T-Series Lea-Francis MGTD

[pdplot]

Here they are. The only pictures ever taken of my ill-fated Lea-Francis MG. Taken on the Yale University campus on 3/15/1955 when I drove it up from Philly to visit a friend. (we're still best friends 63 years later. He later had an MG Midget and then an MGB-GT. Now his fun car is a '91 Mustang 6-cylinder. )When the rod bearings blew in my TD engine (didn't they all?), Jim Pauley, well-known but now forgotten race car driver and mechanic, talked me into substituting a 1767 cc Lea-Francis engine and gearbox. It never worked out. At a driver's school on the old Thompson track, it came out of gear in the middle of the Clubhouse turn and I spun out, doing a 180. With the TD rear end ratio of 5.125/1, this thing revved like mad but you went nowhere. I traded it back to Pauley for a 1955 Renault 4CV even up. What happened to it I was never able to find out. Those were the days - and the nights weren't bad either. I was 21 when these pictures were taken. Note the crew cut. My father hated it. He said I looked like a Nazi.

 

[Gliderman8]

Fun pics.

 

[JPSmit]

great pics!

 

[Basil]

Some cool pictures! If you were 21 in 1955 then I suddently feel young! (I was 1 year old)

 

[DrEntropy]

Those were the days - and the nights weren't bad either. I was 21 when these pictures were taken. Note the crew cut. My father hated it. He said I looked like a Nazi.

Your dad was a WW-II vet?

No idea where it is, but there's a photo of me somewhere as a two-year-old with a screwdriver, attacking a Jag 120 door latch. 1952. Evidence of an ill-spent youth. By '55 it was an XK 140. Cumberland Hillclimbs. Dim recollections leading to a lifetime of automotive Anglophile predilection!

 

[pdplot]

My dad was a married man, sole support of his wife, with 2 small kids at the outbreak of WW II. Nevertheless, he joined the State Guard and spent two weeks each year at camp in Niantic, CT. I have pictures of him in his uniform and using walkie-talkie radios. He also had an Abbott TR-4 (!) radio in our 1939 Pontiac and at one time, I was the youngest radio amateur in the country. We rode around on Sundays talking to base - call sign WJQA -1 -as a part of the WERS-War Emergency Radio Service. Our call sign was WJQA 75. One benefit of that was he got an A Gasoline card and could get more gasoline for the car. Gas was strictly rationed during the War. There were B and C cards also. He was also an air raid warden and a plane spotter and I joined him many times on the roof of Stamford High School looking for enemy planes but most of the time, we used the telescope to spy on women sunbathing in their back yards or watching sailors peeing off the stern of merchant ships in Long Island Sound. WW II was an exciting time for a kid. The HQ building where WJQA-1 was located is still standing but has been vacant for many years. In the 1950s, it became Civil Defense Headquarters but has been abandoned for many years.

 

[PAUL161]

Here they are. The only pictures ever taken of my ill-fated Lea-Francis MG. Taken on the Yale University campus on 3/15/1955 when I drove it up from Philly to visit a friend. (we're still best friends 63 years later. He later had an MG Midget and then an MGB-GT. Now his fun car is a '91 Mustang 6-cylinder. )When the rod bearings blew in my TD engine (didn't they all?), Jim Pauley, well-known but now forgotten race car driver and mechanic, View attachment 56965View attachment 56966View attachment 56967 talked me into substituting a 1767 cc Lea-Francis engine and gearbox. It never worked out. At a driver's school on the old Thompson track, it came out of gear in the middle of the Clubhouse turn and I spun out, doing a 180. With the TD rear end ratio of 5.125/1, this thing revved like mad but you went nowhere. I traded it back to Pauley for a 1955 Renault 4CV even up. What happened to it I was never able to find out. Those were the days - and the nights weren't bad either. I was 21 when these pictures were taken. Note the crew cut. My father hated it. He said I looked like a Nazi.

Well, I'm glad to see there's someone on this forum older than me! I was 17 in 55. Joined the Naval reserve that year in Lakehurst, NJ and where I was initiated into Blimps, then went regular Navy, that's another story. PJ

 

[vette]

Well Pd, both your post show you were having some fun as a motor head even then and still at it. You and Bart are my heros.
I joined the Navy back in '69 spent two yrs at NLondon, Ct. sub base. Then I made week ends and Temporary duty assignments down the east coast in my '65 Mustang. But at the same time I was collecting parts for a restoration on my '61 MGA when I got home. I Navy buddy who lived in Westport bought an MGA and we used it to cruise to Mesquamicutt Beach at times. Then took a weeks trip to Old Quebec City in it. Blew the muffler out just as we were leaving NLondon, hey what the heck, it sounded better, then blew the head gasket on the way back. Nothing but fun. To this day we're still good friends. Just visited him in Sudbury, Ma. this summer.

 

[pdplot]

One additional bit on the Lea-Francis MG. Jim Pauley had cleverly siamesed another TD brake cylinder next to the stock one and hooked it up to the clutch. So, I had the only TD with a hydraulic clutch. Good tip for that newbie looking to restore a TD. There was one little problem. When I got the car back from Pauley after 8 months, I drove it to Philly where I was finishing college. The next weekend, I intended to attend a sports car meet in CT so I started out to the newly built Jersey Turnpike. At the first traffic light, I pushed in the clutch - nothing. All the fluid had leaked out. What to do? I drove all the way back to Pauley's shop in Norwalk with no clutch. At lights and toll booths, I shut down the engine, put the car in first and cranked it over. It started every time. I was always pretty good at clutchless shifting. You just have to match the spinning gears and they go right in. A slight pause is all it takes as I recall. Pauley fixed the leak and all was well thereafter until I got rid of the car.

 

[glemon]

That is a cool story and pics--just amazing back in the day a Leah-Francis motor was a spare lump sitting around waiting to be shoehorned into a TD or something. Probably would have been a winner with a taller axle ratio. Thanks for sharing this.

 

[TRMark]

I looked up the Lea-Francis twin cam, neat looking engine.