I was just about 2 miles from home in the Morgan recently, when all of a sudden I smelled a burnt/hot smell and then blue smoke from the engine compartment. I thought it prudent to pull off the road and investigate. :-)
The model Morgan I have is the SS which has an oil cooler as standard equipment. One of the hoses had failed (after just 44 years!) and was spewing expensive oil all over my expensive engine job. Phil O and other friends happened by and offered assistance which allowed me to fetch a few liters of oil and clamps for a band-aid fix to get me home. I think I left a clear line of oil all the way to my garage as I watched the oil pressure gauge with one eye and the other on the road. Phil followed at a discretionary distance to see me home. Thank you, Phil.
After the usual exasperation of doing anything under or on these LBCs, I had two hoses to take to Auto Machinery. They were ready the same day, but I was in no mood to install them just yet. The next day, with the equivalent level of exasperation required to remove the hoses, I was successful in getting them installed. The fact that beautiful weather was forecast for the whole week was a definite encouragement to getting the job done. So, I have been MORE than delighted to be motoring a bit every day since. All's well that ends well.
See you Sunday for the run!
2 comments:
David,
Glad to hear your getting well underway with your repairs. Forty four years with the same hose is a testament to the quality of Morgan OEM manufactured components. Today the quality of replacement parts is less so! By way of example, a few years back I purchased a new complete set of heater/rad hoses for the TR6, yes in their original green color paying the premium price for "color originality". While the color specs may have been correct, the manufacture quality was far far less then the OEM parts. While your hose lasted 44 years, some of my more recently purchased replacement hoses lasted less then 3 years. So much for modern manufacturing techniques! The good news though is they kept their original color even after they failed. Go figure!
I now carry spares hoses, which I never did with the originals.....a sign of the times.
Gary
On the positive side of things, one should not complain when something like that happens close to home. :-) It could have happened on a rainy night somewhere on the Cole's Island cut off. And the other nice thing is, even though oil pressure seldom goes much over 100 pounds per square inch, these new hoses are rated for a gazillion pounds per square inch inch. Industrial quality!
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