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Simon's 1974 BGT
Simon's Saga:
I
bought this GT in Aug ‘04, after a long, wide ranging search. I had wanted an
MG since my teens, but had always been too ‘sensible’ to buy one, however,
while rapidly approaching 40 and a few circumstance changes, I seemed to have a
rush of blood to the head and decided to start looking for one to buy. Not being
the most technical person in the world I
immediately started looking for advice and guidance to get some idea of how to
find what I was looking for. My first port of call was the MG Owners Club, a
large organisation with plenty of eager members and plenty of support for the
‘newbies’. After hooking up with a few local MG enthusiasts via the message
board/forum on the MGOC website, I started to get some hints and tips of what to
look for etc. To my surprise, rather than just giving me a few tips they offered
to come and have a look at some cars with me, and so the long search began.
At
this point I had an idea that I wanted a ‘68/’69 GT, as original and classic
looking as possible i.e. British racing green, black or red car with cream, red
or black leather upholstery respectively, wire wheels, chrome bumpers, the whole
‘classic’ look, all for around £4k. The first car I went to look at
however, was on my own (I couldn’t wait to ‘go see’) it was a black ‘70
GT listed for £2000 by a local lady owner. My first viewing was a difficult
one, I didn’t know enough about it really, I was just walking around the car
looking at all of the cosmetic bits and pieces, I opened the bonnet but didn’t
know why, I looked blankly and thought “well, it looks ok”. I suppose it
took about half an hour or so, but half of that was just sitting in it fiddling
with the controls. I never took it for a drive and never started it up, I
couldn’t wait to get away in all honesty. But then the fun began, Iain Cameron
came with me to look at what seemed to be an ideal candidate, BRG, wires
‘69/’70, £3500 (I think), pictures looked great, but as I soon discovered,
they ALL do! Iain started looking in all the right places from the outset,
he never looked at the cosmetics, he looked under the car, at the bodywork and
sills, in the wheel arches, in the boot behind the rear light cluster, the seams
on the outside and foot-wells on the inside, I don’t think he new what colour
it was, it didn’t matter at this stage. To be honest the car would not of been
out of place in a circus, with a clown driving! Iain started it up and within 30
seconds the fan belt flew off in tatters, the doors didn’t fit properly, the
sills were not lined up it was in a bad way all round, and the seller wanted £3500!
We made our excuses and left, I still think the bloke thought it was worth the
money with a new fan belt!
I
was beginning to realise that this was going to be more difficult than I had
first thought, not only was it difficult to find anything locally to go and look
at, but when you got there you never new what you were going to find! Over the
coming months I looked at about 12 cars, everything from rubber bumper V8’s to
chrome bumper’68’s just to get some experience at looking, using Iain’s
checklist each time. Martin Williamson even went to look at one for me in a
place near Bath, however, it was just out of my price range, apparently a superb
example of an early GT which ticked all the boxes. I was gutted at that time,
just couldn’t find the right thing at the right price, everything seemed to be
either £500 or £4500 with little in between.
After
spending weeks scouring the internet on ebay, autotrader, garages and any other
places that sold cars every day and night, a car popped up on autorader one
evening. I phoned the guy straight away, to his amazement as he had only placed
the ad 15 mins before. I phoned Martin as it was near his home and we arranged
to look at it that night. Although viewing the car in the fading light, it
became clear to me that this was the one, I had, in desperation, been tempted by
a couple of rubber bumper models, a project car half completed and a few well
dodgy looking MG’s but this one, although not ticking all of the boxes, was as
about as close as I was going to get to my ideal car! On inspection we found
some bubbling in the paintwork in the usual areas, some dampness in the
boot, and found out that the car had only done about 200 miles in about two
years and had been stood in a garage for the rest of the time. This sounded like
a good thing to me at the time, but as Martin pointed out a car that’s been
stood for a while can have problems the owner doesn’t know about, and problems
could surface once the car starts being driven. However, the car was £1300
below my budget so I thought I could spend that on anything that came up. It was
a 2ltr engine with chrome bumpers, chrome wire conversion, Koni shocks and grey
leather/walnut interior, with 65k miles on the MGOC engine fitted at restoration
in ‘96-‘98, a full service history, photographic records, and all bills etc.
So the next morning I offered the seller £2700 for it and he accepted, when I
went to pick it up a few days later, I realised he was obviously selling for the
wrong reasons as he was crying as I pulled away!
And so the real work began! First things first, Martin had kindly offered to help/show me how to do a full service on the car as well as a garage to work in and a bed for the night, so we got the car in the garage closed the doors and set to work. I had visions of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, Martin had visions of a very long weekend! On that first weekend I really got to know about my car, we got under it and gave it the full once over, we poked and prodded everywhere before making a big jobs list, we then headed to Welsh MG and got the various bits and pieces to do the service. After changing the oil/filters, spark plugs/leads, points and greasing every nipple available as well as lubricating everything that moved we started to look at the performance of the engine. It became clear after a few trips around the lanes that the engine needed a good tune up. We set about dismantling and cleaning the carbs, fitting a new fuel line and filter and generally sprucing things up a bit in the engine bay. We then started to look at the timing, distributor and balancing/setting up the carbs and after a few hours of playing around we finally got the job done.
After
this first long weekend I drove the car home with a big smile on my face for the
whole journey. I then started on the process of ‘driving out’ the problems
over the next few weeks. I started using the car every day as I had intended and
soon started noticing little, mainly cosmetic things as I went.
...To Be Continued