Postcards From Myself

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To make room – both physical and mental – for the TR4

Posted via email from Carnellm’s Posterous

I can never be without a toy for long. And by toy I really mean a car. Without something to tinker with, I am just not happy. And ever since the age of about 19 that toy has really had to be British. Once you get British cars in your blood, they never come out. Kind of like stains. Maybe it comes from inhaling a combination of Castrol oil and brake fluid along with rust. Don’t know, but I have the sickness bad. And, beyond just being British, I am addicted to MGs. Yes, I have MG hats, shirts, belts, key rings, posters, book, glasses, toys, and much more. Even an official MG dart board. (Me making my wife take time out from our English vacation to visit Abingdon, the birthplace of MGS, and the Heritage Motor Museum is an entirely different story.)

Anyway, back to the task at hand. Because of this addiction and because no one had the foresight to ban me from searching Craigslist, I am now the owner of a 1973 MG Midget that is in need of a wee bit of restoration. Although according to my friend Pat Stuckart, “saying this car needs a bit of work is like saying the Titanic needed a bit of buoyancy.” Some friend he is!

I have posted one picture of the car here, but if you click on that picture you can go to the full site I have about the car. Yes, another odd addiction of mine is making websites for anything that I get my hands on. If you would like to see it directly, just go to my MG Midget Page.

So, now you know what I will be doing in my rare “off moments” for the next few months. Or maybe years. I am still convinced that it is not as bad as it looks. Which in and of itself is a really good thing! But also, while my wife and her friends adopt stray dogs and protect them from pounds and being put down, I do the same thing for ailing British cars. I just can’t stand to see a car with any chance of life be parted out, sent to the junkyard, or worse yet set to the crusher. It just kills me a bit somewhere inside. Of course, again, that could be the chemicals and rust having their way with me.

Actually, as odd as it sounds, I really do enjoy fixing cars. Maybe it is the fact that I get to hit things with hammers. Maybe it is that working on a car, at least the old ones, is so different from the computer, database, and web work I normally do. Hey, I get the chance to get really filthy dirty! In fact, at the moment, what I am really looking to find is a 1971 to 1974 MGBGT. I love them, had one as my first car, and am anxious to get another one. So, if you know where one is close to Charleston, SC, please let me know!

The only thing I don’t like about automotive work is paying for car parts! How do all my hobbies somehow involve spending money? Yes, I am always looking for discount car parts. Oh, you can find cheap parts – you know the ones that may last you until you get to the end of the driveway, but what I really want is good sources for quality parts. And the right ones too! If you are looking for Toyota parts, you don’t want to have to “just alter it a bit.” I was told this numerous times when working on my old BMW 2002. It was even worse when I was trying to find some parts for a 1986 BMW 325e! People would say, “Oh, this part will work fine if you just reroute this wire and shave a bit of metal off here with a grinder.” Pardon me? That wasn’t the way the part or the car were designed.

Recently I have been looking for a few odds and ends for the 2001 Ford Escape that I drive. It has just reached that age, meaning out of warranty and paid off, when small things start to break. First it was the solenoid for the tailgate release. Then the heater knob. Now a vacuum connection. None of them are very large parts, but they can be hard to find and at times expensive. Other than scrounging through junk yards – which is actually great fun and I do a good bit – I find myself prowling the web for parts.

While doing that web prowling, I came across a site called Go-Part.com. They have all kinds of discount parts for everything from the aforementioned Toyota to my Ford Escape. And for those wild children who care, yes they even have Jeep parts. Now they don’t have everything but they have the most commonly needed parts, and they carry good quality brands like DEPO, Koyo, and Modine. They also carry accessories and have and toll free number to help you if you can’t figure out or find what you’re looking for.

So, give them a try, let me know if you find my elusive MGB GT, and also let me know if you find any good salvage yards that have that elusive heater knob for my Escape.

I have a site for those muddle masses among us who are British car fans. It is JustBritish and I have been running it for a few years now. Why I am mentioning it now is that I have just finished the first thrust of a major redesign. If you are so inclined, and I hope you are, I would be most grateful if you would visit the site and let me know what you think.

I have been a British car fan since I was a young boy. I think the very first car I ever fell in love with was an MG TC. To me it was more than a car, it was a that most hackneyed of expressions, a rolling sculpture. I built at least two models of TCs during the young summers when I kept repeatedly breaking my leg. Later on, after finally getting a license and a job with enough money to warrant a car, my first car was a 1971 MG B GT. I always loved the look of the hardtop GTs a bit more than the convertible Bs.

Due to only having enough money to buy the car but not to have it worked on when it needed help, I learned to work on my own cars. This was something totally out of the norm for me or most of my family. But I loved it. I ended up working for a foreign car parts shop, learning more than I can ever imagine from the owner who became a life long friend, and starting down that long road to car fanaticism. Along the way I started the British Car Club of Charleston (still in existence 25 years later), met some of the most amazing people, owned more old British relics than I had years on my body, and found a wife who would put up with all this!

But, back to the site. I have been working on this site with forums and events and classifieds and such for many years. Recently though I have decided that I need to really do something with it. And so … the site redesign. I have started by making the main site a blog. I have a few more things to do there, but once complete I will move on to refining, and hopefully speeding up, the forums. And then from there who knows!

So, if you can spare a moment, please stop by. And if you are “one of us”, please sign up for the news feed, leave a note, and become a regular. Most of the cars are small, but there is always room for one more.