A Goldie Update Six Years Later

by Felix Wong | 27 Jun 2013

The other day my phone rang, and even though the call originated from Canada from someone I hear from, oh, only once or twice a year, I knew exactly whom it was. This is due to the marvels of Caller ID, smart phone technology and cloud-connected computing. It was Steve, the current owner of Goldie the MG. So even though I was extremely busy, I answered the call. Always good to hear from an old friend—or at least her master.

The last time I heard from Steve—maybe two years ago—he had the passenger seat out of the car and was transporting an MG engine (intended for one of his many other MGs) in that space. So basically, she got truck duty. This year, however, due to health issues, Steve hadn’t taken Goldie out on the road at all. But he intends to soon, at least after he takes care of the following issue.

Apparently, the gas tank is full of rust. He knows this because it was collecting in the inline gas filter. He also said the fuel level sender wasn’t working so he was going to order a new one. (That the sender wasn’t working was a surprise to me, because the gas and temperature gauge were the only instruments in the cockpit that were working reliably.) But he wasn’t sure if the gas tank had been replaced or not and was wondering if I knew the year the tank was from.

I could not help him on that considering the gas tank was one of the few items on the car that I did not replace. I guess he will figure it out, though, when he has the gas tank off the car to swish some rust-eradicating solvent and can look at the sender unit.

He also mentioned that he may try to replace a crossmember ahead of the engine, since it is pretty badly dented. He deduced that the car must have been in a bad accident at one time, and may eventually enlist the help of a frame shop to straighten out the unibody. It might help with the amount of sagging that the car has on one side. He is also going to try to replace a coil spring, which I did maybe 15 years ago (funny how it seems more recent than that in my head).

I hope he does tackle these problems and eventually gets around to doing a proper restoration of the vehicle. The conversation with Steve also got me thinking about all the adventures I had in the car and the dreams the British roadster had represented, and that maybe one day I will acquire another one to restore myself.

But then I remembered that I need another under-engineered, oil-leaking post-war relic laden with Lucas electrics like I need another hole in my head. The snappy, rock solid Windows Phone I was talking to Steve on was a pleasant reminder of how far technology has advanced in this day and age where it is no longer necessary to have to spend every fourth weekend servicing something just to continue the fun with a heart-stirring machine.