Core blimey Guvna!

I finally got round to fitting the cleaned carbs. They certainly look the part. The only thing is the ram pipes that I bought were for 1 3/4" carbs and don't fit. I guess I will have to resell them as I have no plans to change the carbs for larger ones, well not yet anyway.

I then set about tuning them. This did not take long and I was soon off on a test drive. The car did seem to run better and I was quite pleased with myself. So today I decided to drive the MG to work and blow off a few cobwebbs. Well I hadn't used it for a couple of weeks. The car started first time and the drive to work was uneventful. Not so the journey home.

On the way home I joined the A13 and undertook a couple of lorries that were in my way. Now cruising at about 80mph the car felt fine and dandy. A couple of slightly dodgy overtaking manouvers later I was making good progress. that was until I sudenly say a massive cloud of white smoke blast out from the back of the car. Oops. As I still have not fitted my new temerature gauge yet the only indication of loss of water was that all the heat from around my feet (southern softy likes toasty feet) was gone. There were no odd mechanical noises and there was not any noticable loss of power so I slowed it down a bit and cruised to the mother in laws (about 2 miles from where I was and only 5 miles from home). I planned to stop check it out and let the engine cool down before continuing my journey home. Well I got there in one piece but the engine did smell rather hot by the time I got there. I lifted the bonnet and was greated by the obvious cause of the white smoke. A core plug had blown out.

All I need to do now is let it cool down then drive it home nice and steady. One cup of tea and a few brownie points with the mother in law later, I was on my way. I did not bother to re fill the rad as it would only have come straight out the core plug hole anyway. Off I went. After about 1 mile the car began to pink really badly, probably caused by the hot engine. I continued on.