Journal Entry

Its was one of those dark overcast days with intermittent rain, as I drove down the street, the sun suddenly broke through clouds and I looked to my right and saw her sitting in a parking lot of a condo complex and with a for sale sign. A quick u-turn and a few disgruntled drivers, I was parked next to her. She had a good body with a few small rust bubbles (smaller than a dime) on the front fender, No bondo, no major collision (a small hard to see body repair on the passenger door), a very straight body with shiny paint and the color I wanted Green (not BRG, but close). I called the number and the owner was home. He had just that week sold his house and moved the car from a garage to the condo parking lot and only that morning put up the sign. We went for a test drive, he was honest about the car and was afraid the rear end needed replaced, what with loud clunking & thumping when driven along with being hard to start and no acceleration. The interior was very faded & worn, several gages didn’t work, but she had great potential and a GOOD price. After I had bought and paid for her, I thought it best to ask my wife, she was not overly enthusiastic about the car until she saw it and remembered the good times we had in the MGA & 1978 MGB.

We drove her home and into the garage, that night I found the rear end noises were a bad u-joint and a loose shock. In the next few weeks I found the rear brakes were binding because the hoses were clogged (that was the loss of acceleration), I did a total brake job with all hoses & rebuild both brake & clutch master & all slave cylinders and put in electronic ignition along with a good tune up (that cured the hard starting) & oil changes for engine, transmission & rear end. I then started to clean 30 years (was 1975 that long ago??!!) of dirt, grime and accumulated crud off the car. With all that gone I was surprised to find she was in better condition than I though, with good compression (150 on all cylinders) and very little rust. "Bea" looked great at "10feet", ran & drive good, just what I wanted, a good driver, but that interior was VERY faded!!!!