Month: October 2019

What a really interesting and enjoyable weekend spent in Dudley with Rob & Jane carrying out the mechanical part of a full restoration of ‘Nemo’, a pre-production MGF 143 VVC (special development vehicle as can still be seen marked on the subframe). Fantastic bit of history involved with this car, that was originally in Volcano but had been painted red. Rob & Jane will be getting a full respray back to original colour. It’s not known if this was actually resprayed at the factory or by someone else. There are so many subtle differences on this car that never went into production. Different coloured and different connectors for the wiring. Mounting bolts slightly different, not captive nuts, but standard. Great to see the original fitters signatures and dates even on internal parts.

We carried out head gasket, cambelt service plus general service, full clutch replacement, stainless steel engine bay pipes fitted, underfloor stainless steel coolant pipes, alloy radiator, refitted alternator, refitted the ECU, refitted exhaust (temporarily to run it up). It was also found that the underfloor coolant pipes one of the brackets had been welded about quarter of an inch in the wrong place so they had missed out the centre bolt to compensate, these were originally fitted from the factory.

Thanks to Rob & Jane for your lovely company and many cuppas! Really great to meet you both.

Macclesfield was our first call this morning and lovely to see Tony again for cambelt service on his TF135. The last time it was serviced was in the garage where he had bought it from many years ago. We found the bottom pulley bolt to be seized. Several tries with breaker bars, impact guns failed to get it moving. Even spinning the engine using the starter motor while the pulley was held by a bar didn’t shift it either. So we had to resort to locking the fly wheel, plus a 7’ bar! Starter motor bolts had also seized into the casting. So after a bit of a battle we succeeded.

Whilst there Tony asked us to look at a Mk II MGF in Sienna that someone had previously been trying to carry out a cambelt service on, Tony was concerned that there was damage to the head. After putting it back together again, Jon found that the timing was 170 degrees out on the inlet cam! He was very lucky that there weren’t any bent valves. Car turned over nicely with a big sigh of relief from Tony.

We then ventured on to Swinton and great to see David again who we had met a Pateley Bridge on our stand. He had called us asking us to come and investigate some clutch issues he was having. Slave cylinder seals replaced,
clutch back to rights again. Plus new alternator belt fitted.

Sun was out all day too!