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MGA MGA twin cham on ebay

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Mark Beiser

Jedi Warrior
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https://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=6314&item=2445863625

$54,000 for the restoration! I wonder what the reserve is? I don't see how they could get thier money back out of it, unless they just happen to find "THE" buyer that MUST have that car....

I would love to have another twin cham to restore. My first car was a '58 twin cham I got when I was 15 from a guy in Arizona for $600. He had no idea what it was, nore did I, lol.
It took me the same amount of time to restore it as that one on ebay did, but it only cost me about $8,000. I'm thinking my engine didn't turn out quite as good though.
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I wonder what my car would we worth today? In 1989 I sold it for $29,000 with a spare engine and transmission in unknown condition, heh.

I miss that car, but at 21, no longer suported by my parents, I couldn't pass up that kind of money. Also, I was terafied to drive it in Houston. Its not the kind of car that should live in an appartment complex parking lot.
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What I really want to know is whether the Twin-Cam was really as prone to blowing up as I have always heard. Is it truly that common, or is it a just a lack of proper maintenance issue as is usually the case with LBC horror stories?

I love MGAs. The styling is about as perfect as any car ever built, in my opinion.
 
Hello all,

I remeber reading about the cause of engine problems with the twin cam being that the vacuum advance would pull in at the wrong time, i.e. with wide open throttle, due to some characteristic of the engine. This amount of advance under load did the pistons no good whatsoever and detonation set in.
A pity as the engine certainly had some power for it's day.

Alec
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Problem with mine was the water pump went out - hard to find item - & caused problems...I sold it real quick! Lost track of it when the guy I sold it to resold it to a collector...engine was in for serious rebuild at the time he resold it- we're talking high 5-figures!
 
The twin cham engines really were not as bad as the reputation they have. If you keep it tuned and maintained, and don't run it near the red line constantly, it runs great. If you don't maintain it properly(It REALLY likes frequent attention), and/or run it to its max constantly, you will end up with holes in the pistons and chunks of metal flailing around.

It is a race car engine and MUST be maintained as such, or bad things happen.

I'm gessing that high 5 figure engine rebuild would involve the redesign of quite a few things in the engine and manufacture of new parts. Not for the light of wallet. =0

I don't think I would touch another twin cham, unless my income basicly doubles, heh. I got very lucky with mine. In addition to stumbling over a complete car for cheep, it was basicly at the beginning of thier popularity for restoration, so NOS parts were still available with some digging. BL had only been out of the US for 3-6 years during my restoration, so a lot of dealers inventories were still relativly intact, and some people REALLY wanted to sell anything they had quickly. The engine rebuild with new pistons and valve train only cost me slightly more in parts in 1986 than a similar rebuild on an MGB engine did 2 years later...

Now its a bit different. The twin cham engine wasn't used in anything else, there were few of them made, so there was/is little demand for 3rd party parts supply. NOS parts are spread around more, and have grown scarce for the cars. If you do find any, people generally will know what they have, and price it so.
 
<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by tony barnhill:
Problem with mine was the water pump went out - hard to find item - & caused problems...I sold it real quick! Lost track of it when the guy I sold it to resold it to a collector...engine was in for serious rebuild at the time he resold it- we're talking high 5-figures!<hr></blockquote>

$99,000 is a lot to pay for a rebuild unless you're refitting an aircraft carrier.
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