Day: 16 February 2020

A trip up to Harrogate today to collect Elton’s TF160 to take to ‘Norris Garage’. Booked in for some TLC.

Van all restocked and sorted for heading off in the morning to Woodhall Spa, then on to Colchester, Northampton and Corby over the next few days.

Great to meet Roy in Corby this morning for head gasket and cambelt service on his MGF 143 VVC.

The car had been fitted previously with a Payen blue BW750 Elastomer gasket, plus new head bolts and lower oil rail, but unfortunately it failed, coolant had made its way into the oil. So we replaced this with our MLS gasket.

On changing the short cambelt we noticed that the roll pin had been replaced with a ground down part of a bolt. As the hole had obviously been drilled to a wider dimension we couldn’t replace with a normal roll pin.

Although registered in the UK in 1998, it is actually a 1996 exported car and then imported back. In charcoal grey fitted with aircon. Quite a rarity.

A really good morning, although very cold, but we had a constant supply of cuppas, thanks Roy!

We were supposed to have our second call in Corby too, at Kevin’s place of work, but unfortunately his car had decided to play up this morning. So we picked up the keys and headed to his house in Northampton.

Given the symptoms we code read the car, which brought up seven error codes. One was for the cam sensor, which wouldn’t clear, several for misfire related issues, when the car was running there was a smell of rotten eggs from the exhaust. We replaced the cam sensor and the coil packs. All error codes cleared and none returned, car was running nicely. Great looking TF 135.

A busy couple of days at Norris Garage. Having looked after Mark’s previous TF, he had bought another at auction a few months ago, a TF 1.6, which had some gearbox issues. Mark left the car with us yesterday morning, so we set about removing the old gearbox. Whilst we were in there he wanted a full clutch replacement, plus uprated clutch release arm complete with grease nipple.

We noticed when we undersealed the car a month ago that his front lower wishbone had one heck of a bend in it! He had been experiencing handling problems, the car had just been through an MOT and 4 wheel aligned and no one had noticed. So, this was replaced too. Great to see Mark drive away happy this evening.

We also had another TF160 in, Elton had asked us to look at. Few things carried out; underseal, rear discs and pads replaced, cigarette lighter repaired, oil and oil filter change. Plus investigation of a rattle.

Our neighbours, at Black Sheep Customs, had also been asked to do a ‘custom repaint’ on the hard top whilst we had the car (pics to follow, looks fab!) Everything complete and ready to be collected and swapped out with Elton’s newly acquired TF Stepspeed for some work, which will also be having some paint work done next door.

Nice to see Rodney today too and welcome him to the garage for a cuppa, as he had come over to collect his things from our neighbours, plus pick up some wings we had got for him.

Finally completed all the work, yesterday and today, on the MGF 75th anniversary we had in. We had originally gone to London for head gasket and cambelt service on this car, but unbeknownst to Rob part of the reason for the head gasket failure was that the oil pump had failed. When it came to firing the car up the engine ran for about 5 seconds and then seized. So we returned to collect the car and bring back to NG.

Whole new block fitted. We were asked while we were in there if we could replace the clutch. The over the gearbox support arm was completely rotten so this was also replaced. The offside sill had a huge hole, so this was welded up and repaired. In continuing communication we were asked to sort the suspension issues that had been flagged up at the last MOT, so top ball joints replaced, both front lower arms replaced, both rear track control arms replaced. Hydragas suspension pumped up.

Whole of interior cleaned out and polished up. Car now looking a lot happier with itself. Looking forward to the return trip on Saturday.

A quick nip into to Hull first thing this morning and great to see Kev again to replace the oil seals on his ZR 160.