Day: 10 July 2026

Workshop week and an interesting one too, but by gum hasn’t it been warm! 🥵

We originally had John’s TF 160 booked in for a subframe swap both front and rear, but he’d recently looked at the front one and decided it didn’t need doing, so asked for our thoughts regarding the rear once we’d seen it. In the interim he’d also been chatting to Mat about his other TF, that we’d carried out a conversion on a few years ago from a 135 to a 160, Mat was keen to have this done to a 135 he’d recently bought. So John asked if he could share the week with Mat to get this done for him.

Mat set about sourcing all the parts he wanted for the conversion and had the car delivered to us over the weekend loaded with everything, apart from the wiring loom that hadn’t arrived.

We got cracking first thing on Monday. Cylinder head off and replacement cylinder head fitted, which was in fact a 143, not a 160, which had arrived not fully assembled, which seemed strange at the time, so we set about installing and timing the VVC mechs, all ancillaries swapped over on the inlet-manifold to the new one he’d got and everything put back together so far as we could without the loom, new belts, water pump, tensioner, oil, oil filter, alternator belt, plus a previously remapped ECU from a ZR.

Mat and his Dad managed to arrange collection of the loom and after a bit of a schlep came over with it on Tuesday morning. It was good to see Mat and meet his Dad, and enjoy a chat over a cuppa before they headed home to Leeds.

Loom duly fitted and car fired up, unfortunately the dubious cylinder-head sounded absolutely dreadful, to the point that we’d only run it for 30 seconds max for fear it would cause further damage.

After talking it over with Mat he decided he wanted to go ahead with making it right. Car stripped down again and one of our 160 cylinder heads fitted. On firing up we found on code reading there were further issues with the Lambda sensor and then also found to be issues with the ECU. After contacting Mark Stacey at Kmaps it’s thought that the supplied ECU had a pirated degraded copy of Mark’s software.

We then replaced the Lambda sensor and the ECU with one we had on stock and all now running as it should. So pleased to have this done for Mat, he’s going to get the bodywork sorted, he’s got new black leather seats to go in it. We gave it a bit of a blast with the jet wash and a removal of twigs etc., it will be great to see it once it’s back to its former glory. I’m sure Mat will enjoy it amongst his other MGs and hopefully his Dad will enjoy the ride in this one. It’s got the potential to be a good car, someone has obviously spent money on it in the past. Good to see another one saved.

Work all completed on John’s TF 160 in a 1 of 1 paint colour that I’m sure many of you will have seen at shows and features in magazines. It’s fairly recently had a respray and looks great.

Full clutch replacement carried out, along with freeing off a very stiff release-arm. John had bought some upgraded stronger anti-roll bars for the front and rear, along with new drop links. He’d also bought a couple of new window mechs, on removing found that the wiring wasn’t compatible, so Jon soon had this fettled. They’re really nice and smooth now.

The rear subframe we found to be in really good condition, so after a chat with John he was happy to go with our recommendation. Both subframes wire brushed, rust cured and painted with black Hammerite. Plus we treated the whole of the underside with Upol Gravitex. Looks really smart underneath the car as it does on the top!

Then finally a Kmaps remap put on the car and all good to go for John to enjoy many more miles in. It was lovely to see John as always when he came over from Selby this afternoon to collect.

All in all it’s been a full on week and glad to have everything completed on Mat and John’s cars. Have a brilliant weekend everyone near and far, those that aren’t working that is, try and stay cool those that are, it’s set to be another scorcher!😎 – https://ift.tt/y8BRFpM