Here is an MGC for rocker panels and brake work. Let me tell you this is one unusual car. only a few thousand we’re ever produced. And I can tell you without lying that I’ve never seen anything like it. it was truly fun to work on this car and I am happy I took the job. I am definitely going to keep my eyes out for another one of these baby. I liked it so much I want one for myself. we’ve also added cross bars to keep this baby from becoming a banana because of how rusted out it is.
These are from a 1979 MGB. We’ve rebuilt the complete suspension with new springs and bushing. We’ve done the engine twenty over. New pistons and new cam. Also added new king pins. Rebuilt the rockers, inner and outer. Replaced the rear dog legs. Along with a new transmission.
Here is a great local car that I have done lots of restoration to over the years. including the engine and and the carb swap. I will flush this out a little later email me if you have any questions about the solution to your Stromberg problems. the photos show a unfinished mock up throttle cable bracket.
Finally my year long rebuild of this Moke is coming to an end. It started off as just another rust bucket in the shop and now it really stands out. We’ve completely redone everything on this car. As you can see we have a timeline of pictures mapping out the process. The painstaking reconstruction of the body has really paid off. Its truly a beauty. And the nice suttle pink paint job is to die for. we still have some wiring to do before we can say its polished off. But be assured we’ll have new pictures of the finished product when were done.
Here is a local favorite, when this car is at the shop it always draws attention and the phone rings with inquires about the price.. only to be met with “Sorry it is not for sale.”
we had the car in for some welding on the spring mount area and the old tyre gave out. take a look at this spectacular blow out, rarely do we see such site.
This is a Blue mini I sold and we striped it to bare metal and repainted in Tahiti blue and diamond white. we did lots of repairs.
Why spend 50 cents for it to work every time, when you can spend 25 cents and it works slightly more than half the time?
Bodgers are frugal beasts. That can, in fact, be the whole point. Why pay so much money for the correct part when you can pay a little bit less to make a part that will probably do the same thing almost the right way most of the time? If you pay 1/2 as much to ‘roll your own’ and it works more than 1/2 the time, you win! You get more bang for your buck! This is a prime example of that mentality. Here we have a Distributor Ground Wire, a very important piece to keep your Mini running, let alone running well. Instead of dropping the…oh, let’s say $1 for a new one, a lot of thinking was done and it was decided that it would be better to just make a grounding wire…that’s not too hard, is it?
Oh, sure, maybe not, maybe not awful, but possibly the execution wasn’t the best. The solder on this wire came off the connections, producing the classic ‘loose connection’. Yes, we saw some very strange behavior with this setup: When hooked up to a timing light, the light would blink-blink-blink-blink-stop…and the Mini was still running…strange…then it would continue to blink. No, this isn’t the funniest bodge we’ve ever had, and it’s not the most awful looking, but this is a bodge none-the-less due to the failure prone design and strange behavior, two very important attributes to any good bodge!
Proof that Rubber Gloves aren’t just for keeping hands dry
Moisture can cause all sorts of problems. It can aid your cars rusting efforts, given enough time it can erode almost anything, it can make even the best electrical system operate like a Lucas system, and perhaps worst of all… It can make your hands look like prunes. Sure, water and moisture can be good, in fact, it’s mostly good, but this isn’t a debate about whether or not moisture is inherently good or bad, it just is what it is, and it has it’s thorns. On many cars, even the slightest bit of moisture can cause problems. In this particular example, moisture on the distributor cap was the problem. Since a Mini is a 4-cylinder and the coil is remotely located, there are a total of 5 cables going into the dis tributor, and they don’t like to get wet. Coincidentally, people generally have 5 fingers and don’t like their hands to get wet. This Bodge is an ingenious combination of those two facts and uses something made for people and puts it on a car to achieve nearly the same thing. The Bodger who did this clipped the tips of the fingers off on a rubber glove, then zip-tied it onto the distributo r to keep water out. The only problem with this is that the rubber glove isn’t designed to handle petroleum products, so it wore out quickly.
One has to really ask themselves something about this…Sure this is a bodge job…but is there a better way to fix this? Is there a part in production that wi ll have cured this problem without using kitchen supplies? Is there a way to fix this and keeping it to look nice and good? Well, the answer is ‘yes’ and the solution is a product called ‘WD-40′. Most people use WD-40 as a lubricant and penetrating oil, and it works for that, but that’s not what it was designed for. Wikipedia defines WD-40 as a product to “to elim inate water and prevent corrosion on electrical circuitry. It stands for ‘Water Displacement, 40th attempt.’”
It is certainly possible that the Bodger used WD-40 as a first attempt, but our experience shows that if it doesn’t work the first time, try it again, and if i t still doesn’t work, try it again, hell, it even says it in the title, on your 40th attempt things should be working perfectly fine! It will likely have form and function over a rubber glove…unless you’re into that sort of thing.
band-aids aren’t just for people.
Sometimes, if you’re on the road and have had something break on your automobile, you usually can do a quick bodge job to get by until you get home or can get the correct parts and pieces to fix the problem properly. These often can be successful bodges, fine examples of creative engineering. In situations like this, being a bodger has its benefits with not having to spend hundreds or even thousands of dollars on towing and repair fees. Yes, that is bodging at its best. In situations like this, one may find themselves really scraping together something out of nothing, doing the proverbial more with less – commonly regarded as good engineering. In extreme examples, one may find themselves out of duct tape, and thus resort to extreme measures, such as rope, or even worse: band-aids.
Yes, occasionally we need to resort to the first aid kit for people, to fix our cars. Generally the first aid kit doesn’t have the right bits, since humans tend to heal themselves, automobiles never really heal themselves, they just make you think they did so that you can put off fixing the problem, then they can break again at a more inconvenient time…like at a crowded beach, or in bumper to bumper traffic.
The unfortunate truth is that is not what happened here. We have a real band aid fix, it uses a nice big band-aid, but there are clues of permanent intentions. This band-aid is actually screwed to the steering column. The band-aid acts much like a washer for the screw, and strapping to hold the two pieces together. This bodge is actually so ridiculous, it doesn’t really require much explanation, just the fact that someone screwed through a band-aid to hold some things together is enough to be our bodge for this week.
We have no really good pictures, but we do have a video that shows this bodge fairly well.
bandaid.mpg
This is a classic bodge. When a fuse blows, the bodger thinks carefully and comes to the conclusion that anything designed to break – such as a fuse – is obviously a poor design, and can be fixed by simply removing it from the system. This bodge incorporates the knowledge that copper wire is flexible and will hold a shape, leading to the conclusion that a proper spade connector is a luxury, not a necessity. Another aspect to this bodge is the high quality connectors in the wiring harness, which require cutting the harness. For helping the Lucas wiring system along its path to a questionable reliability and fire prone design in the interest of saving $5, this bodge job receives our very first “Bodge of the week” award!
