We left the relative warmth of the workshop on Wednesday and headed over to Barnsley, on a very frosty morning, with delays on the way due to another crash, fortunately everyone involved were alright when we passed by.
It was good to meet Steve and his TF 135 (in CMU). He’d had the car into a local garage for a few things previously and they’d noticed that the water pump was leaking, so Steve asked if we could replace this for him. Unfortunately, as has happened before in extreme temperatures one of the bolts sheared off, despite running the engine and warming things up a bit. The rest of the bolts that came out were heavily corroded. Once the pump was off we removed the stub with our amazing ‘saves you a ton of pain’ bolt removers. All bolts replaced with new when fitting the new pump. While we were in the engine bay we noticed that the top torque-tamer was hanging loose. So this was duly fitted back in place with the correct bolt, hopefully there will be less banging about when Steve changes gear now! The coolant cap was dodgy so new one tested and fitted. Thanks to Steve for a plentiful supply of warming brews.
This morning we headed back over to Hebden Bridge. More delays not far from home due to another crash. Again everyone involved seemed to be alright, thankfully. This weather wreaking its usual unwelcome havoc.
We had gone over last week to see Emma’s MGF for a few things, one of which was query head gasket failure. On doing all of the usual checks and replacing a dodgy coolant cap, and running the car up, we couldn’t find anything conclusive. However, on a run out and under load a couple of days ago Emma noticed that the coolant had gone again and had overheated.
Even though the pressure test had not shown any coolant loss, we took minimal parts off at first to see which gasket had gone. After taking off the inlet manifold and seeing the state of that, it had obviously undergone a previous attempt at repair with some strange sealant (see pics) and combined with the smell of burnt oil, it was decided that the head gasket will have also suffered, so decision made to replace this also.
The thermostat housing was leaking and on removing that, it was found to be full of k-seal. New stat and housing duly fitted.
On firing the car up, the tick-over was noticeably lower than it had previously been, this was because we had cured all the air leaks, unfortunately, somebody had adjusted the tick-over to be correct with the air leaks. So we then had to set about readjusting the throttle body to its correct position. Car now running lovely and smooth. Emma can enjoy running about in Gina once more when she returns from her hols.
Bit of a different week, in the end, we had a car booked in for a subframe swap, but that’s been postponed for a while, date to be planned some time later. George’s Copperleaf MGF was due to be dropped off with us at the weekend, but they had to postpone for now. So some last minute and waiting list ones booked in, which was good to get those done and sorted.
It’s been absolutely Baltic and a struggle working in this weather, there is a limit as to how many layers of clothing you can wear before you can’t actually move. Plus big thick gloves don’t work very well with little bolts! Brrr, need it to get above freezing at least. 🧊
Couple of cars to collect over the weekend and take to the workshop ready for a busy week with them next week. Have a great weekend everyone and keep safe and warm. 🧤🧣 ❄️ – https://ift.tt/h4CuApm
