aluminum blocks and other mods
Posted: Sat Mar 04, 2000 11:21 am
It is certainly not my intent to attack TATerry or anyone else
personally and I will be very pleased to make some positive comments
based on my 40 years experience driving a TC. Back around the time that
I bought my TC which was the spring of 1960, it was not at all uncommon
to see TCs, TDs, even pre-war cars in daily everyday use or parked on
the street much as you might see an MGB in use today, I did a little
racing and I used to hang out at the old Thompson race track in the N.E.
corner of Connecticut and others, I remember there were a couple of guys
who had put Ford V-8 60s into their TCs, other popular conversions were
Triumph and Volvo engines. While these cars mostly went faster than the
stock ones, I noticed that these well intentioned attempts at
"improvement" ultimately hastened these "better" cars arrival at the
local scrap yard, I well remember the rows of butchered TCs and TDs at
Stuckey's junkyard in Staten Island, NY during the mid 1960s, of course,
some of them were eventually restored back to their original
configuration also. The point that I am trying to make here is that by
re-designing/re-engineering/updating/modernizing/ a major component of
one's MG, while I'm sure one's intentions are honorable, just as were
the intentions of those guys "updating" and "improving" their cars with
V8-60s and while the car may seem to be better off for a while, in the
end, you will have something that is certainly no longer an MG and
probably less than an MG. I would like to make it clear at this point
that I am not just addressing the issue of aluminum blocks but also to
all the other mods I have been reading about such as mods to wheel
bearings, spindles, steering, lighting, electrical, timber framing, and
others.
I don't believe that we actually own our old cars, I believe that we are
really acting as temporary custodians to a little piece of history and
as such, it behooves us to maintain the original design integrity and
not to alter it on personal whim or to satisfy an ego. I believe we owe
that to history and to the future "owners" of our cars.
Derek Durst
TATERRY@aol.com wrote:
personally and I will be very pleased to make some positive comments
based on my 40 years experience driving a TC. Back around the time that
I bought my TC which was the spring of 1960, it was not at all uncommon
to see TCs, TDs, even pre-war cars in daily everyday use or parked on
the street much as you might see an MGB in use today, I did a little
racing and I used to hang out at the old Thompson race track in the N.E.
corner of Connecticut and others, I remember there were a couple of guys
who had put Ford V-8 60s into their TCs, other popular conversions were
Triumph and Volvo engines. While these cars mostly went faster than the
stock ones, I noticed that these well intentioned attempts at
"improvement" ultimately hastened these "better" cars arrival at the
local scrap yard, I well remember the rows of butchered TCs and TDs at
Stuckey's junkyard in Staten Island, NY during the mid 1960s, of course,
some of them were eventually restored back to their original
configuration also. The point that I am trying to make here is that by
re-designing/re-engineering/updating/modernizing/ a major component of
one's MG, while I'm sure one's intentions are honorable, just as were
the intentions of those guys "updating" and "improving" their cars with
V8-60s and while the car may seem to be better off for a while, in the
end, you will have something that is certainly no longer an MG and
probably less than an MG. I would like to make it clear at this point
that I am not just addressing the issue of aluminum blocks but also to
all the other mods I have been reading about such as mods to wheel
bearings, spindles, steering, lighting, electrical, timber framing, and
others.
I don't believe that we actually own our old cars, I believe that we are
really acting as temporary custodians to a little piece of history and
as such, it behooves us to maintain the original design integrity and
not to alter it on personal whim or to satisfy an ego. I believe we owe
that to history and to the future "owners" of our cars.
Derek Durst
TATERRY@aol.com wrote:
> Derek, you know we've done business on Ebay....and recently...however if you
> are not interested in a alloy block, why not just continue to lurk on the
> list...why do you have to attack me? You have never surfaced before on this
> list...why now?
> Instead, why don't you say some positive things MG wise so that we all might
> learn from your 40 years of TC driving? I bought my first MG in 1957, TC in
> 1962...I know whats out there...and FYI, I've had a LOT of interest in the
> possibility of a new bare block...so just back off.
> Terry
