Day: 17 July 2026

I gave myself the day off on Monday as it was my Birthday, which was great for us to spend it with family, doing as little as possible!

Back at it early Tuesday morning, which found us over in a very sunny Stockport, where it was great to meet Michael who owns a Caterham 7, that had been giving him some issues over the past couple of years. He’d done a lot of work himself and also had it in to various places, but rather than pull it all apart again himself he asked us to come over and help, as he was experiencing signs of head gasket failure shortly after the head gasket had been replaced.

We confirmed it was the head gasket that had failed so this was duly replaced. An enjoyable mornings work with Michael with lots of interesting chats as we did. MOT time for the car next week, fingers crossed that’s the end of the problems and he can get out for a proper blast round a track! We look forward to the update.

A bit more of a local ish one on Wednesday up in Boroughbridge on a bit of a chilly morning for work on Joe’s 2003 TF 135 in Trophy Blue (JFV). Full cambelt service carried out without any issues. It was really nice to meet Joe briefly as he was on a work-from-home day, he came out to offer us another brew and couldn’t believe that we were already packing away the tools.

The first call on Thursday morning was over in Tunstall, where it was lovely as always to see Mick for work on one of his MGFs. He’s heading off with Sammy in their 1999 MGF VVC in Mulberry Red (CDM) for what sounds like a brilliant trip to Portugal in a couple of weeks time.

Minor service carried out, along with replacing the coil pack (oof they’re an eye-watering price now) and the HT leads. Car given a good check over, spare alternator belt provided and spare coolant cap pressure tested. Unfortunately, between us we weren’t able to source the correct wiper-motor for it as the current one is a tad slow. Hopefully it will last the trip! Big thanks to Mick for more of their delicious chutneys. Hope he and Sammy have a fab trip, we look forward to hearing all about it.

From there we pootled along the road up to St Helen Auckland where it was lovely to meet Kevin. His 2000 MGF 120 mpi had been stood for a while and the inevitable had occurred with the clutch release-arm seizing up, the slave-cylinder was well gunged up with perished seals too. Release-arm eased off, new slave-cylinder fitted, all the old fluid bled through resulting in a nice easy clutch pedal once more. MOT time for the car next week and Kevin can get back to enjoying his car again.

With our last call of the week being in Appleby-in-Westmotland we had decided that rather than travel all the way back home we would stay over. So with having a couple of hours free in the afternoon we made the most of our English Heritage membership and took in a visit to Barnard Castle followed by a brew in the town centre. Not forgetting of course Jon’s obligatory call in to the chocolate shop!

After a stop over in a fab place in Greta Bridge we headed on up to Appleby-in-Westmorland this Friday morning, where we met Pete and his 2004 TF 115 in Starlight Silver (MBB) that he’s owned for 17 years. With pretty much trouble free motoring in all that time he’d recently been having the odd over heating issue along with a couple of other niggles. One of which, was a coolant leak at the front of the car, this was easily sorted as it was found to be a split in the bottle of coolant in the wheel well!

On code reading found that the Lambda sensor was at fault and the exhaust was blowing, Pete had asked us to bring an exhaust gasket, all of the manifold studs were found to be just finger tight, which wouldn’t have helped matters. Exhaust-flexi removed as the Lambda sensor would not budge. Lots of heat later and eventually it came out, so we retapped the hole and fitted the new sensor, exhaust-flexi and manifold refitted with new gaskets, which now sounds a lot quieter! We pressure tested the system, found one of the clips on the hoses not actually attached, the coolant cap wasn’t holding enough pressure so hopefully this has resolved the issue. Time will tell when Pete takes it on another run. Let’s hope that it hasn’t caused any further issues, but it may have developed a very slight weep. Nothing that can’t be sorted anyway. It was great to meet Pete and have such an interesting chat with him, we could have stayed and talked all day!

So after a slow Friday afternoon run back along the A66 we’re now home. What a good week with fab people and their fab MGs in some beautiful locations. I did manage to get an evening walk in when we stayed over in Greta Bridge, which took me to ‘The Meeting of the Waters’, what a stunning place, apparently it’s a painters paradise, you can definitely see why.

We’re looking forward to seeing Mat and his Dad tomorrow when they come over from Leeds to pick up Mats TF. We’ve a couple of people dropping off their MGs on Sunday ready for us to get cracking on next week.

Have a great weekend everyone, and hopefully some top down fun in the sun. ☀️ – https://ift.tt/pRzuhnH