Greg Leblanc decided he wanted to jump back into the vintage car hobby with a sporty little number from the automotive past.
A 1976 MGB was advertised for sale and the little Brit caught his attention enough for Greg to contact the owners.
Little did he know that he would have to pass an interview before he would be considered for the job of next owner for the MGB.
The car had spent 25 years with the same family and they wanted to make sure it went to the right owner.
The issue was not money for the family; they simply wanted to secure a good future for the car once it left their care and attention.
The MGB had a racing pedigree as a rally car and developed a few issues that had not been resolved by the family, despite an injection of about 6000 dollars to chase the problem.
They were led to believe the MGB had a camshaft problem though all of the expensive diagnosis and were unable to actually resolve the issue, despite their generous investment in a cure.
Greg managed to ace his interview and became the proud new owner of a 1976 MGB. He started the road to mechanical redemption with a main seal and clutch replacement.
His first road trip in the car was disappointing because he topped out at around 100km/h (60 mph), so he knew he had to deal with the lack of power.
Fortunately Greg has a mechanically inclined buddy with an engineering degree and the two of them tackled the strange case of the missing horsepower. Their detective work took them away from the camshaft theory and straight toward the real problem: a dead spark plug.
Sherlock Holmes would have been very proud of these guys if the famous detective was a car guy. Greg and his buddy followed a car guy rule and looked for the simple solution first to the problem.
6000 bucks worth of dead ends had failed to turn up a dead spark plug for the former owners.
Their advertisement for the car even mentioned the mis-timing issue and yet it had remained a mystery to the shop that worked on the car, but it was an important clue for Greg and his logical buddy.
In fact it was a key clue that steered them toward an electrical source for the problem rather than a mechanical source.
The MGB roared back to life after they replaced the spark plug and now Greg’s car will hit speeds well above posted highway speed limits if he ever gets the urge to feel hurricane force winds flow through his hair when he drives it drop-top style.
The MGB has an upgraded custom stabilizer bar that reflects its racing heritage and gives it very flat cornering ability in hard turns. It also has a rare wheel package that Greg described as the “real deal” in terms of British racing wheels.
Greg is very happy with his purchase and it may also stay in his family for a long while because his young son seemed to be very interested in his dad’s car.
Jim Sutherland