Month: September 2020

Local ones today…

Micklefield, near Leeds, this morning for work on a fairly new acquisition that had no service history, but the owners were assured that the head gasket had been done. Unfortunately, for them, it had failed, so this was replaced, plus cambelt service carried out. We were also asked to replace the underfloor coolant pipes, but stainless ones were already fitted. A few of the hoses had been subjected to quite a bit of heat and had swollen, so we swapped these out. Loads of missing and wrong bolts, exhaust heat shield missing, so all of these were replaced to get this fab car back to rights and give the owners peace of mind.

Only one key fob so Paul Brown’s (Technozen) details given to them to send the Pektron unit off for a new one to be coded.

Absolutely baking hot weather in lovely company, with a constant stream of tea! Great to meet Keith and his wife and granddaughter Ruby.

From there we went over to Huddersfield for replacement sphere on Andy’s tidy and very low mileage F. He’d contacted us a while ago saying he was having issues getting up and over the crest on his very steep drive, had the car pumped up, but turns out the sphere had blown. Car now back at a the correct ride height.

Posted today to the
Rough Luck Racing Facebook page.

For our last day of the London tour we found ourselves in Canary Wharf…

A very warm welcome from Adrian who had also been waiting ages for us to come. His lovely MGF mpi had suffered head gasket failure. A few things discussed that he would like us to return to do.

Thank you, so much Adrian for your hospitality, could have stayed on your balcony quite happily for the rest of the day!

Good run back up north, called in to coffee stop on the A1 and Kevin from ‘Trophy Cars’ popped over to ask us in for a cuppa, good to have a chat and a look round the place. Thanks for the drink Kevin and use of your facilities! 🙂

Posted today to the
Rough Luck Racing Facebook page.

What a fab day in Dartford today…

Great to meet Tom for work on his very tidy, very low mileage TF, that has a great family lineage, bought by Tom’s uncle for his auntie, then owned by his grandad, then by his Dad and now by Tom.

Head gasket, cambelt, water pump and tensioner replaced. Underfloor coolant pipes replaced with stainless.

Absolutely brilliant day with lots of chats and laughs and a dream of a car to work on. We explained to Tom as we do every time we replace underfloor pipes that there is often a weird loss of a litre of coolant, a strange anomaly that sometimes occurs.

Once back at our digs in Bexley we had a message and missed calls from Tom saying his coolant alarm had gone off. He took the car back home and we popped back, as well as you can with London traffic on a Friday teatime! 4 miles in 25 minutes. 😳

Checked for air locks and pressure tested and everything all ok. Just needed a little top up with an over zealous alarm. Never really a bad thing to have an alarm that actually works! 😊

Enjoy your gathering tonight Tom! Thanks for the cracking brews and choccy bics!

Posted today to the
Rough Luck Racing Facebook page.

Golders Green today and lovely to meet Paul for work on his MGF 120.

Head gasket, cambelt, water pump and tensioner replaced. Underfloor stainless steel coolant pipes fitted, slave cylinder replaced, new battery, rear window riveted in, new radio fitted and hydragas pump up.

Sorry it’s been a bit of a wait Paul, but what a beautiful evening for a test drive! Great to meet you, thank you for a cracking brew! We’re really pleased to have got everything sorted for you, apart from that bottle…

What an enjoyable day, and with fab weather all day. Now in our digs, just down the road and ordering McDonalds Uber eat!

Posted today to the
Rough Luck Racing Facebook page.

Fab to see Clare today in Northwich for work on her lovely ‘Cilla’.

Head gasket and cambelt service done on her Stepspeed in Celestial Blue. A very minor head gasket leak, only causing over heating after about 20 miles. All sorted and up and running nicely again.

Great to catch-up with you Clare, thanks for the cuppas! Hopefully we will get the campers out together soon!

Back to the workshop now to restock ready for a few days work in London and surrounding area.

Posted today to the
Rough Luck Racing Facebook page.

A round trip to Norfolk today…

We returned the steppy we had in for drive plate replacement to Jon in Trimingham.

After fitting the new drive plate supplied by Jon from Brown & Gammons, we fired up the car and noticed the noises described before were still evident. After a while they quietened off. After test driving they virtually disappeared. We warned Jon that there was other issues going on, that weren’t drive plate related. It turns out that gearbox itself wasn’t in the best of health. The gearbox dif has collapsed locking it to unequal drive on both wheels. The next step for us and unfortunately for Jon is to replace with a new gear box.

As we were local we also went over to see Hugh in Swanton Abbott, whose MGF 143 VVC had overheated, so we replaced the thermostat, then after all tests car up and running nicely again.

Posted today to the
Rough Luck Racing Facebook page.