MOTO-SCAT

Well, you all know by now that I bought a MG TF at the auctions the other day when I was supposed to be just looking. Obviously I didn't look at it first, but couldn't resist the way no-one else bid at all.



It's a late 2003 SunStorm 135 special edition. It should have a factory hardtop but seeing as they go for £400 on ebay it doesn't. It does have fancy 16" alloys, AP 4 pot calipers and NO spare wheel.



So, I collected yesterday. Almost fell through the floor at paying over 50% on top of the hammer price but I should have checked first. Time to find out if I got a lemon or not, and I know a bit too much about these to be fully confident it was all OK - someone traded it it for some reason, and it's due a test in 6 weeks time. Checked the oil, checked the coolant, found a suitable CD and drove it to Sunderland to collect my son from college. (OBV I insured it first, and it still shows as taxed...)



Mr Blue Sky..... It was raining, but I didn't care.

last night I did some research - I found out how to zip up the window when you put the hood back up, read up on some specs and checked likely VALU on ebay. Looking ok so far. Today I took it to the MoT station and had a good look... exciting* part 2 to follow soon.

?

So.... today. First thing I did was loosen the pressure cap before starting - it hissed! Yay. The cooling system holds pressure. Thank fook for that! So I took it to the MoT station so I could have a proper look - my ramp is taken up with a broken MGTF for some reason... wishbones for that one should arrive monday.



Over the pit. It doesn't need wishbones! Both of them are still solid. This is GOOD NEWS. Of course it wasn't all good.



There is a hole in the subframe. This is a fail because it's within 30cm of the wishbone mounts and the anti roll bar mount. I would bet money (if I had any left) that this is the reason it got hastily part exchanged at Benfield, probably against a Juke. I think I can probably fix it in situ though. Everything else under there is pretty good.

Of course, because I was there I ran the brakes and emissions...



YAY!



BOO! That's the handbrake.....

So, not all bad. Couple of bits of cosmetic rust on the body too, but overall it's a pretty nice car. I also feel better because I just re-read tone's Longbridge roadster thread and noticed he paid £600 for his, so this one now looks like a MEGA_BARG.

Just a shame summer* seems to be over.

Seems like a good deal.
Strange* how these seem to be all over the shop in terms of £££'s - With a decent 'cult' following, you'd have thought that punting it privately through the MGR-perv forums would have netted decent coin rather than shoving it through an auction full of 'people in the know' all sucking through their teeth about HGF's etc.

(See also - MG ZT / Rover 75 etc)

God only knows what benfield paid him for it, but clean SE TFs seem to fetch between a grand and fifteen hundred depending on miles/history/lies/photos. Anyone who mentions any cooling problems gets about five hundred quid, and anything that has sat around with no MoT is automatically a spares car. Sort of where the MGB was 30 years ago.

Good point. Lots of parallels between the two. And despite the the MX-5 being considered the MGB's successor, the F/TF is much closer to the mark - cobbled together out of recycled bits, but still somehow managing to pull it off. Like a B has a lovely noise (in spite of having the engine from a canal boat [apologies to Seth], an F/TF really does sound wonderful when being given 'the beans'.

I went for a drive this afternoon. All went well for most of the trip but shortly after stopping in traffic in durham....


Rapidly followed by

Damn.

I let it cool down. topped the tank up from the bottle of water I always seem to have on me and it behaved for the last 10 miles home.

It wasn't a slow rise either - the gauge went from half to OMGHGF in about a second. Oil temp remained steady at about 120. if I'm really, really lucky it's just a weak pressure cap. Do I feel lucky? Well, do I?

LECCY MIRRORS!?! :O

Fingers crossed. IIRC the guage is damped to an absurd degree so the fact it warned you before it had run out of water completely is pretty rare from what I've read. Mine's never over heated yet, but obv wouldn't want to tempt fate! Even the posh-o mg-rover packaged caps I ordered from B&G had a 1 in 3 failure rate, so my confidence is high itll be that. You've probably got proper/heath robinson pressure tesking gear so you can check it anyway.

I'm thinking the rocket like rise was because when the cap vented the system flash boiled and the sensor stopped being surrounded by water. As soon as it stopped hissing it fell back down to half just as quickly.

And yes, proper pressure testing equipment is available. It will be wednesday before I get a chance to do anything though, going to that there lundun mon/tues.