Wocha bin doin on your MG this week then?

Well all I can say is you both did great work.
I hope your ride goes well mate and you come back grinning.

Well having recently taken ownership of a relative's TF, which has been driven sensibly and sporadically over the last 15 years, but not necessarily maintained with absolute mechanical sympathy or a view towards "preventative maintenance", I thought I'd delve in and see what it actually needed to make it feel like a car again as opposed to a collection of unharmoniously assembled pieces of metal (and early 2000's recycled egg boxes)

I could see the potential in there despite all that, and the fact that most of it was original worn out parts was clearly letting it down. It was originally with me for pre - MOT prep as a hobbyist mechanic but the labour and parts would still have made it borderline uneconomical. So yeah anyway I've bought it off my relative, who honestly just wants the excuse to buy a new MX-5 RF anyway and was probably glad I offered.

I drove it about a bit to work out what was wrong and sort of fell in love with it So now I have another project

I've got it for £800 on the basis of the work needed to get through an MOT and also family, I think it justifies saving before the tin worm eats it alive, and it's just started getting into the body and is well into the running gear. I've seen worse though and I'm prepared to do all the work myself.. plus it has a TF53 plate

It's a 135, X-Power grey, manual, with hard top and 2 owners from new.

So this week I've done:

• Knock on the front sorted by changing the cheap pattern track rod ends for genuine TRW ones - don't know what brand these old ones were but they were literally falling apart after 4 years and 6k miles
• Front ARB mounts looked like they'd been in the sea for 15 years so changed them because they were offensive, don't think there was anything fundamentally wrong with the ones I took off, but meh. (They're a bit rudimentary aren't they, pressed plate and 2 rubber bushes, lol?)
• Gear selector linkage tightened so you can actually get gears reliably, not so bad now but looking at a slick shift kit as I'm used to VAG quality shifting
• lubricated notchy throttle cable with PTFE bike chain lube, probably gonna buy a new cable 
• Identified the annoying creak that had plagued it probably since new (MG tech had threaded a bolt in chassis to dash bar brace in assembly), this was an absolute pig to identify and then resolve
• Took a close look at the subframes and underside and very very quickly sprayed them all with Bilt Hamber Dynax to slow down the rust until I can get in properly to refurb or replace or recoat all running gear. Its all very brown looking under there although seems substantial enough for next month's MOT
• Spent a while looking through service history trying to work out which previous garage thought it was a good idea to fit 1x rear Yokohama Advan Neova AD08 RS Semi slick track tyre to a car that already had 1x Riken budget fitted to the other side
• Spent a while trying to find a Yokohama Advan Neova AD08RS tyre in correct fitment for less than £175, gave up
• Spent a while reading about if I can just fit 195/50/15's all round - can I?
• Debated the wisdom of buying a 23 year old British car that gets me shouted at by drunk men in my local village of an evening and costs £345 per year road tax when my sensible toyota Avensis costs £35 per year and is invisible to both the law and morons
• Replaced the head unit with one that supports the 2020's (or 2010's even)
• Ordererd goodridge hoses, new F and R upper ball joints, new gasket seal for oil filler / dipstick, ordered a servo reinforcement plate because I like to feel brakes rather than bulkhead flex and ordered some purple fluffy dice because if you're going to have a midlife crisis then you may as well do it properly
• Bought a  used Toyosports 4 branch manifold, downpipe with backbox as the current one is rusting out. Found out it fits MGF not TF so bought a cat repair flange and will mod the existing cat and fit this next weekend
• Received a shedload of abuse from my mates who are either VW fans (as am I traditionally) or considerably richer Westfield owners
• Enjoyed every minute

Wow that looks incredible, wish I could do that to mine if I had the space and and money

In terms of attractiveness, you can't compare VW´s yearly total production versus a single 23 year-old battered TF 

You'd love MS´s slick shift. Really amazing piece of work. Again, no VW that I know of shifts gears that good

Yeah it's definitely on the shopping list but unfortunately might have to wait a bit! Thanks for the recommendation though, it's currently tolerable after tightening the bushes a bit under the gaitor at least...

This is hands down one of the most incredible MG's I've seen. Flat out. Incredible work!

Well done Joe, you have jumped in with both feet and are doing all the right things to this car. I am very much in favour of buying these cars with a few faults, learning through repairing them and ending up with something that is as good as it can be without spending vast amounts of money. They do need some care but the effort is well rewarded by a reliable car that is excellent to drive

Joe_Pineapples wrote:

Yeah it's definitely on the shopping list but unfortunately might have to wait a bit! Thanks for the recommendation though, it's currently tolerable after tightening the bushes a bit under the gaitor at least...


When I got my 03 TF forward gear changing was just ok. But more times than not engaging reversal was a nightmare. No matter how slow, deliberate, engaging third gear first…  you would hear that horrible screeeech stabbing your brain.

So I bit the bullet and got a MS kit. 

Not a must in most cases, I know, but for me it was a before and after 

 

Yesterday i finally got round to painting my rollover hoops, someone did say MG did actually make these ones in other colours but i've only ever seen them in stainless steel/chrome effect, which as i'd "deleted" the rest of my chrome just stood out too much, so here they are, (of course in Ford Panther Black)
 

Then after yesterdays voting i decided to have a go at wrapping the windscreen surround, there's a few bubbles i couldn't quite get out here and there, but all in all it looks decent, maybe at some point i'll get a professional to do it now that i know it looks good.
 

All in all cosmetically she's coming along really well, still waiting for my reproduction dealer plates (ok i've taken a bit of artistic license with them as the correct era ones have a boring logo) to come so i can assign her new registration but i'm really happy with how everything looks so far.
 

There is 1 more mod i've done but i can't photograph that untill it gets dark... so watch this space (don't worry it's not underbody neon.... yet)

Utterly brilliant KC!

Well, not quite in the same league as KC’a work, but got sick of USB wires being too near the gears and handbrake. So mounted a dual high charging USB
socket in the passenger footwell.
Sacrificed the original cig lighter but can be resurrected if needs be. Soldered the wiring to the cig lighter pair and covered the joints with heat shrink. The wiring loom to the socket has an inline fuse of 5A, the 0.4A is my iPhone charging, the 1.2A is mine and wifes Huawei P20(?)
The round thing is the buzzer for the low coolant alarm. Works perfectly, but will see how it performs in the winter as it’s permanently fed and the blue LED is lit. 🤷‍♂️
Cheers, M.



 

Bought a little glass etching kit and etched the number plate on the glass to put the scroats and cloners off.