Bryan Durham's Journal

Just another picture

I removed the interior and stripped the old carpet out of the car. Very plesantly surprised with the condition of the floorbpards. Very little rust. There is some damage in the driver's footwell that will have to be fixed. The floorboard is split for about 5 inches where it meets the forward most support beam. A prior owner tried to lift the car by the floorboards and pushed them upward. When I finally straightened them out after 30+ years, the sheetmetal was split at the spotwelds. Oh well fixable. Pictures posted of the floors. The more I dig into this car, the better I like it.

Replaced the Sprite grill that came with the car with an original Midget grill. Changed the car completely.
I also put a new top on it. Replaced the black top with a bright red one that matches the interior.
We took the car to a car show over the weekend of 28 Feb-1 Mar. Didn't win any thophies, but then again didn't expect to. Far too many trailer queens were there. It did get quite a few votes as "people's choice" though, which was plesant.
One really exciting thing that happened during the show was a man ccame up, introduced himself and told me he was the owner of the car from 1968 until 1998. He was very pleased to see the car and filled me in on a lot of history. He was familiar with the car from the time it was pretty new until he lost touch with it in 2002. It was delivered to the dealer in town in the spring of 63, and was sold in March of 64 to an older couple who bought it to pull behind a camper as a tooling around car during their travels. They paid around 1500 for it new, which is about a dollar a pound. It traveled around the country between 64 and early 68 when a bearing froze up in the transmission, mileage was 32000. They sold the car to a young guy who had the gravel chips on the front end fixed and the fenders, hood and everything back to the "A" pillar repainted. So, the front end paint is 41 years old and the back end is most likely original. He also had the windshield replaced (date code on the windshield is 2-67). The guy must have run out of money and never had the gearbox repaired. He sold it to the man I met, who fixed the gearbox and replaced the seatcovers. He drove it occasionally until 1973 when the gearbox failed again. He fixed it and immediately afterward, the engine started knocking. Disgusted, the guy parked the car in a storage building and pretty much forgot about it until 1998 (Mileage was around 33000). In 98, he took it out, cleaned it up and sold it. The next owner rebuilt the knocking engine, carbs replaced the master cyl, all the brakes, clutch, wheel bearings, exhaust new tires ect, so his wife could use it as a daily driver. The car ended up sitting a lot, so they sold it in 2002 to the guy I got it from (Mileage still around 33000, but the speedometer quit working). The next owner drove it sparingly in the summer in 2002-2003, then unfortunately, had to have his left leg amputated. He had trouble getting in and out and pushing the clutch, so parked the car in his garage and left it until 2008 when he finally decided to sell it. That's where I came in...

Haven't really done, or had to do a lot to the car yer. I have spent the last several weeks, going over the electrical system, fixing the little "bugs" and cleaning connections. This car is amazingly clean and unmolested. Every time I get under it, or dig into things, I am amazed about how lucky I was to find such a car, and within 25 miles of my home.

Today, I decided to unhook the silly aftermarket temp gauge that the PO mounted under the dash, and hook up the original tube from the dual gauge. The tube was coiled up and flex linked to the wire harness on the fender well. Well, I dipped the sender in hot water, and the needle immediately started to climb. I hooked it up and started the car. Lo and behold, it works and seems to be pretty accurate. The car has a 180 thermostat in it, and at operating temp, the gauge reads just over 180. As did the aftermarket when it was attached. Needless to say, the aftermarket gauge came out. The dash is coming right along! Just need a few instrument bulbs, a correct Smiths speedometer (the one in there is a Jaeger from an MGA, I think) and to figure out that tempermental fuel gauge and I think I'll have it for now.