Isaac Hunt

MCP = Management Car Plan, available to anyone of a Management (Non Clerical Grade) who did not qualify for a Business Car.  
Two years not, about 6 to 9 months.  Sometimes one had to order your next car when you collected a new one.  
6 to 9 months and it would be back in and on its way to the dealer network as nearly new.  
As one moved up the grades, ones entitlement increased.  At one stage I had a business car, and MCP car for the wife and a second MCP car for the FIL.  It was a bit like a modern day PCP, so much a month.   BL ran the same scheme.  
By the time I arrived, the Sprint had been out of production and we were in to MG Metros and MG Maestros of talking dash fame followed by Rover 216 Vitesse of which I remember an extremely spirited drive to the south of France four up, speed warnings flashing at every village.
I remember someone showing me an old photo of the staff car park, stuffed full of Dolly Sprints.
Dolly Sprints were very very popular, it was quite a car in its day despite all the shite about HGF.  By 1980 you got 16V, Alloys, Sundym Glass, Vinyl Roof, Bri-Nylon cloth trim, wood veneer, overdrive if manual, cool is that, a switch on your knob to change gear and some decent oooomf to go with it.  
When the man next door had a ‘poverty spec’ Ford or Fauxhall or a Talbot Solara, you’d arrived when you rocked up with a Dolly Sprint.
i remember when I was a lad, a friend up the road, his Dad came to see him, the Dolly Sprint had not long been launched, I was a kid, and this Pimento Red Sprint turned into our road and booted it, I think that was the day I learned to say ‘fookinell’ as my jaw hit the floor.  
I worked for a guy in marketing, Alan (his surname will come back to me) and I seem to recall him once saying he had a yellow Sprint Auto, but as I say, they were very popular.   There was a tale of two yellow sprints parked next to each other at a wedding, someone nipped out and swopped the number plates and when everybody was pissed up there was much ROFL as the first driver back tried to unlock ‘his car’.  TBH the locks were of few differs so with a wiggle he might have got in.
 

MCP = Management Car Plan, available to anyone of a Management (Non Clerical Grade) who did not qualify for a Business Car.  
Two years not, about 6 to 9 months.  Sometimes one had to order your next car when you collected a new one.  
6 to 9 months and it would be back in and on its way to the dealer network as nearly new.  
As one moved up the grades, ones entitlement increased.  At one stage I had a business car, and MCP car for the wife and a second MCP car for the FIL.  It was a bit like a modern day PCP, so much a month.   BL ran the same scheme.  
By the time I arrived, the Sprint had been out of production and we were in to MG Metros and MG Maestros of talking dash fame followed by Rover 216 Vitesse of which I remember an extremely spirited drive to the south of France four up, speed warnings flashing at every village.
I remember someone showing me an old photo of the staff car park, stuffed full of Dolly Sprints.
Dolly Sprints were very very popular, it was quite a car in its day despite all the shite about HGF.  By 1980 you got 16V, Alloys, Sundym Glass, Vinyl Roof, Bri-Nylon cloth trim, wood veneer, overdrive if manual, cool is that, a switch on your knob to change gear and some decent oooomf to go with it.  
When the man next door had a ‘poverty spec’ Ford or Fauxhall or a Talbot Solara, you’d arrived when you rocked up with a Dolly Sprint.
i remember when I was a lad, a friend up the road, his Dad came to see him, the Dolly Sprint had not long been launched, I was a kid, and this Pimento Red Sprint turned into our road and booted it, I think that was the day I learned to say ‘fookinell’ as my jaw hit the floor.  
I worked for a guy in marketing, Alan (his surname will come back to me) and I seem to recall him once saying he had a yellow Sprint Auto, but as I say, they were very popular.   There was a tale of two yellow sprints parked next to each other at a wedding, someone nipped out and swopped the number plates and when everybody was pissed up there was much ROFL as the first driver back tried to unlock ‘his car’.  TBH the locks were of few differs so with a wiggle he might have got in.
 

MCP = Management Car Plan, available to anyone of a Management (Non Clerical Grade) who did not qualify for a Business Car.  
Two years not, about 6 to 9 months.  Sometimes one had to order your next car when you collected a new one.  
6 to 9 months and it would be back in and on its way to the dealer network as nearly new.  
As one moved up the grades, ones entitlement increased.  At one stage I had a business car, and MCP car for the wife and a second MCP car for the FIL.  It was a bit like a modern day PCP, so much a month.   BL ran the same scheme.  
By the time I arrived, the Sprint had been out of production and we were in to MG Metros and MG Maestros of talking dash fame followed by Rover 216 Vitesse of which I remember an extremely spirited drive to the south of France four up, speed warnings flashing at every village.
I remember someone showing me an old photo of the staff car park, stuffed full of Dolly Sprints.
Dolly Sprints were very very popular, it was quite a car in its day despite all the shite about HGF.  By 1980 you got 16V, Alloys, Sundym Glass, Vinyl Roof, Bri-Nylon cloth trim, wood veneer, overdrive if manual, cool is that, a switch on your knob to change gear and some decent oooomf to go with it.  
When the man next door had a ‘poverty spec’ Ford or Fauxhall or a Talbot Solara, you’d arrived when you rocked up with a Dolly Sprint.
i remember when I was a lad, a friend up the road, his Dad came to see him, the Dolly Sprint had not long been launched, I was a kid, and this Pimento Red Sprint turned into our road and booted it, I think that was the day I learned to say ‘fookinell’ as my jaw hit the floor.  
I worked for a guy in marketing, Alan (his surname will come back to me) and I seem to recall him once saying he had a yellow Sprint Auto, but as I say, they were very popular.   There was a tale of two yellow sprints parked next to each other at a wedding, someone nipped out and swopped the number plates and when everybody was pissed up there was much ROFL as the first driver back tried to unlock ‘his car’.  TBH the locks were of few differs so with a wiggle he might have got in.
 

MCP = Management Car Plan, available to anyone of a Management (Non Clerical Grade) who did not qualify for a Business Car.  
Two years not, about 6 to 9 months.  Sometimes one had to order your next car when you collected a new one.  
6 to 9 months and it would be back in and on its way to the dealer network as nearly new.  
As one moved up the grades, ones entitlement increased.  At one stage I had a business car, and MCP car for the wife and a second MCP car for the FIL.  It was a bit like a modern day PCP, so much a month.   BL ran the same scheme.  
By the time I arrived, the Sprint had been out of production and we were in to MG Metros and MG Maestros of talking dash fame followed by Rover 216 Vitesse of which I remember an extremely spirited drive to the south of France four up, speed warnings flashing at every village.
I remember someone showing me an old photo of the staff car park, stuffed full of Dolly Sprints.
Dolly Sprints were very very popular, it was quite a car in its day despite all the shite about HGF.  By 1980 you got 16V, Alloys, Sundym Glass, Vinyl Roof, Bri-Nylon cloth trim, wood veneer, overdrive if manual, cool is that, a switch on your knob to change gear and some decent oooomf to go with it.  
When the man next door had a ‘poverty spec’ Ford or Fauxhall or a Talbot Solara, you’d arrived when you rocked up with a Dolly Sprint.
i remember when I was a lad, a friend up the road, his Dad came to see him, the Dolly Sprint had not long been launched, I was a kid, and this Pimento Red Sprint turned into our road and booted it, I think that was the day I learned to say ‘fookinell’ as my jaw hit the floor.  
I worked for a guy in marketing, Alan (his surname will come back to me) and I seem to recall him once saying he had a yellow Sprint Auto, but as I say, they were very popular.   There was a tale of two yellow sprints parked next to each other at a wedding, someone nipped out and swopped the number plates and when everybody was pissed up there was much ROFL as the first driver back tried to unlock ‘his car’.  TBH the locks were of few differs so with a wiggle he might have got in.
 

MCP = Management Car Plan, available to anyone of a Management (Non Clerical Grade) who did not qualify for a Business Car.  
Two years not, about 6 to 9 months.  Sometimes one had to order your next car when you collected a new one.  
6 to 9 months and it would be back in and on its way to the dealer network as nearly new.  
As one moved up the grades, ones entitlement increased.  At one stage I had a business car, and MCP car for the wife and a second MCP car for the FIL.  It was a bit like a modern day PCP, so much a month.   BL ran the same scheme.  
By the time I arrived, the Sprint had been out of production and we were in to MG Metros and MG Maestros of talking dash fame followed by Rover 216 Vitesse of which I remember an extremely spirited drive to the south of France four up, speed warnings flashing at every village.
I remember someone showing me an old photo of the staff car park, stuffed full of Dolly Sprints.
Dolly Sprints were very very popular, it was quite a car in its day despite all the shite about HGF.  By 1980 you got 16V, Alloys, Sundym Glass, Vinyl Roof, Bri-Nylon cloth trim, wood veneer, overdrive if manual, cool is that, a switch on your knob to change gear and some decent oooomf to go with it.  
When the man next door had a ‘poverty spec’ Ford or Fauxhall or a Talbot Solara, you’d arrived when you rocked up with a Dolly Sprint.
i remember when I was a lad, a friend up the road, his Dad came to see him, the Dolly Sprint had not long been launched, I was a kid, and this Pimento Red Sprint turned into our road and booted it, I think that was the day I learned to say ‘fookinell’ as my jaw hit the floor.  
I worked for a guy in marketing, Alan (his surname will come back to me) and I seem to recall him once saying he had a yellow Sprint Auto, but as I say, they were very popular.   There was a tale of two yellow sprints parked next to each other at a wedding, someone nipped out and swopped the number plates and when everybody was pissed up there was much ROFL as the first driver back tried to unlock ‘his car’.  TBH the locks were of few differs so with a wiggle he might have got in.
 

That is the Dogs Danglies for sure and has benefitted from the Trig Treatment.
There is an extremely high probability that it was a Unipart Management Car Plan car, they were very popular on the scheme ‘in the day’.  

That is the Dogs Danglies for sure and has benefitted from the Trig Treatment.
There is an extremely high probability that it was a Unipart Management Car Plan car, they were very popular on the scheme ‘in the day’.  

Now Aberdeenshire council have stopped salting the roads I dragged the cortina in to the light yesterday.

I have owned this since 2003 but hardly ever driven it.  It's a 1970 Super that had a home restoration in the late 90s by the previous but one owner.  At this time it was painted Aubergine and had the interior from a 1600E fitted.  It was then sold to someone with too many projects and then put on ebay where i bought it.  It's been sitting in various lockups and storage until last October when i collected it from my in-laws garage where it had been since 2012. 

Trailer borrowed from the very kind @Saabnut.  Slightly epic collection from Co. Kerry went smoothly.

Once at home I stashed it away in the garage out of the salt. 
It ran when parked but I wasn't sure what state it would be in after such a long lay up.  I re-joined the Mk2 owners club who have a very good spares scheme, still run by a lovely bloke in Essex, and ordered a few parts.  A new fuel pump diaphragm, coil, condensor and points had it making hopeful noises.  A new battery, jump leads and some easy start had it coughing in to life.

Brakes and clutch (hydraulic on these) seemed OK so I took it for a very gentle test drive.  Amazingly, everything seems to be functioning more or less correctly.  The alternator was making a racket but replacing a missing bolt sorted that.  
Plans are new tyres, tracking,  number plates, service and then drive it and see what else needs doing.  The front wings are starting to rust a little but hopefully savable.  I will get an MOT done for peace of mind although it's exempt now.  I have some black and silver plates I got made years ago but now I'm thinking a set of period correct white and yellow would be better.  As a short term goal I'm planning on a day trip with the family on 'drive it day' later this month.

Snow has delayed mustang MOT so in the meantime I have been fiddling with my other Dagenham dustbins.
Sierra has been stored outside over the winter due to space issues and let in a little water. Mostly from the rear light clusters so some butyl tape on order for that. Also bought wiper delay and instrument dimmers to replace nasty blanks on the dash. Because priorities.
Cortina is lurking in the garage avoiding the salt so I took the chance to fix the steering wheel which was grubby and had lost its cover. 
 

Stripped wheel down and polished.

Had to re stitch ebay leather cover as it was too big, think it's for a standard not 1600E wheel despite being advertised as such.

Rubber cover back on.

Cover in place. Wife hand stitched it in the end as her machine couldn't sew the leather and she said my effort at hand stitching was pitiful.

Stitched up round the edges through the stitches put on by the supplier.

Done. 
Delighted with how this turned out, not quite as good as a professional job but 25 quid versus 230 plus postage I was quoted and I did it myself. Going back on the car today.

And I can’t help feeling the poncy officials at Wimbledon  missed a trick really.  I mean, all they really managed was to get the Wombles associated, how common. 
Great progress on the resto.  Good video as well

And I can’t help feeling the poncy officials at Wimbledon  missed a trick really.  I mean, all they really managed was to get the Wombles associated, how common. 
Great progress on the resto.  Good video as well

Must have bee ‘de-fleeted’ before the makeover crew got to them.  I remember BT painting a load of stuff in ‘grey day’ polished primer colour ready for the BT Piper graphics.  By all accounts there were some proper shite paint jobs done.  A wipeover with panel wipe, a cursory flat, mask it up and blast it over, didn’t even need to switch the engine off, it wasn’t in the shop long enough.  
Mind you, a slightly darker version of BT grey is all rage with some manufacturers.  Bloke down our street has a BINI in polished primer.  Park it next to a Black Car and a White Car and you find yourself banging your head to try and get the colour picture back.

When the Escort MK2 did a ‘Popular Plus’ that was so basic, if there was a ‘Popular’ then the AntHill Mob must have had that one.   
Or you got a Ford Cortina Mk4 1.3 and your next door neighbour PHSL cos he had a 1.6L.   The MD was king of the castle with a 2.3 Ghia
back then, poverty spec was proper povvo.
BeeHell were just as bad, if you had a super deluxe, you could look down your nose at the poor fekker with the deluxe.
the povvo spec often didn’t even have a heated rear window.  You used to see folk with those stick on shite things.  Mind you, if you did have a HRW, by the time the box of tissues on the parcel shelf had done two circuits, half the fekkin elements were bost anyway.
I had a Marina 1.3 base model.  Vinyl seats, static seat belts and drum brakes up front.   It used to pull to the left on braking.  So just before my driving test I deglazed the shoes and drums, adjusted them up.  On my test, when the examiner turned round to check for traffic, I was ready for the STOP.  I slammed on the anchors and yanked hard right, the fekker stopped in a straight line on a sixpence, the examiner and clipboard shot forward off the vinyl seat, under the baggy static belt and ended up in the footwell.  I was certain i’d failed.   But he straightened himself out, issued further instruction and off we drove.  I was gobsmacked to hear him say “I have to inform you that you have passed”

Shame it got a bit hot.  
If the welding gets done for free, then as the chaps say, an interior should not come to big pounds. 
There is the faffing about time factor though, finding one.  
My MGZR has a near mint full set of Monaco Half leathers ex breakers yard.  Cost me £40.  Kin struggle to get the drivers seat out though, cos bolt TADTS rusts in on drivers side by the exhaust tunnel.  Hammer and cold chisel soon had the chunk of floor cut out.  Then the same sheared off on mine, had to drill it out.  
I even got a mint headlining out of another one.
Both were ‘stumbled on’ whilst down for other stuff and I thought, can’t let that get away, so stayed a bit longer and liberated them.
My original drivers seat was split to buggery and the original headlining made Nora Batty’s tights look tidy.  So neither were a total indulgence.  
 
 

I had two of them.  One after the other as company cars, 1.6SL and then a 1.6SLX.  100k in both of them.  The 1.6SLX had a new head gasket at 200 miles,  new head at 300 miles and a new engine at 400 miles (cracked block it was ). Then one day I was OMG though a scrapyard looking for a Nissan Bluebird and there was my 1.6SL with two Sierra’s on its roof.  That was surreal.

who robbed the neighbors fence?????

Proper poverty spec is that.  
I seem to recall a mate of mine getting a job as a photocopier salesman back in the early 80's.  He was mighty pissed off when they gave him one of these as his company car.

I keep looking at Boris and his "problem area's" and can't quite work out where to start i need the door pillar to be rot free and in the right place before i cut the floors and sill panels away but to secure the pillar ideally the sill needs to be sorted first.
In the end i've started cutting away at the inner wing by the hinge panel which has revealed rot and holes in the toe board,floor and inner,inner wing.

I wanted to leave the hinge panel in situ so i could test hang the door off it but it wasn't realistically ever going to happen so i carefully measured where it sat and cut it off.

I have now ordered an inner wing repair panel that comes with the return back to the pillar so i can replace it all as one bit and hopefully remount the hinge panel keeping everything in the right place.
Boris came with a pair of new hinge panels but when i checked how well made they were i was left disappointed with how far out the bottom hinge mounting  point is.


New (East Sussex Minors sourced) compared to original.
So i will reuse the old one and patch its rotted base with a bit from the "iffy" pattern one.
To repair the inner,inner wing and floor/toe board the inner sill and stiffener panel needs to come out first usually the inner sill 'L' section survives but mine has already been plated along its entire lengh so it'll all have to go which makes it a bit more of a headache getting it all back together in the right place.
So again lots of measurements have been taken before i start cutting it al out.


And fit this lot.

Those headrest tubes were a pain the arse when the cars were new / nearly new.  People hang onto the headrest when they climb out the back seat like it is a grab handle, they alsways used to break.  
They are a real fiddle,to get the remenants out sometimes, I seem to recall.   The ageing of the plastic will have done the new old stock few favours, I'm not surprised you broke a fekker tbh.
i like your use of creaping fluid sealant to find the route of that water track.  I also like your use of arbomast as a non setting sealant.  Keep pushing that in.  It used to be Dum Dum in the day, but IIRC it was banned by the EU due to some ingredient in it.   Whoever banned it wants to get a whiff of tiger seal to wake themselves up.
As for the 'no muff too tuff" radiator shield.  My Dad use to fit remote control,units to his old Wolseley Farina.  You turned a knob on the dash to open and close the blind.  I don't suppose back in the 1960's it was electrically operated, so it must have been mechanical, cable round a pulley wheel.   All very posh, unlike an acquaintance of mine who had me driving his Rover 2600 SD1 once.  We were on the M42 and there was me watching the traffic when he shouted 'pull onto the hard shoulder'.  I can't recall if he sprung the hood or I did, but he disappeared under there and pulled out a sheet of cardboard.  He had forgaooten it was there and must have clocked the temp gauge getting a bit hot.
 

I admire your approach.  Getting the car through an MOT and then a settling and fettling period is commendable.
have you thought about cutting that bit of grot out with a dremel and aralditing a small patch of metal in.  Then finishing off with a bit of filler.  
I used this approach on a wing above a headlamp once.  It was only a 2p hole.  The repair has lasted 30+ years.
whilst it still isn’t a welded repair, it might mean the screen won’t have to come out again.
once I had shaped the metal with a bit of a step to fit behind the edges of the hole, I spread some araldite on polythene, Laid on the patch, more araldite on top, then pushed it into place and worked the polythene to seal the edges of the patch with araldite.
it was all non structural and it sets rock hard and is impervious to moisture.  You also avoid all the heat of the weld.

Visually there are a number of ‘looks’ for R8 underbonet layout.  
Beyond the early ‘single point injection’ and the VVC ‘tooned’ Models there was a cast ally manifold and plenum and then the plastic manifold with bulkhead mounted expansion tank.  Your cabby layout looks identical to our 2003 MGZR but clearly specs were being changed continuously.
Our MGZR was a bit of an experiment. I had already replaced belt, tensioner and water pump.   After replacing a leaking water pump, the car continued to use a bit of coolant, not as much as it did when the pump was leaking, but no surprise there.
i just kept it topped up.  ‘Yoof’ had blown the gearbox up in his Fester, so while I had that in bits, the MGZR was ‘lent’ to him.   Despite requests to ‘keep it sensible’ On the M4 in the summer heat, that fell on deaf ears and he was caning it trying to keep up with a colleague in a Beemer.   That finished of the HG which turned out to be a rotten MLS Gasket “ it shot upminto the red dad but only for a short while” yeah..... when you lifted and eased back off to two figures and gave it half a chance.....
I pulled off the head, cleaned the faces with wet’n’dry, wd40 on a sanding block (fine wet n dry).   I checked the head with a straightedge and threw it back together with an elastomer Gasket, new inlet and exhaust manifold gaskets, old stretch bolts and it has been spot on since, that was 2014 and 55k miles ago.
i was interested to see how well a ‘low rent repair’ worked.  

Great work.  
The Cooper ‘was it or wasn't it a S’ that sold through Mathewson Auctions, fekkin hell, they had to sweep half of it up with a broom and dustpan, I swear they left about £2k’s worth sitting on the floor.
i’ve never Owned one, but a few mates did back in the day, proper good fun unless it’s five up all the way up to Blackpool, Kinell, alright for the first mile but not the 150 that followed it.

I've done quite a bit more work since the last update.  Over the past year or so since I painted it I've spent a lot of time with the car and got to know every defect no matter how small.
Something I decided to do a while back was repaint both quarter panels when I had the opportunity.  When I painted the car originally I had never done anything like it before.  As a result my filler work was basic and only focused on areas I could see or feel.
The results of that method are missing ripples and shallow dents.  Once the paint goes all of them show up when you look down the side of the car.
Now with more experience, the right tools, products and method I set to redoing the rear quarters.  I rubbed them down with a long block which shows up all the highs and lows.  Applied a skim of filler to the entire panel and then blocked it down.  It's much more involved than that but you get the idea.  I found lots of issues and worked hard over the course of 4 days to get them right.

Primed the panels and blocked that back to prepare for paint.  About two days to prime, prepare and paint.  Much happier with it now.


It won't look all that different in pictures but it really has made a massive improvement to the car.
With that difficult and daunting task complete I flat and polished the panels to remove the orange peel.  Then put everything back together, about a days work.

Back on track I continued adding the final few parts.  This is a factory under tray, not often seen in the UK but was an option on these cars.

Cleaned up the jack and spare wheel hardware.

Made and fitted the last bit of trim for the boot.  This covers a void between the quarter panel and boot floor.  It's originally filled with foam but I've left that out as it causes rust in the wheel arches.
 
Finally I flat and polished the sills and ordered some new tyres.

Very close now, perhaps another 8 hours of work and the car should be finished.

I have never attempted fitting a pre formed repair panel to a door before so watched a few YouTube vids first and i think i got away with it.
The old skin relied on just being folded over the frame to secure it which was probably ok but i also drilled a few holes through the panel and plug welded it to the frame 
It's going to need a fair bit of filler to make good though.
My problem is i want to keep the car looking its age and keeping as much of the original paintwork as possible but all these repairs are going to be a bugger to blend in,but then again if the colour is out i can put it down as character.

Serves the Zebedee"s right for trying to have your pants down
Owen to their CBA level of customer service.  
Given another firm managed to fix the issue, you just gotta wonder why Mr Owen couldn't keep up with the Joneses.