Tom's Tech and Tidbits

RAIN

Is it ever going to stop raining, at least for a day or two? A few of us braved the weather Wednesday evening for the Devil's Lake/Ferry Tour. We had a nice drive and stayed dry although there were a couple times when it looked a little dicey. Steve and Zoe even left their hard top at home and went without a top. Actually it was a mixed bag with the clouds because of the threat of rain but it was much cooler than the 89 degrees forecasted. I believe Shirley and I were the only ones that got caught in the rain and that was after we were the last to leave Waun-a-bowl after lunch. We got caught in a downpour that even flooded some places in the road between Waunakee and Windsor.

Because it is such a nice drive and some of you might want to take it in better weather I will include the route notes. And for those that went, an update, Shirley's 93 year-old uncle Charlie just became a great-great-grandfather.

There have been three nice tours this summer. We have one or two possible second-Wednesday's-of-the-month that might be good for an evening tour. Looking for a couple of volunteers to plan and lead them. Just contact Dave Griffith and let him know. trgriff@tds.net

As I was thinking about the Wednesday drives the thought occurred, "Where did the summer go"? Then I wondered, "When is it going to get here"?

Tom Smith
608-846-4983
608-576-8604

Car Show

It was a great day for a car show yesterday and the attendance at the Road Apples "Saturday in the Park" show was proof. Our Madison British Car Group was well represented by several members and their cars. The MBCG banner was flying high, well under the eve of the sun tent, and there was good interest in our British cars. Not only did people appreciate our cars but it looks like we might have a new member from the show (he won an award for his Big Healey).

Capping off a very nice day our Group won 4 individual awards. And we won for having more members showing than any other club. That was a $50 cash prize. The MBCG members participating decided to return the cash to be donated to one of the charities. I talked to Rachael, The Road Apples president, after the show and she is going to pass the money on to the River Food Pantry. I am so proud of this Group and hope you are also. Too bad more could not have seen our members walking forward in front of at least a couple hundred American car enthusiasts to receive their awards and having the crowd applaud them the same as the others that won.

We, MBCG, made a lot of new friends, brought awareness to many that we also have serious collector cars, and found that we are included in the car community. Of course Shirley and I have known this for some time. We try to wave to all collector cars no matter of origin or brand and nearly always have had that recognition returned.

Keep the evening of July 14th open. Shirley and I are working out the plans for an evening drive, Over the River (the ferry) and Through the Woods (the drive around the south end of Devil's Lake). This much we know; we will assemble in Waunakee, and then make a loop and return to Waunakee and have lunch. The drive will be less than 2 hours. You might want to bring your cameras.

The best, Tom Smith

Thanks to Dave Griffith

for leading the group to Sussex. At least I think he did :) Shirley and I could not make it and even though there were encouraging signs our new granddaughter has not yet arrived. Hope those that went had a good time.

Shirley and I spent some time one day last week mapping a run from Waunakee to the ferry then to Devil's Lake, past the powder plant site, to Prairie du Sac and cross country back to Waunakee. The trip would be about 55 miles and take about 2 hours. We made it in 2 hours with a malfunctioning railroad crossing gate, a wait at the ferry, and driving under the limit all the way. Yes, you read that right! It is a beautiful drive and we can be back in time to get some lunch in Waunakee.

Please let me know if you would like us to plan it for a Wednesday evening drive.

The Saturday in the Park show is this coming Saturday, the 26th. Rachael sent me an e-mail to let me and anyone else know when those wanting to lend a hand should show up.

She also asks if those helping could wear a red tee shirt to help identify us to the participants and spectators. Shirley and I will be going over to the park Friday afternoon about 1:30 to help set up.

I am going to pull the spedo on my TR6 next week if it ever quits raining. It needs to be recalibrated. Would some want to make a tech session out of it to see what is involved in getting ready to send it in for calibration? If so let me know and what time might work for you.

All the best, Tom Smith

Syttende Mai.

Shirley is doing great! Knee replacement on the 6th and sitting in the TR6 today!

A fellow Midget owner adjusted his valves and wondered why he lost his idle. It came back after they were adjusted to .012" instead of .002". But I won't embarrass Steve by letting his name out.

Plan on adjusting the valves on the TR6 today and possibly the carbs and timing if time allows.

Got a spare set of bumper over-rider brackets from a friend in Seekonk, MA. Planning on using them to mount a trailer hitch for our little Colman trailer. See photo. (will paint trailer)

Road Apples Cruise Night on Tuesday evenings at Culvers East Towne. We start arriving around 6pm and many have lunch in the far table area. After her "test fit" today Shirley and I plan on being their tomorrow evening. Would love to see anyone that can make it.

Keep an eye on our madbrits.org web site for upcoming events and hope to see a good turnout for the Barn Quilt run on May 22nd. Check the site for more information.

Prez Tom

First a reminder that our last meeting of the season at Talula's is Wed the 12th of May.

Those wishing to join us June 26th at the "Saturday in the Park" car show at Angell Park a reminder to get your entry form in. it is only $8 ($10 after June 20th) and by entering early we can show as a group.

Looking for someone to bring something for "show-n-tell" on the 12th. Got a cool car trick or some new part, maybe an interesting tool, some historical trivia. Let me know and bring it along.

Have only been out with the TR6 since the last meeting but I have been working on the Midget. Some of the things include new seals and bearings for the rear hubs, ordered a new fuel tank and sending unit. Rebuilt shocks from Peter C. New shock links and axle bumps. Replaced the spring bushings and pads. Brake shoes and cylinder kits ordered. Getting ready to mount the new SU pump and Facet pump for backup. Found the DPO, emphasis on the "D", put in new brake lines and eliminated the hose at the rear axle, just used brake pipe. He even cut off the bracket on the body where the hose mounts.

Shirley will not be at the meeting but I plan on being there.

See you then
Tom Smith

Notes form the March meeting BCG and a couple of other things.

Well, I can say the March was an interesting month for the MBCG and my self. Shirley and I arrived a little early for the meeting at Talula's and found them surprised and confused. Seems they did not know we were coming. Except for one person being turned away before we arrived it turned out ok. I would like to know who it was and apologize to that person. I have called and verified our reservations for the April meeting.

Some members were out of town so the meeting was not as heavily attended but there were a couple faces I have not seen previously. Hope to see them again. Bring a friend.

To start the meeting we had two guests from the Road Apples Car Club. President Rachael McKenzie and car show committee chair, Tim Yamriska. www.roadapples.org They told of the Saturday in the Park Car Show scheduled for this coming June 26.

Rachael told of the charities that will be supported and invited us to take part. Both to show our cars and to help with the show for those inclined. To find out more, the Road Apples next meeting will be held on Monday, April 12 at 6:30 p.m. at Culvers East Towne. (Normally Tuesday but had to be changed this time.)

Tim explained that we could help in a number of ways. One thing they need is to know what we would like to see for categories for our cars. The general consensus was to have one or two categories to see how it would work. Tim also said they could use help for things like judging, parking cars, and the many other things that need to be done. He did point out that for anyone wishing to help judge those people would need to participate in the practice judging that will be done on a couple of occasions at their cruise nights held at Culver's East Towne Tuesday evenings during the summer.

Shirley and I have been members of the Road Apples for a couple years. We are the only British cars in the club and have had a great deal of fun. Like the people in the MBCG they are fun and welcome us.

Check their web site and contact myself, Rich Bogan, or Dave Griffith with questions about the show. I hope to see our Group represented so also let Rich know who might attend. http://www.roadapples.org/Car Show.htm"

This show is an opportunity to show as a club in a local place. We are welcome to put up our tent and hang our banner. It provides an opportunity to meet people and maybe pick up some new members.

The next business was to decide to order nametags. We decided to order the smaller quantity to not deplete our treasury too much. BTW, the treasury is now about $xxx.xx [WM] , but I don't remember the actual amount.

Steve Blair gave a short report on the plans to move the web site to a new server. The site has been fine, until Thursday, but it is now on a server controlled by a person that is not an active member and, I might be wrong, but may not be a member at all. The web site is very important to us and I am convinced we need to have a better handle on it. This is also true of the domain registration, which is in the same situation. This is being addressed with hope of a conclusion in the near future.

So, if anyone tried to access the web site a few weeks ago and happened to find it down. What happened was that the person having administrative responsibility pointed the domain to the new server. Unfortunately we decided to go with the offer that Steve Blair made and not the server that had been planned for the move. That server was not set to serve up our site. I was in contact with the person responsible for the domain he reset his server, I checked and have been back online. So, even though the person that has been responsible has taken care of us I do believe we need to step up and take care of this ourselves.

Shirts, I inherited several shirts with the old Madison MG Group logo. I asked for ideas of what to do with them. Got some interesting response to that question. Anyway, what was decided is for me to bring those that are left to the next meeting. There were seven, four were claimed at the meeting, which leaves three that I will bring to the April meeting and give those at the meeting the chance to take them, for FREE. Then any left are to be given to Goodwill. Believe me, this was easily the best suggestion that was offered.

Dave Griffith is also looking into a source for business cards. They will have information about the Group and a place to write or print your name, or make your mark. This is something we can give out for any reason, one being to "lure" potential members.

Dave Griffith is also the "chairman" of the evening drives for this summer. Anyone having ideas of where we can wander off too let Dave know.

Steve Blair hosted a tech session on the 27th of March. The plan was to rebuild the front suspension of his Midget. After talking to Steve it was mostly the dismantling part of the rebuild. I believe Steve will report his ongoing story.

One more thing about the meetings, I would like to see "show-n-tell" sessions. These would be just short, 10 or 15 minutes, presentations of some new part, tool, and accessory, a trip, or whatever. Kind of like when I brought my new horns a couple months ago. (The horns are now installed and can be demonstrated) At the last meeting I was going to present a short thing about gapping spark plugs and how the tool I have works. Unfortunately the meeting ran a little long so I will do that presentation next time. I would like to see others take part and bring something to show to tell about. Just give me a heads up so we can work it in.

And finally, this is not from the meeting, I have been working on a project concerning front wheel bearings for Spridgets. This has been going on for many months and has involved people around the globe. It has also resulted in enquiries being sent to at least 80 bearing manufacturers. This is the result up to now, thought you might be interested. http://smithtr6.com/bearings.htm After nearly a year of searching I finally found a source for the correct bearings and now have a set on our kitchen table. Where else would they be, right? I will document some details of the bearings and the installation process. That will include how to deal with the "loose" bearing problem some have found after replacing their bearings.

Hope to see everyone at Talula's on April 14th for the next MBCG meeting. Tom Smith President

Tom's GT6

I had one of the first GT6's. It was numbered in the 200's, 247 or 249 seems to come to mind.

I remember falling for the pictures of the GT6 in the full page magazine ads and had to have one. At that time I was driving a pristine late '64 BRG TR4 with wires, leather seats and wood dash. Looking back, that TR was my favorite car ever.

Anyway, in a moment of weakness, I traded my TR4 for a 67 white GT6. It was sleek and very fast. It had a classy clean look with the good sense to not have chrome do-dads hung on every surface imaginable. I was smitten and not too concerned about the absence of that beautiful TR. After all, cars like that would be made forever, right?

Well, I went right out and started to have fun with the GT6. While negotiating some of my favorite curves I found out right away that the IRS acted much different in corners than my old solid axle TR. The GT6 wanted to plow into the corner and finally come around. This was unpredictable and felt really unstable. After a little experimenting I found that when I went into a corner hard that if I would make a quick over-steer I could set the GT6 into a 4-wheel drift and power through the corner. With that newfound knowledge I proceeded to have more fun than any one person is entitled to. Certainly more than I recommend now that I am old enough to realize how insane it was.

So the cornering problem was not only figured out but also turned out to be far better than the TR was. I have stories about the TR also. I used to hang with a couple of local circle track drivers and we ....... well maybe some other time. Getting back to the GT6, I had some dissatisfaction with the ignition system in general. It seemed to break down at higher rpm's and I never liked to set my timing with the static system. I always felt that was simply an approximation at best. So I replaced the coil with a Mallory and did some experimentation to find the best settings for dwell and timing. I used to tune the car, including the carburetors and valves, on a monthly basis and checked the timing every week. Excessive, maybe, but I ran hard, rarely under 80 mph.

This was a tough little car but running hard breaks things. I had to rebuild the rear end and the transmission each once. And the spedo needle fell off twice, yup, just fell off and laid there. I also had to do a valve job once. I had regular gas put in once by accident and it did not work well.

Then there was the time when I spun the splines out of one of the wire wheel hubs. The wheel turned off the spinner and passed me and went down the road a quarter mile on its own. That brought on a set of American Wheel 8-spoke magnesium wheels. Light as a feather and the handling was much better. Tires were a problem. There must have been some bad rubber produced those days. Tires just did not last. I had new Goodyear radials put on once to try them. A few quick weeks and 5,000 miles later all 4 were bald. I mentioned to my Dad that I was going to buy new tires and he said I should not buy Goodyear's again because they could not be very good. It was kind of funny, he never bought Goodyear's for the rest of his life.

In those days the Sunbeam Tiger had a reputation for speed and power. It seemed to intimidate to the point that it was not challenged often. Well.... Between the town where I lived and the town where Shirley, now my wife, lived in was a long hill. I knew that I could go over red line all the way down that hill. The tachometer worked out to 1,000rpm x .02 = mph. Red line was 7,000. Like I said, it was a long hill, not too steep, just long. Well, as I was leaving the town where Shirley lived a car came up behind me and passed. What do you know, it was a Tiger! Well I knew a run on the flat or up hill was in his favor. I also was being watched rather carefully by the police, never understood that. The Tiger tried to egg me on and I just drove the speed limit and pretended he was not having any effect. Pick the time and place, right. Well we kept getting closer to the hill and I even let him get a little ahead as we went up the hill. On top I started to position myself and as his taillights went out of sight when he went over the ridge I turned my GT6 loose. Well, I went by like he was parked. The race was over almost before it started. He turned into a spot of light in the distance so quick that I am sure he was stunned. Then his lights started flashing. I pulled over and he pulled in behind. He was in awe and wanted to know what kind of engine I had put in my car. He was amazed when I told him it was just the "little" engine that came stock. Then he asked me to join his sport car club.

I went through radar on top of that hill once. I actually did not see the State Trouper's car. I did not even know he was after me until I got to the bottom of the hill and saw his lights still back on top, about a mile back. Well, I pulled into a gas station around the next corner. I had the bonnet up and was "checking" the oil when he finally pulled in. He got out and walked around the car a few times like he was trying to figure the little car out. Finally he said, "I bet this little car really goes". I responded with, "Well, it keeps up with traffic pretty good". His face got red and he explained that he knew it was me and I knew it was me and that he could not do anything about it because he could not even get close enough to identify the car. He also mentioned that if there was a next time not me or my brother would be able to get me out of jail. I did not drive the GT6 much after that. It simply did not like to behave and I knew what would happen. I eventually sold it in 1976. But I did drive my 65 GTO that would pick the front wheels in 2 gears. But that is another story.

I now have a 76 TR6 and it is much better behaved, not perfect though! And the trooper must be surely retired by now!