Brian's place - Cars

Brian's place

MGF

The MGF project

While the TR project was stalled, I decided to buy a run around to give me some time to re-assess the TR. I looked at MR2's, MX-5's, and MGF's. It had to be cheap, cheerful, and have a heater that worked!

In New Zealand we got a whole bunch of relatively cheap ex-Japanese market MGF's. Initially I was very skeptical of the Rover K Series with all of its documented over-heating problems. It is really difficult to get a realistic appraisal of anything on the 'net, everybody who has ever had a problem will complain bitterly (often with good cause of course), and proponents often exaggerate the positive to justify their own decisions.In the end I came to the hopeful position that the K series is a good design with some fundamental flaws in the initial head gasket design. I wonder how close this is to the truth!

There are quite a few available, but in the end I picked on a relatively high mileage 1996 import. It had done 118,000km (that's about 75,000 miles) with a completely rebuilt head and new gasket (the one with the steel locating dowels) 60,000km previously. It drove nicely compared to the other cheapies I had driven, and was very presentable. It flew through the AA lemon check too. The previous owners were genuine people selling for positive reasons, so a small exchange of cash (huge in my terms of course!) saw me driving away.

First prob - a dead battery and no fuel! New Zealand small town, Monday night, everything shut except a petrol station. My brother and I rolled in, switched off, and filled her up. Paid for the fuel, pushed the car well away from the pumps, and jump started her from the battery out of the TR7. This was jammed in the front boot near the main battery. Very convenient! This became the pattern for the rest of the evening, quite a comedy. An overnight charge didn't fix the battery, and a test by the auto sparky the next day confirmed my first purchase - $149 for a new one.

The green baby has (hopefully) just enough problems to keep me interested and not enough to keep me broke!

Like - the drivers window doesn't seal properly, and seems to sit on top of the door frame instead of in it. Initially I thought it was a problem with the soft top, but a few internet searches revealed that it is the glass in the door rising too high (they're electric). Temporary fix - lower it a little! Medium term: Fix the window stop.

There's quite a bit of wind noise coming through the top of the window frame, pulling down on the top hood frame stops it. I think I have some minor adjustments to make here (thinks: Buy a Haynes manual!)

The other minor issue is the passenger side speaker cuts in and out. Hopefully a trivial fix!

That's the faults, here's the good bits. It drives so well, sticks like (something sticky) to a blanket, and is in pretty good nick all around. The heater works, the air conditioning works, the alarm works, the ABS brakes work, the power steering works, the air bags... well, the light goes off!! Most importantly, the coolant level hasn't varied and the temperature gauge is rock solid.

The first major job was to get the suspension pumped up. My worry was that there was a leak, but a couple of weeks later it is still at the same height. It's made a huge difference to the ride and the handling. $70 well spent.Next job, pull the door apart and check the "cheat" that the door glass rides up on. Thanks to these wonderful instructions it was pretty easy. There is still a gap at the top leading edge of the driver's window, I'm not sure what to do about this.

I can see that the electric window stop has broken (mine is, or was, a Mk 2 design stop). Apparently the soft top design was changed in the 1997 model. The passenger side sits well. Anyway one of the locking nuts inside the door was really loose when I opened it, the door now closes without rattling now. The wind noise at the top of the hood above the windscreen was so easy to fix - a couple of adjustments on the clamps and it's gone.

Thanks to the MG Service Centre in Christchurch for showing me how to do this, I'm enjoying the car very much, so have booked it in for a cam belt and service. The belt has only done 60,000km but it is over 7 years old, so change is a good thing! Will probably do the water pump at the same time.

Yes, Sylvia, you CAN drive a convertible in a South Island, New Zealand winter! Even with the top down.

It's been in for its Cam Belt and service, plus they changed the fan belt (very cracked!) and the coolant tank cap at the same time. I'm very impressed with the support at the local (christchurch) MG specialist.

However the cost of spare parts here in NZ is a bit variable - some are good value, but the electric window stop was NZ$80, whereas they're about GBP5 in the UK! Other things like the gear lever gaiter, rear window, and door seals all seem comparable.

Talking of the door stop, I fitted it last night and couldn't believe the difference. Previously there was a 5 mm gap at the top leading edge of the driver's door window, which guaranteed the driver a wet backside (it ran down on the the seat, OK?!!) in any mildly damp weather. WIth the mark 3 window stop fitted, the glass takes a step inwards at the top of the travel and seals perfectly.

The helpful man at the MG garage was pretty cool to talk to about the cars and prices. He did make the point that New Zealand is probably the cheapest place in the world to buy an MGF (the Elise is about 8 times the price - sorry Vicki Butler-Henderson!!) but we still have to pay full price for spares... so we're not getting ripped off for spare parts, just getting a good deal on the cars.

The difference since I bought the car is amazing - it's quieter, drives nicer, and is even more fun. Especially now that I don't have to worry about the roof leaking!

To do: Replace the speakers, fix the speaker connection for the left hand side, maybe replace the back window. One day.