My 1959 MGA Coup

When I was 20 I bought a 1959 MGA Coupe for $125. It had a very loud engine knock which I suspected was a rod bearing. A year or so before that I also bought a ‘57 MGA roadster for $75 that had a main bearing failure.

That winter, I rebuilt that engine in my parent’s basement, making many mistakes, but I finally got it back in the car and running. Now, I was an “MGA expert” and my brothers and I were given a few other non-running MGAs. At one point we had four MGA’s in the driveway…and none of them were drivable. Our mother was not happy but our Dad said it would keep us out of trouble and he was mostly right. That year I had a couple of accidnts with the ‘57 roadster and decided I would put the engine from that car into the coupe I had recently gotten.

By that time we were pretty fast at pulling engines. With the engine swap, some quality bondo work, and an A-1 paint job, accomplished in my yard, I was ready to roll. Less than a year later the engine developed a knock which got progressively worse. (Maybe I wasn’t an expert after all?) I ended up parking the coupe in my parents’ barn and there it sat for 30-some years until I moved it out to my home on Block Island. Now years later, I’m 70, and I’ve finally started rebuilding my coup.

And you know what? I’m going to be an optimist about this!

I’ll be posting updates as the work progresses!