A few years ago before I got the TF there was a feature about the reverse light switch on the F/TF in the MGOC magazine. These reverse switches were deemed unreliable and IIRC the common cause of failure was oil leaking past the seal and contaminating the terminals, I don't remember if the oil caused the contacts to stick or whether it conducted the power. The person who wrote the article .tested the switches from a number of suppliers and found that the majority were the same switch in different colour boxes but there were a couple of much better quality ones. I think that the MGOC supplied the better one, well they would wouldn't they20.png
Read More...
When buying rotary wire brushes its worth noting the difference between a normal type and the 'knotted wire' one. The latter are much more fierce, for heavier duty work, than the normal ones. If in doubt start with a normal one.
Screwfix sell a very nice 6" wire wheel that fits a 9" angle grinder, these are particularly good in that the wires are soft but the far greater control of the larger angle grinder make it far safer to use.
Read More...
I am fitting a Jaguar V6 engine into our MGB and hopefully will be sorting out a wiring loom after Xmas, since you have no need for the existing O2 sensors your new wideband sensor can be fitted in the existing position before the catalytic convertor. A common solution to the MAP sensor is this one; https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/391781615269
The calibration data is available on the internet, Speeding Parts based in Sweden list the calibration date on their website, they are reasonably priced and ship quickly
These are used by many aftermarket ECU manufacturers and only need a 4mm pipe to the manifold. Although I am not brave enough many people have drilled and tapped a manifold by keeping the drill bit and tap heavily coated with grease to catch the swarf. Coincidently my heavily modified Ford manifold is off to be TIG welded today
Read More...
Although only eighteen months or so ago when I replaced those heater hoses on our TF I am sure it is an engine out job. On ours those spring hose clips were well inside the “tunnel”. As Airportable says those screws retaining the cover plates are hell on earth to remove. I am sure that you can only use the spring type of hose clip due to the very limited access.
Read More...
Did you just put the bitumastic pad on there or did you add a bit more sound insulation? If not try some closed cell foam, I used to get loads of it from work, because it was so cheap loads got thrown into the skips. There is one variant that is used under laminate flooring that's about 8mm thick and has a heat reflecting foil on one surface.
Read More...
I am insured with Cherished Insurance (MGCC) no problems with ECU, Brake and wheel upgrades. However it was at circa £300 a lot more than we pay for either of our other two cars, although since it was an additional car it had no NCB
Read More...
I have had two cars written off in the last five or six years, the first one was where my 17 year old "go to work/mobile skip" VW Polo had someone reverse into while parked, not even the body shop looked at it and the insurance company offered £1250 which I grabbed because I only paid half that for it, I continued to drive it with the cracked bumper for a couple more years. The second was where another driver cut across me on a roundabout and damaged the front bumper and upset the tracking, again no inspection but written off just from photo's supplied by me, again we were very pleased with the pay
out that was in my bank account less than two weeks after the collision. The car was due to have had over £1500 of work (major service/water pump etc) on the following Wednesday and if you added that to the settlement figure we got within £500 of what we paid for the car five years and 76,000 miles previously.
Read More...
With F/TF values where they are it would cost an insurer nearly as much to interrogate an ECU as the cars value. They would just pay up if the damage did not involve personal injury.
It's not the cars value that might determine an investigation but other consequences. One of my sons had it explained to him after writing off two cars within five months of his seventeenth birthday. His insurance company was facing a claim after a car a car hit and killed a man on a push bike. Assuming the man might be married and had children they immediately set aside ten million pounds for a liability claim. Within a few days they discovered the young man was not married and had no children to support and the ten million was reduced to one million. Over the next few weeks various witnesses confirmed that the young man had been drinking in a local pub, blood tests obtained showed that he was well over the legal limit and other witnesses gave evidence that he was cycling all over the road, within weeks the claim had gone from ten million to zero. However this was twenty three years ago and those amounts would have increased substantially. It's not about the value of your car it's the cost of a third party settlement.
The answer is to shop around for insurance, we were considering having my wife's car remapped and went onto the various comparison websites and some of them actually have an ability to list all of the modifications and get a quote, in the end we gave up due to the power increase being too high to fit the criteria. Not long afterwards I was in a small garage that caters for a lot of young lads with modified MX%'s having the TF's hub bearings pushed out, one of these young lads was in there and I asked about insurance for them. His reply was very simple find a broker that deals with young drivers and modified cars, very often a car that has had modified brakes, wheels, a remap and a spoiler etc can be accepted as a kit car. His insurance was less than mine (less than £200) for a heavily modified MX5
Read More...