Day 1 of our North East trip…
Shildon was our first call where it was good to see Fred again for work on his TF 135 in Trophy Blue, which was booked in for head gasket replacement and cambelt service and replacement of the CAT.
When we removed the head it was evident that there was something more amiss, piston number 3 was slightly lower than the rest and on measuring on them it was 7 mm out. Unfortunately, when the head gasket had gone it had become acqua-locked. So the sump was removed and piston 3 taken out, and sure enough the con-rod had a bit of a twist and a bend to it. Fortunately, there was no further damage to any other parts. Code retrieved from the con-rod and it’s bottom half and the crank, in order for us to obtain a replacement, which we should have at the workshop. The cylinder head was also quite badly pitted around the fire rings, so this will be sent away for skimming.
One thing at least, he won’t need the new CAT we took as he’s better off staying with the original one that’s on it.
Once all parts are sourced and sorted we will return to get this car up and running for him. Fred had bought it knowing it had head gasket failure, but unfortunately wasn’t to know to what extent the damage was. He’s very upbeat about the whole thing which is good to see, as he knows that it can be put right.
Thanks to Fred for the brews, it was good to chat while we worked, we look forward to going back and getting this otherwise fab car all sorted for him and his wife, who is really looking forward to driving it.
From there we went up to Consett where it was lovely to meet Tom, who had contacted us a couple of months ago to ask if we could come over and investigate an issue he had found with his MGF 143, (which was originally in Anthracite, but he had the car wrapped). From his description and then running all of our usual checks it was found to be a faulty expansion tank cap. The misfire was found to be due to a faulty coil pack, so both of these were replaced for him. All error codes cleared and car back up and running as it should.
When he’d had the car wrapped the weather strips were missing from the car, so we fitted these back on for him. Tom will now take the car over for a new set of tyres and get a MOT on it all ready for him and his wife to enjoy some runs out over the summer.
We then continued a little further north to our digs for the next few nights. – https://ift.tt/T34RVJn
