That yellow SLK - new owner and new fixes! (the thread of history)

[purplebargeken]

Well worth persevering with re: MGF. Yours should not feel wandry, is the suspension pumped up properly and it might be worthwhile getting the tracking done. A good one is lovely in the steering department. Tyre choice makes a difference too.

[purplebargeken]

That 300C looks ace

[Bear]

It was a fantastic car, the 300C, but too big for towns combined with my mental space issues - I really, really hate having to squeeze a car into tight spaces, not because I can't but because I don't want it to get dents/scratches. The E320 is fine, it's an old beaten up one, so I won't care.

 

I've had an MG F before - a VVC - this one feels like the front arms are worn. There's a little clickyness at the front, a little like ARB links but with lateral movement rather than vertical and it's not so much a wander as twitchy. It's on crap rubber though. Ride height is spot on. Perseverance isn't so much the issue, as just being frustrated that this one cost so much! And it's not mine, really - my parents bought themselves a summer treat and it went a bit pear shaped. Were it mine, I'd have swapped it for three magic beans ages ago.

[purplebargeken]

The VVC is fun, especially with the 52mm throttle body and a more free flowing intake. Addictive!

 

That could be the problem. Good rubber makes a world of difference

[Taff]

The VVC is fun, especially with the 52mm throttle body and a more free flowing intake. Addictive!

 

That could be the problem. Good rubber makes a world of difference

 

PBK speaks the truth. VVC + good rubber = cheesy grin with side order of MILF

[Bear]

I loved my VVC for the few minutes it worked. Wonderfully quick, comfortable - a very capable car. It really made me think how good Longbridge/MG Rover's engineers were at "Loaves and Fishes" tricks with components, but then when it went wrong, I wished they'd used something other than bread and kippers to make the car. Metal, for example. That would have been nice.

 

My old one, as found:

 

 

 

 

And finished.

 

 

 

The silver one is getting a clutch master cylinder rebuild kit and some new black rivets for the roof/back window so I can drill out the old ones and reinstall it properly and correctly tensioned. Then an effort will be made to find it a new home, as there's another mid-engined car on my mind right now

[Jim Bell]

VVCs are just great. I love them. Though I've never had any bother with one.

My current VVC, in a 25 gti is probably gonna have to go to fund work on the 305. Which will be a sad day.

[Bear]

That green one was bought on the basis of "it's probably got a buggered head gasket, so I'll fix it and then I'll have a good car".

Turned out the headgasket had been done and it was fine, just needed a new alternator, a clean and a droplink, then pumping up. Traded with Keith for the Ro80 and then sodding MG blew a displacer - it went on to someone who fixed it, and then the trail goes cold.

 

Wish I still had that boot rack, mind. Can't stand the chrome bolted-through type on the silver one.

 

Mostly this weekend I will be sulking that the proper coil compressors for the SLK haven't shown up I prefer the SLK to the MGF, but I reckon a bad SLK will be considerably harder and more expensive to get on the right side of than a bad MGF, so MGF wins for budget topless thrills.

[dugong]

Well worth persevering with re: MGF. Yours should not feel wandry, is the suspension pumped up properly and it might be worthwhile getting the tracking done. A good one is lovely in the steering department. Tyre choice makes a difference too.

 

You know LBL's got mismatched tyres at each corner, right? Was your specialist out to lunch when he did that? 

 

Nexen and Nankang either side of front axle (check). Nexen howls like a banshee, Nankang doesn't. 

205 \ 50 Nexen and 205 \ 55 Firestone between osr and nsr. Y DIFFERENCE IN TYRE PROFILE? 

 

I might have sorted out a set of Yokohama C Drives for it, though - happy days. 

[forddeliveryboy]

I've no experience of the Moulton 'displacers' other than actually driving cars with them fitted, but since they rely on Nitrogen trapped above a rubber membrane as with spheres in Cits, RRs, Mercs, McLarens and JCBs, surely after 20 years plenty of the gas has escaped? So less wheel travel and faster rising rate - 'stiffer' - suspension? 'Pumping up' with fluid restores ride height but doesn't affect the amount of spring left in the displacers.

[Jim Bell]

You know LBL's got mismatched tyres at each corner, right? Was your specialist out to lunch when he did that?

 

Nexen and Nankang either side of front axle (check). Nexen howls like a banshee, Nankang doesn't.

205 \ 50 Nexen and 205 \ 55 Firestone between osr and nsr. Y DIFFERENCE IN TYRE PROFILE?

 

I might have sorted out a set of Yokohama C Drives for it, though - happy days.

I can't believe that it had mismatched profiles on the same axle. That's mad. Sorry for not spotting it, but in my defence, I didn't have it long and only drive fast in straight lines.

[dugong]

I can't believe that it had mismatched profiles on the same axle. That's mad. Sorry for not spotting it, but in my defence, I didn't have it long and only drive fast in straight lines.

 

Dude - you sold me a brilliant MGF for £550 and threw in a stereo without asking. This is my OCD kicking in - although at least I worked out why it wandered a bit at the back - it's ever so slightly lob sided. 

Annoyingly, £30 worth of Nightbreakers have barely improved the lighting situation. 

 

I also got some floormats from Moss Europe and a hard top from eBay, which was a damn sight more scuffed than originally described. 

 

 

 

Got a new head unit going in soon, together with a non-gubbed cigarette lighter. 

 

 

[Bear]

Yes & no. Displacers do lose the gas, absolutely, and if you hit 400psi and the car has no suspension travel they're fucked. However, you are forgetting the law of British (and FWIW, French if the puddles on my drive are anything to go by).

The first law of Old Cars is:

If there is a fluid in a system, it is leaking out somewhere.
If there is no leak, there's probably no fluid.

On the whole the displacers on hydragas systems are pretty robust, but the fluid is not oil, it's water and booze, so it can evaporate, leak in small quantities without trace, escape through the comedy Schrader valves you refill it with. Same as "where's the stuff gone in my AC system". So a flat hydragas car can probably be pumped up, but a hydragas car with no bounce or movement, that's just hydra, no gas. If it's not low in winter and high in summer, it's probably missing the gas part.

 

Unfortunately unlike Citroëns and Mercedes with their readily available replacement displacers, the Dunlop-made cans for the MGF are rare, often secondhand, surprisingly not always useless. Bear in mind those babies are so robust, people are still trading used ones from Allegros and Princesses.

When I griped about displacers to someone from the MG club, they mentioned the spring kit. Not my bag at all. I'm too fat and jiggly to enjoy the TF's competent for the track, but horrid around town ride quality, I like MGFs for their maturity and smoothness.

[PiperCub]

Likewise admiration for the W124 - can I do my bit for Be-a-nosey-bastard-week and ask how you paid? (Albeit with the 'Gangsta' shit on it - for the record, no, I don't get the whole lowering/huge wheels thing either).

[Taff]

high jack thread alert. Are the hard tops for the F any good?

[Bear]

Likewise admiration for the W124 - can I do my bit for Be-a-nosey-bastard-week and ask how you paid? (Albeit with the 'Gangsta' shit on it - for the record, no, I don't get the whole lowering/huge wheels thing either).

 

A bit under £400, with the 15" wheels but had to drive it back on the 18s then swap them over. It needs quite a lot of work but I think it's fundamentally sound!

[Bear]

Has the clutch arm done its thing and twisted/bent/snapped? You can usually see the mount flexing when someone pushes the clutch, known weak spot usually caused by a bearing failure.

 

Finally got around to sorting it - it was, as suspected, the master cylinder. Rebuilt it with a £6 kit of seals, and took the time to redo the rivets on the back of the roof with proper long black ones.

 

Now I have the spring tool to sort the SLK (and nice new springs), but with the E-class deciding to play up the MG is my only working road-legal car.

 

FML, or something.

[forddeliveryboy]

Are the hard tops for the F any good?

 

Awesome. They appear to double the torsional rigidity and make it more slippery through the air, to the extent you steer totally differently through bends and go further between motorway fillups. The cars are transformed, more civilised all round. Except for the lack of wind in the hair with little more than a shove of the right arm. It only takes about 30 seconds to remove, though, and is easily done by one man.

[Taff]

Awesome. They appear to double the torsional rigidity and make it more slippery through the air, to the extent you steer totally differently through bends and go further between motorway fillups.

 

 

then I need a green one like, er, yesterday!

[Bear]

SPRINGS ARE ON THE SLK!

 

I bought a Laser 4870 spring compressor - there are much cheaper ones, but I'm not really into taking chances with springs and it was at least "the cheapest" I'd seen the Laser at on eBay (stupidly, it was even cheaper because the company had had an employee put the wrong prices in - I couldn't believe it was genuine and called them and they corrected the error! Damn!).

 

First side, first time I've done Mercedes springs properly, and it took four attempts to get the discs in the right place to squish the new spring enough to fit whilst not getting the tool stuck against the lower arm or wedged in the cup. Yes, I had to paint a bit I scratched and get the Waxoyl out. Grr.

 

Second side, piss easy. 20 minutes. Still a lot of effort to compress the springs - and I sat tightening the new spring with it held between my legs - that's faith in a set of spring compressors for you!

 

Now it's sitting a little high and ready to go for an MOT. Next job will be fitting new brake consumables and changing the fluid, cleaning up the calipers - tempted to get some foliatec paint for them.

[Bear]

MGF got something done which wasn't fixing a failure to proceed! Two somethings, if you're really grasping at things to consider "done".

 

First, the metal MG logo on the dashboard that looked like cardboard cutout by a five year old was helped in its bid for freedom. Now my MG logo has manky glue all over it. Bah.

 

Second... I put some Dynamat in, as I had to test it on something.

 

What a difference. You shut the door and it just goes "clunk". Tapping the door I'd done, and the door I hadn't, the door that wasn't rang like a bell.

 

Makes it feel a lot more solid, to the extent that I'm wondering what it'd be like with some on the inner rear panels and bulkhead.

 

Waiting for Monday and the SLK MOT now. But such mixed feelings about the MG. It really is a fantastic concept - I just wish they'd put them together a little better (doesn't have to be much better, they'd not THAT badly made) and the engines had avoided the OMGHGF issues.

 

If the insurance weren't so crazy I'd send it up to Scotland for the kids to drive - I always had convertibles when I was a teenager. I think the oldest came back with a quote of over £4,000 though :/

[Bear]

Have a picture of an MG F from a couple of days ago.

 

 

It almost looks nice there.

 

But... I don't need to drive it now. Because...

 

 

IT PASSED! At last. Now to fit new brakes, clean out the PCV system on the inlet side, and put the new Bosch MAF in.

 

Garage asked how I did a coil in 20 minutes. Garage has been given my number so they can borrow the Laser 4870 anytime

[Jim Bell]

I love that SLK.  I'm not at all ashamed to say it.

[Bear]

Me too. Whilst I guess I could be tempted by swaps/deals, it has made it to 3 1/2 years with me not wanting to part with it. The plans are currently:

 

Fit EBC USR discs + yellowstuff pads, clean the calipers and change the brake fluid - everything here to do that.

Get the low-pressure PCV system sorted out (not much in parts but inlet manifold off).

Get the AC recharged and see how it's holding up.

Get the wheels refurbished (looking for another set, and whichever is best will get done and the others will be kept as spares, or redone in matching yellow for OMGYELLOW hilarity)

Replace the "whatever they are" black torque bars under the body, as they're not expensive and have gone all rusty.

Replace the front dampers when I can get cheap Mercedes ones, or can afford them without caring.

Glue the loose door trim panel.

Finally get around to stripping the gear selector box and repairing the reverse light switch.

 

Then in winter, when it goes off the road:

Get a pair of brand new Mercedes wings on it, after getting them dealt with at one of those prostrip-type places and properly galvanised.

Do the underside of the wings in various things. Do the top with a LOT of prep. Sulk about the mismatched paint.

 

If I get the right time & tools:

ATF fluid change (I mean, this gets done anyway, but I want to do it myself), diff fluid change, check UJs etc.

 

If I'm really bored:

 

Strip and repaint the cam cover and get the coil cover done in crackle red paint.

 

And then there's the MG F plans, which are looking like:

 

Light a match, throw it on the parcelshelf, run away.

 

Get rear 1/4 panel/s, get them done right OR get one, and use it to make repair section for grotty bit of sill.

Replace balljoints and bushes at the front.

Get it four decent tyres.

At some point, cry about whatever goes wrong in the meantime, probably the brakes falling off, or the windscreen turning to cheese.

Get shot of that fucking boot rack and get an undamaged boot onto it.

 

If I can be arsed, I'd like to trim the dash in alcantara. It's really horrid for reflections. Of course, the kit is worth more than the car.

 

What I DO want, but grumble about the cost of, is to get the cream leather seats it had when I first saw it - it still has the door trims, but the seats are black leather MG TF items.

[forddeliveryboy]

But such mixed feelings about the MG. It really is a fantastic concept - I just wish they'd put them together a little better (doesn't have to be much better, they'd not THAT badly made) and the engines had avoided the OMGHGF issues.

 

 

I'd say it wasn't just a great concept, but a brilliant production car. Had it worn Honda badges, they'd have sold by the million and people would have seen the OMG bit as part of owning a piece of wonderful automotometry.

[Bear]

I think that had more money been spent on the underpinnings, it could have been better. That's about my only criticism of it; the relatively dated (but very capable, of course) grease-needing, and quite heavy, suspension and rather craggy subframes. It is still a more refined and enjoyable mid-engined car than an MR2 SW20 and probably about equal for rust resistance.

 

Putting Dynamat in the doors makes it feel ridiculously solid. There's enough in the generic 2-door kit to do both doors on the inside of the door skin plus the flat areas of the door frame (i.e. not making a whole new door membrane with it, which is what they show it being used for on the box, but using it on the resonant thin metal areas like the door pull mounting panel) and to go around areas of the front panelwork too - I'm still deciding where will make the most difference. What I stuck in was, unsurprisingly, not that different to the deadening panels I've seen on the inside of many higher-end car doors, I didn't slather the car in it. A headlining on the roof would be nice, too.

 

But mostly, I find the low quality of all the fasteners and fixings to be the bit I hate. I could totally cope with head gasket failures, tricking servicing, if the nuts & bolts were simply of a grade that made SOME attempt to resist rust and not shear off when looked at funny.

People who've known me a while I think remembered how impressed I was with the green VVC I rescued, and encouraged me to stick with this one, because when I get an MGF right I'll be a proper cheerleader for the things - I really love them when they work, and it's not like my SLK where part of that affection for it is that THAT one, THAT YELLOW ONE, is MINE. I don't look at silver SLKs and go "I'd like that". I do see those shimmery purple, or red, or BRG, or yellow MG Fs that don't have chunks of filler in the sill, and I covet. I want a well sorted one, it's an emotive little car. That's how classics are born. The MGF and TF will assume the mantle of the MGA and B in due course, I'm sure of it.

 

And I guess part of what makes me sad is that insurance for young drivers now means they can't access that the way drivers could in the '80s and early '90s, where a cheap B GT or Spitfire, rust, warts & all was not only the introduction to sporting, challenging driving, it was also the introduction to the pipe & slippers and years of experience and eccentric enthusiasm, and surprising generosity of the wider classic car community as it was.

 

Maybe I'm unfair, but I just don't see the modern "6N Polo, hit it with a stick, stretched tyres" culture having the same longevity. My parents weren't car people like that, but when I was 10 I walked past a house with old cars, and a Jubilee Minx in a carpark. Sometimes I stopped to look around the Minx, and then I saw it moved to the house - the bloke who owned it saw me looking at the car, and started chatting, and showed me his Alpine (a car I will forever have a soft spot for and will definitely own another - better - example of one day, my SV GT was bought in haste and repented at leisure), and introduced me to other car people, and showed me how to fix various bits. The CX/XM obsession, the urge to write articles and explore solutions and history, is all from that environment, you know? I also want to be the person who can pass on some knowledge, be helpful, be generous, make a small difference to someone's mind - whether it's cars, music, computers, anything I'm interested in. There's no point in it if there's not some sort of small legacy, after all.

Wow. Sorry for that rant! See. MGFs, they stir emotions. Good cars. Even if I hate the bloody things sometimes.

[Bear]

Computershite dominates today. Yesterday I chose the wrong car to do an event, so I didn't do the event. If I had been sensible, I would have taken the MGF instead of the E-class and would probably have got there and back fine.

 

Now the MGF is the only road-legal beast I have because the SLK PCV parts still haven't shown up! Soooo... off to collect some things which I'll put in the right thread, and on the way down the drive I spy a box shoved in the hedge near the postbox.

 

A parcel from Hermes! It's the thingy to cover the folded roof.

 

 

 

Much tidier. Noticed I'm missing a rubber trim on the driver's door, so another little thing on the list. Then a drive to Warwick, then back to Leicester, then home; brilliant as ever when it's working. Must hold on to context here - if this was 1985, this car would be a 1967 MG. There is no way it would be as competent, enjoyable or even as solid as this is - and this is a bad example of an MGF in many regards. It looks like the ones for not much money still have better sills and arches than this one.

 

And it is SO much fun. I think it's got a sportier exhaust and intake on it, as it's not a VVC but still gave an XK8 a good chase down the M6 sliproad, and sounds good when wound up to near the redline.

[Bear]

Still no SLK parts, so the MGF gets pressed into service to go check out the next inmate at the car asylum. A run to the Ford of Chelms, which should take 1hr 50m.

 

Onto the A14, and as we're approaching Peterborough the Nuvicam pops up "Accident, 50m delay. Faster route" with a diversion around St. Neots. Okay. Except everyone does the same thing, including several HGVs, and now those backroads are clogged too.

 

Onto the M11, and "40 minute delay. You are on the fastest route".

 

Technically, I think the fastest route is the one taken by about 15 entitled pricks that use the hard shoulder to get to the junction - at speed, in many cases.

 

Why is this notable? The MG spent over an hour in crawling traffic and didn't overheat or play up.

 

Now. Anyone got recommendations for car transporter hire - 7.5 tonner? I've found one, but could do with closer either to location of the car, or me.

[cort16]

Have you looked on here? The have a few locations and don't look too expensive.

 

http://www.transporterhire.co.uk/

[Bear]

Yeah, they were my first hit when I searched but they only do the 7.5 from Horsham. Price is fine, but I'd need to make a lot of trips in one day - if I could find somewhere local that had it, I'd be sorted. The 3.5 won't do it - 1500Kg capacity, I need 1900kg.