Day: 13 May 2023

That was a busy and long couple of days, but at least the trusty steed stretched its legs and had a good test run, on our way back now on the A1 and the sun is shining still at 8 pm as start to write this, and get the admin caught up on.

Yesterday found us first near Sheffield for a job, but unfortunately due to unforeseen circumstances they had got the day wrong, not to worry, the job had grown a bit anyway since first booking it in so just as well, and we’ve found an alternative date to go back and get everything sorted.

From there we went over to Drighlington where it was lovely to meet Tony and Alison for work on their TF 135, that was initially booked in for the head gasket, when we got there found out that the cambelt or any other services items hasn’t been touched for 7 years. Head gasket and full cambelt service all carried out, plus a very timely save on the alternator belt, which was very badly split and cracked. We had to resort to Plan B on the cambelt service as the engine mount bolts would not come undone.

Really good time spent working and chatting to Tony. Great to meet their lovely woofer Paddy too, and thanks to Alison for all the brews!

We then went back over to see Lee and Janet as their TF 160 following us replacing the head gasket and timing belt etc 3 weeks ago had a misfire on cylinder
2, on removing the plug from cylinder 2 Tony noticed that the spark plug hole had some coolant in the bottom. While we were mystified as to how it got there, having sent us a photo, as there are no coolant channels anywhere on that part of the cylinder head. He had tried wiping it out and it seems to very slightly return.

We carried out a cold pressure test, with the plug in and with the plug out, checked with the borescope inside the cylinder, then ran the car right up to temperature, and watched with the borescope while the car was under pressure, each test running for about 20 minutes, found no signs of any further coolant. While the car was up and running again, we checked out the diagnostics and checked for any mis-fires and none were recorded. A plan was made to test the car over the next week or so and if need be replace the cylinder head for another one that Lee has.

This morning we headed back to the north east for the two jobs that we had to postpone due to the van being out of kilter.

First call of the day was to Steve, in Alnwick, and his MGF 75th VVC in Mulberry (code CDM). Really great to meet him and Jon hadn’t realised that it was the same car he had replaced the head gasket on 14 years ago!

Full cambelt service duly carried out today for him. An enjoyable morning spent chatting to Steve, we took it at a steady pace as Jon’s a bit tired and I’ve got a stinker of a cold. Very nice car to work on which didn’t give us any grief.

We then headed over to Broomhill, and took the coast road, where it was lovely as always to see Kevin and Amanda and of course have cuddles with Monty! Kevin’s Trophy was still sitting a bit lop-sided so we had gone armed with a couple more spheres to swap out. Hope this has sorted it. Good to have a chat before we headed home.

Shame it was a late finish as we would have called in to see my aunt who only lives in the next village, where my mum just happens to be visiting this week. Well we didn’t want to have passed on any manky cold germs anyway.

A day off tomorrow to recharge the batteries. Although I’ve been meaning to do a piece about expansion tank caps aka coolant caps as there is a lot of varying ones out there at the moment that we’re experiencing and hearing a lot about causing issues.

Have a great weekend everyone, hope you can make the most of the lovely weather ☀️ – https://ift.tt/6vg0WY8