Year: 2022

Cambelt service time again on Ian’s TF 160, and so we headed down to Bromham near Bedford this morning.
We’ve been looking after this car for some time now, which included a full engine replacement about 4 years ago, after it sustained some damage whilst on track due to the oil pump packing up. Ian’s enjoyed many track days since and has recently upgraded the suspension himself to Bilsteins, plus fitting a TT Mk 7 exhaust.

Great to see Ian again, after what seems like ages, and have a catch-up. Hopefully we will get to a track day with him this year!

We then trundled a few miles down the road to Stewartby, where it was great to meet Keith and his wife, and Keith’s fairly new acquisition of an MGF VVC.

Keith had got in touch as it was sitting a little low and needed the hydragas pumping up. This is a really interesting car, it’s a 1997 MGF 143 mems 2J in LVD with a cream interior, plus front fog lights, very low mileage and original Mk 1 hood. Keith’s had the car resprayed, and it looks really good in it’s approaching 25th year.

What a transformation on this latest acquisition to Steve’s fab fleet. Bought about 3 years ago in a bit of a sorry state.

The car, that most would have sent to the scrappers, has been completely transformed and so much done to bring it to its present glory, plus a body kit fitted and a full respray, retaining its original colour (JFM) with some rainbow metaflake thrown in, which is very subtle and looked great when we pulled her out the unit into the sun.

As there wasn’t any service history with the car, we went over to Steve’s unit, in Hull, this morning to replace the cambelt, water pump, tensioner, alternator belt, oil and oil filter change, all other filters and plugs. On ECU code reading there were a number of error codes, which were all cleared. New cap fitted as the one on the car failed the pressure test.

Really enjoyable morning chatting to Steve and having fusses with the lovely Luna. It was good to see, in the flesh, their amazing bus that they transformed into a camper, absolutely brilliant.

Time well spent having a well needed tidy up today due to a no-show. A rare thing, but hey these things happen, the parts will come in handy at some point.

Can’t wait to to move into the new unit when it’s finally done. All the piles of messy stuff will be organised properly! Plus more space out the front for storage. We have a great team of lovely people all willing to offer their time to help when the day comes.

Should have been in there 10 months ago, but it will be worth the wait.

A run up to Sunderland this morning to see Nigel’s TF 135, that he uses as a daily runner, which had lost the use of the clutch pedal and he then noticed a loss of fluid out of the back of the car.

As suspected, it was the slave cylinder seals that had gone, so a new slave cylinder was duly replaced and now all back to rights. Glad to have managed to get him sorted out earlier than planned.

Good to have a catch-up with Nigel, date to be arranged for later in the year at the workshop for cambelt service and replacement of rear calipers and brake upgrade.

Friday morning up bright and early at the workshop to greet Maggy, Phil and Peppa who drove over from Clitheroe to deliver ‘Ophelia’, Maggy’s TF 160 in Spectre (IAA) for some work, and as they put it future proofing. This is Maggy’s daily car and had reached a very respectable mileage of over 100k, with trips over to Europe and throughout the UK.

A brilliant bit of teamwork over the weekend saw us remove the existing engine and subframe and replace it with a galvanized subframe from one of our stock that we had bought from Will Naylor last year and a replacement 160 engine that Phil had sourced.

On the replacement engine we fitted a new head gasket and all other associated gaskets and ancillaries, new clutch, new clutch release arm, stainless steel engine pipes, replacement PRT, new hoses, gear box oil seals, Mike Satur slick shift, gear cable ends, new brake lines all through, brake flexi hoses all round, wheel bearings, top ball joints, track control ends, bushes to the rear top arms pressed in, new compliance bushes fitted.

Everything was stripped back fully and rust treated, all parts cleaned up and etch primed and painted. Fantastic company, lots of conversations and lots of laughs. Not to mention lots of fusses with Peppa.

We bade our fond farewells to them on Monday evening, Jon and I then carried on with the rest of the work yesterday and finally completed everything this evening, with a nice little photo shoot of Ophelia looking amazing!

We are honoured to have undertaken the work on this fab and well loved car and look forward to seeing them all again in the next couple of days for the collection.

A localish one for us over in Mattersey this morning, where it was good to meet Tony for work on his very nice looking 2005 TF 135 that he’s owned for the past 5 years. Enjoying many trips over the time, including runs over to France.

He had noticed that the coolant was going somewhere and was randomly overheating. On investigation this morning it was evident that the head gasket had gone. The cambelt service was also due so everything sorted out for him today. The engine mount bolts didn’t want to come undone, so we went to our Plan B!

All done without any issues and a really enjoyable morning chatting to Tony with some welcome warm weather too. Thanks to Tony for the bottle of champagne, what a lovely treat!

This was an interesting one to do, this P reg MGF mpi with only 18.5k miles on the clock hadn’t ran since 2007 and had been through a few ownerships and eventually was bought by Don a couple of years ago in a stripped-down state, having been left in a garage for quite some time.

So on our way back from delivering Richard’s car to him in South Wales on Sunday we called in to Trowell to collect it and take back to the workshop.

First thing Monday we got cracking on opening a fair amount of boxes of parts that Don had been amassing for the past few months. One of which, was a stripped down recon cylinder head. This was cleaned up and put back together along with the cams out of the old head that came with the car. We removed all 4 of the liners and replaced with new.

All 4 of the pistons were in good condition, but replaced all the rings with new sets. We then also carried out full cambelt service, replaced the engine bay coolant pipes with stainless, new thermostat and housing.

The inlet manifold supplied was damaged so this was replaced with one from our stock and all ancillaries swapped over; fuel rail, injectors, IACV etc. All the engine bay wiring had to be refitted. New stainless exhaust back box fitted, along with TOYO stainless manifold, new cat and Lambda sensor.

MLS head gasket fitted. New sump and upgraded lower oil rail fitted.When filling up with fresh coolant, we then found that the hose to the radiator was disconnected.

Then when it came to firing the car up found there was no fuel left in it at all.Once this was sorted we eventually turned the key, the lifters were sounding a little bit noisy, which is understandable from being stood, a bit of Wynn’s hydraulic lifter cleaner was added, which freed these off.

However, the car still wasn’t behaving and noticed on code reading the temperature climbing, which we traced to be a blocked radiator, so a new one fitted, plus the new thermostat wasn’t opening. Thermostat removed and tested, which proved that it was faulty, new stat fitted and that issue then resolved.

However, we’re still not entirely convinced that all is not as it should be as we believe the stem seals have hardened over time on the head that Don supplied us with, he will see how things go over the next few weeks whilst he does a bit of a tidy up with the inside and outside of the car and then will take it for the MOT and let us know how things go.

While there is minimum smoke at an even rev, if the car is revved hard and throttle eased off there is evident blue smoke. This is a sure sign of when stem seals let oil past on the overrun. Again only time will tell when car has been run.

Don had already replaced the underfloor pipes, he’d done 3 of the brakes, but one was being awkward, so this was sorted, brakes all bled and the clutch wasn’t working, so this was bled too. New battery fitted to enable us to drive the car on and off the trailer. As when we picked the car up we had no brakes, which proved interesting on loading up.

So we think Don was very pleased to see everything fettled and being driven back on to his driveway this afternoon. Really good one to do and so pleased that Don wanted to invest in saving it. We look forward to seeing the car again when it’s had a bit of spruce up.

A trip to Telford this morning for work on Justin’s TF 160, that he has owned for the past 5 years. Cambelt, water pump, tensioner and all service items replaced. A pleasure to work on with only one potential awkward bolt, the tensioner bolt wasn’t the standard one and had been fitted with a spline bolt, so with a bit of baited breath it eventually came undone, not much fun and results in many hours of pain if these round off. Correct bolt duly fitted.Lovely to meet Justin and glad that the weather wasn’t too awful.

Busy day at the workshop yesterday with a few things. One of which was Ian’s MGF in Wedgewood (JBH) that he dropped off for underfloor pipes replacement. Date booked in later in the year for service and MOT.

Richard’s MGF all loaded up ready to return to him in South Wales tomorrow. Looking forward to our trip down and reuniting car and owner.