Discussion
Put a deposit on this..... https://www.carandclassic.com/car/C1736736 ....last night, should we open a book to see if I can drive it back to N Norfolk?
Oh yes, best option for an MG club/forum?
Oh yes, best option for an MG club/forum?
The drive back should be ok as long as the overdrive works which the ad says it does. There are numerous local clubs up that way, some are listed on the MGOC website.
As for forums/websites, the MG Experience (mgexp.com) is full of helpful, knowledgeable people:
https://www.mgexp.com/forum/mgb-and-gt-forum.1/
As for forums/websites, the MG Experience (mgexp.com) is full of helpful, knowledgeable people:
https://www.mgexp.com/forum/mgb-and-gt-forum.1/
mgtony said:
The drive back should be ok as long as the overdrive works which the ad says it does. There are numerous local clubs up that way, some are listed on the MGOC website.
As for forums/websites, the MG Experience (mgexp.com) is full of helpful, knowledgeable people:
https://www.mgexp.com/forum/mgb-and-gt-forum.1/
To be fair, it'll be fine even if the overdrive isn't working. It'll just be noisier, slower and you'll use more fuel. The first drive in my Triumph GT6 was 90 miles back from where I collected it, through monsoon rain and at night.As for forums/websites, the MG Experience (mgexp.com) is full of helpful, knowledgeable people:
https://www.mgexp.com/forum/mgb-and-gt-forum.1/
AA membership a wise precaution, though.
Enjoy your purchase, OP!
Looks like a nice usable bit of fun, these have grown on me over the last few yrs.
I tend to try a couple of marque specific forums, some you'll gel with more than others.
When are you collecting? l'm based near Stratford-Upon-Avon, if you need help or a break enroute let me know.
https://thepistonclub.co.uk/ (one of my locals)
I tend to try a couple of marque specific forums, some you'll gel with more than others.
When are you collecting? l'm based near Stratford-Upon-Avon, if you need help or a break enroute let me know.
https://thepistonclub.co.uk/ (one of my locals)
Edited by PositronicRay on Sunday 14th July 08:20
dr_gn said:
Looks a bit tall, it might have got rubber bumper spec springs in it. I made that mistake when I destroyed mine (although that was 1989!).
Not collected yet, hopefully Monday, but I think it is an early rubber bumper car that's lost it's rubber bumpers!So a set of shorter front springs and a lowering kit for the rear will be early purchases.
Does membership of MGOC give a discount in their shop. anyone know, please?
ferret50 said:
dr_gn said:
Looks a bit tall, it might have got rubber bumper spec springs in it. I made that mistake when I destroyed mine (although that was 1989!).
Not collected yet, hopefully Monday, but I think it is an early rubber bumper car that's lost it's rubber bumpers!So a set of shorter front springs and a lowering kit for the rear will be early purchases.
Does membership of MGOC give a discount in their shop. anyone know, please?
Not quite my first classic, I have previous form, m'lord....
Off to collect this afternoon, overnight at a Travelodge in Bournemouth then the M25 challenge Friday!
I'll learn more later, but the vendor seems to have had some work done, knowing where I'm based, but I'm packing a few tools and cable ties!
Off to collect this afternoon, overnight at a Travelodge in Bournemouth then the M25 challenge Friday!
I'll learn more later, but the vendor seems to have had some work done, knowing where I'm based, but I'm packing a few tools and cable ties!
Well, we drove down to Dorset from N Norfolk on Thursday, leaving home at around 9.15am. Cloudy but fine weather, made the M25 and headed west into roadworks that reduced us to a crawl until past South Mimms, mentioned to 'er indoors that coming back we would divert up the A1/A14 to avoid similar on the return.
Weather closed in on us and it mostly rained/drizzled for the rest of the trip, slow even after M3 due to a minor shunt close to Poole.
Satnav took us to a storage area where I expected to meet the seller at around 5pm, a little before then I was approached by the owner of the storage units and I asked him about the guy I was expecting to meet, I learnt that three farms used the same postcode and of course I was at the wrong one, but he knew the guy and directed me.
Seller had a varied collection of classics from American stuff to modified things like a Herald estate with Vitesse engine, a lovely Moggie convertable and so on. Very pleasant fellow, took me through the recent work and the MG really did look as good as the photo's showed so I paid up the balance in cash. Was unable to get my Tomtom to work in the MG so reluctantly 'er indoors led to our night stop at a Travelodge in Bounemouth. Initial impressions of the MG in pouring rain were a pulling to the left coming off power and gear selection 'needing work' but the O/D engaged smoothly in both 3 and 4 via a switch on top of the stick but the idle speed was a touch low leading to stalling in traffic.
We found the Travelodge around 7pm, carpark rammed full with a machine demanded ransom of £7.50 for overnight parking! Spoke to the place's reception who gave me a map of the area with allowed street parking and local carparks. I soon found a place for the MG and walked back to the hotel to find 'er indoors had driven around in circles without any luck. Five minutes later I had found her a place close to the MG and we were booked in to the Travelodge, ate an indifferent meal with an £18 bottle of vino but we were too knackered to go find something better!
Friday morning before breakie I walked out to the cars and adjusted the idle setting and got the satnav working in both cars, I also taped up the steery wheel foam that was split around the two o clock position to make it a bit easier to steer.
We were first into breakie at 7am, quite a decent meal although the jug of milk failed to enter my tea mug ant went all over the floor, young lady mopped up and told me the jugs 'always did that when full'!
Exited Bournemouth with me leading and stopped at the first fuel place I saw which was the first services on the M3. Filled both cars, MG took about £60 worth to fill. Upon leaving I noted the fuel gauge showed half full where it remained for the next two or three hours, dropping eventually to the quarter mark upon arrival at home, but I get ahead of myself!
Increasing confidence in the way the MG drove saw me cruising in O/D 4th at 3000rpm, a satnav confirmed 60mph, indicated 55/60mph. 'er indoors was getting bullied by the lorries and dropped out of sight behind me, but she also had satnav so I was not too concerned.
At the M25's junction with the A41 there was a loud bang from behind, followed by a bad brown trouser moment, I made the shoulder safely to discover a fist sized hole in the R/O/S tyre.... now I had checked for a spare wheel and there was a bag alongside it in the boot, jack but no wheelbrace, hohum.... I had put a handfull of imperial spanners into my toolbox and transfered that into the MG as one of my pre breakfast jobs. I found an open ended spanner that fitted the wheel nuts and fortunately the nuts were not too tight, but the real winner was that the supplied jack fitted the lifting hole on the underside of the cill and lifted the car without the cill collapsing, I considered that a real win!
Spare wheel, tyre looked a little soft but OK to use so off I went, keeping speed down to 50mph now. But whilst stopped the satnav went off and the indicaters packed up in sympathy, although the hazard lights still work, suggesting lack of power to flasher unit/switch, perhaps?
On the shoulder of M25 perhaps 20/30 minutes, no sight of 'er indoors, started to be concerned because I had decided to exit M25 at London Colney, cut across to Hatfield and join A1M there to head north to Huntingdon. Queued up to Black Cat r/b and eventually found the rebuilt A14 around Huntingdon. Switched to the A11 for the run up to Norwich and home and I came upon standing traffic about three miles south of Fiveways at Barton Mills, close to the USAF base at Mildenhall.
Spotted that the oil pressure gauge, that had been sat at 60psi all morning was reading zero, water temp was still below the normal mark but I was close to a minor road turning so pulled off the A11 to investigate. On lifting the bonnet I discovered engine oil every where! Under bonnet lid was coated, both inner wings, even a bit on top of o/s outer wing. Dipstick was dry. With so much oil it was impossible to see where to leak was, but I checked the clearly obvious like the pressure gauge takeoff and any other obvious high pressure points. At that point a young lad in his twenties stopped to offer help, told me he lived minutes away and that he and his dad owned several classics both cars and bikes and were well equpped.
Young lad went off and returned with his mum's SUV and his dad and they offered to tow me to their home and see what could be done. At this point 'er indoors phoned to ask where I was because she had arrived home and I was not there.....brought 'er up to date.
Three of us towed the MG about a mile to my saviours home, they had a mancave with a modified mini...young lads... and a lovely yellow 911 under a cover....dads.... and a nieghbour who was a MGOC member with a contact at the club's workshop which was not that far away near Cambridge. His contact immediately suggested oil pressure gauge feed pipe or any other pressure pipes/joins so we had a starting point. Tea and biscuits arrived and we added some oil and started the engine. Found that the hose from the oil pump to the oil cooler was split on it's underside where it passes the oil filter, so not clearly visible from the top. My saviours degreased the hose, the split was about an inch or so long, I found some double sided sticky water/oil proof tape in my toolbox and they found a few jubilee clips and a bit of split hose to stifen the taped up split. And filled with their oil.
AND IT WORKED!
Took us a couple of hours, but far better than abandoning the car to be recovered later.
I could not thank the two gentlemen enough, they helped to effect a bodge repair and refused all offers of payment, even for their can of 20w/50 oil that they put into my engine. Young lad told me that he worked at Marshall's at Cambridge as an aircraft engineer, he was certainly very good with the tools and showed me how to identify the age of tyres from the sidewall makings....
So I eventually arrived back home around 5pm, I shall need a couple of tyres and a oil cooler hose pretty quickly and a cleandown of the engine bay and probably a pair of parabolic rear springs with a full fitting kit including poly bushes, perhaps the fellow posting above with his spotless engine bay may care to coment?
No photos, yet, sorry, my DSLR was in the back of 'er indoors car, but I'll see what I can do later.
Weather closed in on us and it mostly rained/drizzled for the rest of the trip, slow even after M3 due to a minor shunt close to Poole.
Satnav took us to a storage area where I expected to meet the seller at around 5pm, a little before then I was approached by the owner of the storage units and I asked him about the guy I was expecting to meet, I learnt that three farms used the same postcode and of course I was at the wrong one, but he knew the guy and directed me.
Seller had a varied collection of classics from American stuff to modified things like a Herald estate with Vitesse engine, a lovely Moggie convertable and so on. Very pleasant fellow, took me through the recent work and the MG really did look as good as the photo's showed so I paid up the balance in cash. Was unable to get my Tomtom to work in the MG so reluctantly 'er indoors led to our night stop at a Travelodge in Bounemouth. Initial impressions of the MG in pouring rain were a pulling to the left coming off power and gear selection 'needing work' but the O/D engaged smoothly in both 3 and 4 via a switch on top of the stick but the idle speed was a touch low leading to stalling in traffic.
We found the Travelodge around 7pm, carpark rammed full with a machine demanded ransom of £7.50 for overnight parking! Spoke to the place's reception who gave me a map of the area with allowed street parking and local carparks. I soon found a place for the MG and walked back to the hotel to find 'er indoors had driven around in circles without any luck. Five minutes later I had found her a place close to the MG and we were booked in to the Travelodge, ate an indifferent meal with an £18 bottle of vino but we were too knackered to go find something better!
Friday morning before breakie I walked out to the cars and adjusted the idle setting and got the satnav working in both cars, I also taped up the steery wheel foam that was split around the two o clock position to make it a bit easier to steer.
We were first into breakie at 7am, quite a decent meal although the jug of milk failed to enter my tea mug ant went all over the floor, young lady mopped up and told me the jugs 'always did that when full'!
Exited Bournemouth with me leading and stopped at the first fuel place I saw which was the first services on the M3. Filled both cars, MG took about £60 worth to fill. Upon leaving I noted the fuel gauge showed half full where it remained for the next two or three hours, dropping eventually to the quarter mark upon arrival at home, but I get ahead of myself!
Increasing confidence in the way the MG drove saw me cruising in O/D 4th at 3000rpm, a satnav confirmed 60mph, indicated 55/60mph. 'er indoors was getting bullied by the lorries and dropped out of sight behind me, but she also had satnav so I was not too concerned.
At the M25's junction with the A41 there was a loud bang from behind, followed by a bad brown trouser moment, I made the shoulder safely to discover a fist sized hole in the R/O/S tyre.... now I had checked for a spare wheel and there was a bag alongside it in the boot, jack but no wheelbrace, hohum.... I had put a handfull of imperial spanners into my toolbox and transfered that into the MG as one of my pre breakfast jobs. I found an open ended spanner that fitted the wheel nuts and fortunately the nuts were not too tight, but the real winner was that the supplied jack fitted the lifting hole on the underside of the cill and lifted the car without the cill collapsing, I considered that a real win!
Spare wheel, tyre looked a little soft but OK to use so off I went, keeping speed down to 50mph now. But whilst stopped the satnav went off and the indicaters packed up in sympathy, although the hazard lights still work, suggesting lack of power to flasher unit/switch, perhaps?
On the shoulder of M25 perhaps 20/30 minutes, no sight of 'er indoors, started to be concerned because I had decided to exit M25 at London Colney, cut across to Hatfield and join A1M there to head north to Huntingdon. Queued up to Black Cat r/b and eventually found the rebuilt A14 around Huntingdon. Switched to the A11 for the run up to Norwich and home and I came upon standing traffic about three miles south of Fiveways at Barton Mills, close to the USAF base at Mildenhall.
Spotted that the oil pressure gauge, that had been sat at 60psi all morning was reading zero, water temp was still below the normal mark but I was close to a minor road turning so pulled off the A11 to investigate. On lifting the bonnet I discovered engine oil every where! Under bonnet lid was coated, both inner wings, even a bit on top of o/s outer wing. Dipstick was dry. With so much oil it was impossible to see where to leak was, but I checked the clearly obvious like the pressure gauge takeoff and any other obvious high pressure points. At that point a young lad in his twenties stopped to offer help, told me he lived minutes away and that he and his dad owned several classics both cars and bikes and were well equpped.
Young lad went off and returned with his mum's SUV and his dad and they offered to tow me to their home and see what could be done. At this point 'er indoors phoned to ask where I was because she had arrived home and I was not there.....brought 'er up to date.
Three of us towed the MG about a mile to my saviours home, they had a mancave with a modified mini...young lads... and a lovely yellow 911 under a cover....dads.... and a nieghbour who was a MGOC member with a contact at the club's workshop which was not that far away near Cambridge. His contact immediately suggested oil pressure gauge feed pipe or any other pressure pipes/joins so we had a starting point. Tea and biscuits arrived and we added some oil and started the engine. Found that the hose from the oil pump to the oil cooler was split on it's underside where it passes the oil filter, so not clearly visible from the top. My saviours degreased the hose, the split was about an inch or so long, I found some double sided sticky water/oil proof tape in my toolbox and they found a few jubilee clips and a bit of split hose to stifen the taped up split. And filled with their oil.
AND IT WORKED!
Took us a couple of hours, but far better than abandoning the car to be recovered later.
I could not thank the two gentlemen enough, they helped to effect a bodge repair and refused all offers of payment, even for their can of 20w/50 oil that they put into my engine. Young lad told me that he worked at Marshall's at Cambridge as an aircraft engineer, he was certainly very good with the tools and showed me how to identify the age of tyres from the sidewall makings....
So I eventually arrived back home around 5pm, I shall need a couple of tyres and a oil cooler hose pretty quickly and a cleandown of the engine bay and probably a pair of parabolic rear springs with a full fitting kit including poly bushes, perhaps the fellow posting above with his spotless engine bay may care to coment?
No photos, yet, sorry, my DSLR was in the back of 'er indoors car, but I'll see what I can do later.
Car clubs can be a mare for new members, a clique of old members with a lot of car envy going on.
MG is different though, nothing but praise for the MGOC when it comes to parts, and I would imagine smaller local clubs being the same.
Maybe it is because there are not really any very rare models lol.
That is possibly a rubber bumper car, hence the ride height, I think 75 was change over year? Maybe it was 74?
MG is different though, nothing but praise for the MGOC when it comes to parts, and I would imagine smaller local clubs being the same.
Maybe it is because there are not really any very rare models lol.
That is possibly a rubber bumper car, hence the ride height, I think 75 was change over year? Maybe it was 74?
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