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Bringing It Home As many of you know I have an Aztec (Center Line Stripe) Yellow 1978 MG Midget. What you may not know is where it�s from and how it got here. The car was originally purchased in Denver, Colorado by some guy named Matt. About 2 months or around 1000 miles, his wife to be decided that a house was eminently more practical than a shoebox on wheels. Up for sale it went and was subsequently purchased by my mother. She had just sold a 1964 Ford Thunderbird convertible and decided that she still needed to have something with a folding lid. So far we are still in the late summer of �78. After a couple of years in Denver she wanted to move to Los Angeles. At this time she had about 10,000 miles on the Midget�s clock. I�ve heard a story about her and my sister crossing the desert in July but I�ll save that for a later time. After arriving and setting up house in LA and finding a new job she made her first trip in LA rush hour in a Midget. I have the documents from the state of California showing a new title application indicating about 11,500 miles. The reason I point this out is I purchased the car from her 17 years later with 13,900 miles on the odometer! If you have ever been to LA you are probably aware that there are not too many places you can go without having to get on one or more freeways to get there. Except for the return trip from work I don�t think she ever took it out more than a few miles after that. She has a good knowledge of automobiles and British autos in general so the car was garaged, covered and basically maintained. Every year she would go through the motions for emissions and licensing and every few months get the oil changed and run it a bit to keep the battery charged. But, it did not see much action. Then in the summer of �97 she asked if I would like to buy the car. Are you kidding? We made plans to go out during the first week of August and bring it back. After getting there I went through the basics, oil, air, fluids, etc. Everything seemed to be ok. So after a couple of days we said our goodbyes and headed north to see Julie�s sister in Modesto, she followed me in an air conditioned Chevrolet. About halfway up Grapevine Pass the Midget started to overheat. I pulled over to find the passenger side covered with some really nasty looking radiator fluid. After it cooled a bit, I took off again. It took three tries before I got over the pass and was able to coast into a rest stop. I took out an adjustable spanner (crescent wrench) and removed the plug to put some radiator fluid in that Julie picked up at a gas station up the road a bit. After fixing the car we took off again on our adventure. A few miles up the road it happened again. I pulled into a gas station and let it sit to cool. We preceded in the other car to Bakersfield and acquired a new radiator cap, more fluid and something to eat. After getting back, replacing the lost fluid and installing the new radiator cap off we went, again. Just before getting to Bakersfield, I noticed the temperature gauge going up again!!! Rather than fight it I pulled off at the next exit and about two blocks down was a radiator repair shop. He was just pulling the door down, closing up for the day. As I rolled up in a steaming MG he stopped and asked if I needed help. Though there was nothing he could do that night, he assured me I would have it back by nine or so in the morning. Well, I figured if I was going to have anything done, I would have him do everything and asked him to replace anything rubber from the firewall forward. Sure enough at about 9:30 he ran off my credit card for about $260 and sent me on my way, It could have been a lot worse I�m sure. We made it to Modesto without incident and later started home for Spokane, WA. After a long day of driving through northern California in my MG, while I thoroughly enjoyed it, I was tired. Shortly after crossing the California-Oregon border we were approaching Klamath Falls at about 8:00PM on a Saturday night. As I came around a corner I saw to my amazement a traffic light! Here we are 10 miles from town and there is a traffic light! Granted there was some construction taking place on the bridge ahead but can�t they turn this thing off when they are not using it? And above all it was red. So I stopped and thought of a number of things to complain about. After a couple of minutes of this I had had enough, first gear, clutch out, accelerator down, heck with the red light. I saw Julie�s expression in the rear view mirror and figured I would just see her in town at the motel. The section of roadway and bridge they were working on was rather long, I�d figure a couple of miles. After I came over the crest of the bridge it dawned on me what the traffic light was for. On the other end there was its compliment. It apparently had just turned green and a string of tractor-trailer rigs had just fired up and were coming my way. The lead truck stuttered for only a moment then I saw black diesel exhaust pouring out of the exhaust stacks. Reverse gear, clutch out, accelerator down. I turned my head and backed up as fast as I could. After almost a mile I approached my starting position and I could see that Julie was laughing. Also, by this time a couple of other cars and RV�s were parked behind her and I�d say everyone was having a good one on me. At about the same time I stopped the MG I turned to see the chrome bumper of a Peterbuilt come by within a few of me doing about 50 miles per hour. He and the following rigs were blowing their horns apparently in victory. After a few minutes the light turned green and we all proceeded across the bridge safely. The next morning we left for Spokane. It was the first weekend in August as we approached the Columbia River, it was also about 110 degrees in the shade. Although the car did not over heat this time, the driver was not doing as well. Julie�s air conditioned Chevy looked mighty tempting by then, believe me. I was able to get a kind of air conditioning going. You see I had the top up to keep the sun off and if you roll the windows up for a couple of minutes the heat from the engine, road, top, etc. would get the inside hot enough to where I would be sweating profusely. At that time I would roll down the windows and the evaporation effect would cool me down for a few minutes. Then I would start the whole process over again. We made it back to Spokane and except for a few minor �British� moments it has been a really neat car. |
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