My friend Brent came over early Saturday morning to drive the GT to the All British Field Meet in Bellevue, and I rode the BSA down in convoy with him. The trip was relatively uneventful–only a couple of easily retrieved pieces fell off the BSA and the MGB seeped some oil from the oil cooler, but that was the extent of it.

The BSA took first place…out of two bikes. Can’t say I’m proud of that one. The GT, which took third last year when entered in the wrong category (MGB roadsters), this year was entered in the right category–and failed to place, out of eight GTs entered. It’s the curse of “shiny primer” and red wheels, by gum.

It turns out the misfiring cylinder was nothing more than a bum spark plug. Took a nice ride this evening: Less comfortable than the BSA–but a heck of a lot smoother and faster! It’s funny how power can affect your perceptions; there are some dotted-line byways where driving the MGB or the F250 you think “there’s not enough road to pass, what were they thinking when they striped this?” On the 955i: “there’s plenty of road to pass here, nice of them to be so generous!”

I took “Reg” the 1963 MGB across the pond to a business meeting on Saturday, and the car ran great, as usual. The only real issue recently has been the carburetor dashpot plungers unscrewing themselves every 20 miles or so…once they’ve come undone, the car doesn’t accelerate very well at all. The front carb is worse than the back, but they both do it. Very odd. I’m used some blue locktite to see if that helps, so far it seems to have done the trick, but it’s only been about 60 miles.

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The shot above–featuring a slightly disgusted Your Correspondent–was taken by Peter Laurence (check out his photostream for great shots of the Vancouver ABFM) as I waited for my entry packet in the pouring rain…I had only ridden four miles from the hotel to the gardens, but I was as soaked as I’ve ever been. Friday was gorgeous, and I didn’t even think about packing leathers or rain gear. I didn’t dry out from this 9AM ride until I got back home 12 hours later!
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UPDATE: The stupid thing is NOT fixed. Grrr. Next step…but back to the original post:

The Triumph 955i’s misfire has been cured with the swap in of a new coil pack. This is just a bit distressing as the bike has less than 3000 miles on it, you’d think the life span would be measured in tens of thousands of miles…but maybe just shy of a decade is the other expiration date. Trying to figure out which cylinder was misfiring was a puzzle–the ODB reader thought the bike was running just fine even when it clearly wasn’t. A friend reminded me I had an infrared thermometer, and the solution was at my fingertips.
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Mark Jones of Britsport of Seattle is almost ready to paint the E-Type and sent me these photos today. I’m going to drop by the shop to peek at it on Friday. Very exciting. I guess I should get the rest of my parts out of storage!
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The work on the shop is coming to a close, though it’s nowhere near “done”. However, I have too many other projects backed up, such as getting Reg the 1963 MGB back on the road after the fuel pump packed in last fall. Here I have the MGB on stands, ready to dive underneath and remove the offending component.
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Did what I could to salvage a cruddy low-light shot of the Beezer, taken this past summer. The Casio Exilim is really awful at low-light–hoping to get a new pocket camera soon.

This shot, taken with my cruddy-in-low-light older Casio camera, was from last July en route to the All British Field Meet. I was last aboard that early ferry and so got to park back a bit from the other cars on the boat.

It’s fairly surprising that there isn’t a contiguous pool of oil covering the floor entirely on this side of the new shop building, especially from the prodigiously leaking pair comprising the SD1 and Reg the MGB roadster. (The BSA leaks, but that doesn’t count; the GT doesn’t leak at all.)
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