New - looking to buy - bit worried…

Morning I forgot to add ,the previous owner was very tall and I suppose when he bought the MG the seller had the hood down .When he started to use it he found the hood jammed part way down .Because of this when he started to use it he couldn`t lower the hood and he was unable to drive it comfortably .He obviously didn`t know there is a simple modification to cure this ,which I`ve done .The other thing is since I don`t want to spend a fortune taxing and insuring the car ,the MOT man will collect the MG from my house test it and do anything required and then return the car .He did this with my everyday Toyota.
By the way I am in constant touch with the previous owner as he wanted to see how the car is when I`ve finished it . Len

I am firmly in the don't buy it in a garage camp, I have two TF's, both were bought unseen from Ebay , the first cost £600 and the second £365. The first one had over £4000 spent on it at various garages including sill repairs at a classic car specialist, all since 2016. This one has been a disappointment, the repairs to the sills were just a patch welded to rusty metal, just a bodge. Since I have had it I have repaired them properly with Mike Saturs' repair panels and have spent about £2000 in total. I have fitted galvanised subframes, a new clutch, timing belt, low coolant alarm all new bushes, bearings and ball joints, because I did all the work myself that probably totalled about £750, I also fitted the Bilstein kit and  a big brake conversion. The big brake conversion actually cost me next to nothing, I sold the AP 4 pot callipers for £200 and replaced them with Mini R56 callipers and 294mm discs in the front and 276mm brake discs at the back. Getting rid of the AP callipers might seem like a down grade but they are not that much better than the standard brakes, the reason is that although those big discs and bright red callipers look powerful the brake pistons are tiny little things and exert less pressure on the pads. If you do the calculations you will find that they are just slightly more powerful than the standard setup.
The blue one is immaculate, no rust on the subframes, great engine, new stainless exhaust and a good interior. I am sure that at some point the sills might need doing but otherwise it is rust free, so if I shop around at a few body shops I could actually have both sills done front and rear and have porchased the car for little over a thousand pounds, for just £26 I actually bought a hard top for it from Ebay!
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Hi you're doing a great job by the sounds of it keep it up. I went through chemo and bladder removal it does drag you down and there were days when I couldn't do anything, but when I felt reasonable I would do a few jobs on my F. Now I'm doing HG and a few jobs on my TF VVC160, hoping to get it all done by the spring health and temperament allowing. Keep going and good luck with everything.
Regards Glyn.

It’s interesting to note how many active members are working through health problems.
My car it the recipient of many of my mad ideas & Cobb’s said when talking about his V8 obsession, thinking & doing simply sheds years of your mental age.
Until you do something that your ancient body doesn’t approve of & you say “Golly that hurt”.
M

Airportable wrote:

It’s interesting to note how many active members are working through health problems.
My car it the recipient of many of my mad ideas & Cobb’s said when talking about his V8 obsession, thinking & doing simply sheds years of your mental age.
Until you do something that your ancient body doesn’t approve of & you say “Golly that hurt”.
M
 

No I'm pretty sure I have NEVER said the expression: "Golly that hurt"

+1 for the TF that Len is doing up. I have seen this in the metal. He was selective about buying the car and his restoration is detailed and fastidious. Whoever buys that will have a great car.

To the OP...I understand the worry because I was in the same boat. 
I've always had Toyota's for 50 years now and so have lived a very biased life but recently I wanted a project to keep my mechanical skills intact so with great trepidation I bought a 2002 TF thinking I'll always be underneath it! 
I love it, I absolutely love driving it and can't wait to do some mods on the car. After only a month it has won me over and I find myself driving to the village for a loaf of bread only to find I forgot the milk so I have to go back again...
Try and find the right car..it might not have the seats you wanted but if it is a solid car seats can be changed later. The right seats falling out of a rotten shell are no good at all!

Good luck...I hope you find a good car...there are a lot of them out there.

I have a 2004 TF 135 with an aftermarket Pioneer radio (no code). I use a Discarnect all of the time and I recommend it. I have only discovered one problem with using the Discarnect and that is that the radio forgets all of its preset stations. This doesn't bother me because I can't hear the radio anyway when driving with the hood down, especially not with my slightly raucous exhaust

wrote:

I have a 2004 TF 135 with an aftermarket Pioneer radio (no code). I use a Discarnect all of the time and I recommend it. I have only discovered one problem with using the Discarnect and that is that the radio forgets all of its preset stations. This doesn't bother me because I can't hear the radio anyway when driving with the hood down, especially not with my slightly raucous exhaust

 

The trick here is to have a separate feed to the radio memory that bypasses the Discarnect.  Most modern radios had two power feeds one to run the radio the other to keep the memory alive.

A 9v lipo type battery & appropriate charging circuit, fed via a diode to the permanent live connection on the radio, will maintain the memory almost indefinitely.
M

Hey there! i'm new to MGs too but have you looked into those battery maintainers that don't need to be plugged in? Heard they can be good for cars that sit a while. Might be worth checking out?

bluebae wrote:

Hey there! i'm new to MGs too but have you looked into those battery maintainers that don't need to be plugged in? Heard they can be good for cars that sit a while. Might be worth checking out?

I keep my TF in the garage.  When it is not in use, I use the discarnect.  If I am not planning to use the car in the next few days, I connect it to a small solar panel  very similar to this .  the panel itself is outside the garage, above the door facing SW.  Despite sometimes not using the car for several months, my car hasn't needed the battery charger (or a new battery) for about 7 years.

Thanks to Cobber and Airportable for the tips re the radio.  I like the rechargeable backup battery solution