of compacted snow left behind by the snow blower. The neon colored coolant would not have gone unnoticed!?!
Upon further inspection and to my surprise, I admit at first it was shock, it was not a hose that had come loose. It in fact was one of the freezer core plugs on the side of the engine block that had all but come off from the vibration. The good news was that it is the one that is easily accessible (between cyl 2 & 3) on the oil filter side and I don’t have to take out the engine to replace it. I guess the fun has started and I will never again be bored for there will always be something to do on the GT!!

Soon I will be mounting the Sebring headlight covers, which will take care of the challenged look The Thing has today with the headlights removed ...

On a beautiful Saturday afternoon I fired up the GT and drove it around a parking lot a few times for the very first time.

Three weeks to go until my first event. What is left for me to do are a few maintenance items,i.e.
bleeding the brakes
installing the foam filters over the velocity stacks
draining the radiator and fill with water
marking of critical suspension fasteners so I can easily determine if anything comes loose (hopefully before it comes un-done :-) )
attaching "74" number decals

... it's all coming together. How exciting!

May 4-7 at GingerMan Raceway in South Haven, MI

It was an absolute hoot! Attached are some shots involving myself in the #74 GT and some of my fellow competitors.

A mix of functional, performance and cosmetic updates.

Check the "Before & After" pages on my website for pictures:

http://www.vintageracingonline.com/vintageracing.htm