We had a full staff today -- and by mid afternoon, after the high school and college kids came in the shop was really humming with activity! Casey worked all day removing a difficult engine/gearbox from a 1964 MGB so I could service the overdrive. You see him in the pictures heating the exhaust manifold so he could change the six exhaust studs. Curt spent the majority of the day assembling the Midget 1500 engine (he's standing next to it). I fitted the timing gears, front cover and sump to an XPAG engine, then spent the majority of the day reworking a pair of 40048 Lucas distributors for a fellow's pair of TC's. They boys spent the afternoon removing and cleaning parts from a 1979 MGB LE that we're restoring.
Casey loves animals. He found a lone field mouse in the parking lot last week and tried to nurse it to health. Marvin didn't make it, but that was after he'd purchased a cage. So, this weekend he purchased Bob, a white rat, who accompanied him to work (in the cage) for our enjoyment.
Lisa was very proud of bowling a 565 last night with her league.
One customer called about 8:10 this morning looking for factory Mini-lites to fit his factory Sebring MGB/GT. I wasn't able to help. During the technical hour I answered several questions from a fellow in Los Angeles who was timing his MGB to which he had fitted electronic ignition. Another fellow called from North Carolina asking about the costs involved with removing a TF engine (very expensive, as it's necessary to disassemble the front of the body!).
If you've made it this far, I want to talk a little about our Gross Cabinet. I named it thus since it has 144 drawers. In this wonderful cabinet we keep nearly all of our US, BSF, and French Metric nuts, bolts, and washers. There are drawers for star washers, nylock nuts, brass nuts, tall nuts -- gosh -- what a wonderful piece. It was built by the Sherer-Gillett Company in Marshall, Michigan in about 1912 for my great grandfather's mail order firm. My father worked at Sherer from 1947 to 1979 (he was the president of the firm from 1964). It was bought out and moved (and renamed) to Atlanta. Sherer was a supplier of cabinets to grocery stores and eventually entered commercial refrigeration. But before all that they made these type of wooden cabinets. My grandfather designed the drawers to accept a specific sized card on which they kept order and re-order information. Several of the drawers are signed. The one holding 5/16 split helical lockwashers has "Ruth 1944" on the side. My g-grandfather signed one drawer -- over on the right side, down low -- I've forgotten which one, and dated it 1912. My cousin was running the family firm in 1975 and gave this piece to me. What a guy! We use it every day.
It was about 15F today. All the cars outside started -- two needed a shot of carburetter cleaner to fire -- then they ran on their own. One 1967 MGB has a low battery so five of us pushed that one inside. All but one of us had gloves today!
