Sir Stanly Hooker, a brilliant engineer at Rolls Royce from WWII through development of the Olympus engines used on the Concorde, wrote an autobiography titled Not Much of an Engineer. He was lying. Stanley Hooker was a brilliant engineer. Well I’m not much of a mechanic, and that’s the truth. As proof of the premise,…
Adjustment of most British brake systems is a simple operation that should be done regularly. The time-tested method is to turn the adjusters clockwise until the shoe comes up against the drum, and then “clicking back” until the wheel turns free. Most manuals recommend one click to free the drum, but two or more are…
SU fuel pumps have, perhaps unjustifiably, earned a reputation for poor reliability in spite of the fact that most original pumps function flawlessly for a great many years. Nonetheless, when they do get old and tired, and suddenly stop functioning, there may yet be hope! Try lightly tapping on the side of the pump with…
The second most frequently asked question about our cars must be: “How do I take care of my wire wheels? Should the car be off the ground to hammer the knock-off, or should the wheel be on the ground?” Well, that’s two questions, but the problem remains. Whether you call it a knock-off, a knock-on,…
With the summer season upon us, our thoughts turn to long motoring trips in our British cars. My “big trip” of the summer is a drive some 250 miles up the coast to the Monterey Peninsula for what has to be one of the most incredible automotive weekends on earth. It includes the Monterey Historic…
Sometimes restorations go well. And sometimes they don’t. No matter how big the job at hand, having a written contract going into a job can pay huge dividends at the end—and ensure many fun returns. I always buy myself a birthday present. When I turned 25, I bought myself a sports car. I grew up…
A couple summers ago I took a drive in my father’s ’48 MG TC. It had been 10-15 years since our last encounter, but the deep exhaust tone and supercharger whine were exactly as I remember. You see, Moss Motors’ founder, Al Moss, started selling aftermarket supercharger kits back in the mid 50s, and my father…
Back in the day—that day being sometime in the early 1980s—the Moss warehouse carried a series of informative cards that helped diagnose several systems made by Lucas. It turns out a handful of these cards remained hidden for decades like nuggets of treasure. We’re glad to post them here for all to see. Each of…
My brother, Cal, has owned his 1959 MGA since High School. It was his first car in 1974 and he cherishes it now as he did then. He called me to say that his beloved had developed a cough upon acceleration and asked for a little advice and assistance. My father introduced the family to…
So your car is all jacked up and the rear brakes are in a million pieces! Okay, make sure that you have plenty of cold beer and now, let’s get that bad boy back together. This is the opportune time to clean up that backing plate, which at this point can be easily removed and…
