Re: [Leica] R8 cars

["Mike Durling" <durling@widomaker.com>]

Tom:

I thought MY MGA was the only one that you had to bang on the fuel pump to
make it work.  That was after I tried to adjust the contacts.  It used to
pop out of gear but at least the shift lever stayed put.

Funny thing is that I bought the car a year after I got my first Leica, but
never took a picture of it.

Mike D

- ----- Original Message -----
From: <TTAbrahams@aol.com>
To: <leica-users@mejac.palo-alto.ca.us>
Sent: Tuesday, February 08, 2000 8:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Leica] R8 cars


> Dale, I have nothing against MGA's, except the fule-pump! I used to carry
a
> hammer that was used to bang on the fuel pump cover when it stopped. It
> invariably did this at busy intersections or at trafficlights. It would
> happily idle until the light turned green and then die!
>  As for cold weather trips in MGA's! A friend of mine and I bought one in
> Stockholm and we were driving it back to southern Sweden. It was January
and
> although cold, no snow. We outfitted ourselves with a couple of leather
> flight suits that we found at a surplus sale. They were very fancy with
built
> in electrical wires for heating the pilot (probably made for old
biplanes).
> The car had no top and no windshield (we were converting it to a track
racer
> and the price was low). We picked up the car and drove off, after a while
we
> got cold, plugged in the suits in the cigarette lighter outlet and found
out
> that the suits were 6 volt and the car put out 12 volt. It was an
interesting
> trip, every 15 minutes we would turn on the suits, after 5-6 minutes smoke
> would erupt from armpits and crotch, pull the plug out, cool down, start
> freezing, plug in the suit again. This was repeated for approximately 7
hours
> for the trip. We both agreed that we knew what a slice of toast felt like
> after that trip! To top it off, it started snowing in the last 2 hours and
we
> were pulled over by the police. 2 young guys in an open sports car, no
> windshield and smoke coming out of their clothing, in the middle of the
> night, during a snowstorm, wonder what made them suspicious?
> Tom A
>