Oscar Petree's Journal

I've been pretty busy with my 53 TD. In mid-December 2020 I pulled the gearbox. There was difficulty shifting into 3rd gear up shifting and downshifting was impossible. I took the gear box to Astro Transmission in Tavares, FL. Jerry there works on MG's, and is a manual shift guy. This is a long story here, and I had help from a friend along the way. Short version is the gearbox had a bunch of worn out stuff... So parts were replaced as necessary. After reinstalling the transmission new insulation and carpeting was installed. This made a "New" car out of the TD as it now shifted smoothly, and is driving great!

In late January I removed the differential for installation of 4.3:1 MGA gears. These gears go in the original rear end so it's totally stock appearing. I live in Ocala, FL and most of the "MG" events take place about 100 miles from here. So I don't like to run the TD over about 3800 rpms when cruising. My self set max cruise with the original rear end gearing of 5.125:1 was about 53-54 mph. Now with the new gearing I can easily cruise at 60. I get 65 mph at 4000 rpms indicated. BTW, I'm using a GPS on an iPhone as a speedometer for now.

The charts say I should be faster... My plan is to try to determine if my tachometer is accurate. I now need to send my speedometer off for calibration. That is a story for another time.

The latest efforts have been to have the car repainted two tone. This required removing the wings and then reinstalling them after the painting was completed. I foolishly picked a color I liked and had the painting completed... Then I reassembled the car only to hate the color combo. As did everyone else. This time I got Janet (my wife) involved in the choice of color. This was a necessary step overlooked the 1st time. Won't happen again. So now I have a two tone British Racing Green and Vanilla 53 TD. I love it now. More later...