Under Pressure

Well it sure has been a long time since my last update. I feel really guilty as I honestly thought this blogg thing would take over and I would be updating it endlessly. The main reason for not keeping the blog up to date have been the fact that the MG has been running ok (bugger thats F%$ked it up for tomorrow morning then). I have now used the car for work (week about) since September. The only problems have been the non-functioning fuel gauge which I have now fixed at long last. I still intend to replace the fuel tank at some point but finances have dictated that for the time being only the sender has been done. Luckily I now have a working gauge and have an idea of how much fuel I have in the tank. That reminds me I need to fill up in the morning.

In antisipation of the new sender arriving I had been running the tank down low (by guess work) only putting a fivers worth of fuel in at a time and keeping a spare can in the car just in case. I did this for about a month before I decided it was time I actually ordered the sender.

Anyway, one saturday morning a few weeks ago I had to collect a couple of parcels from the post office in the local town. However, I needed some fuel as I had not put any in for a few days so must having been running on memories. On the way I stopped off and put in another £5 of fuel. You can guess what one of the parcels was. Yes the sender. Now I can't fit it because there will be too much fuel in the tank.

One week later I'm getting myself ready to replace the pesky sender but get a call from the inlaws. I suddenly get roped into fixing the head gasket on their Daewoo. What with the dark afternoons I am only able to do this on the weekends ( I am also only able to work on my cars at weekends) so I am not a happy bunny. Well it took two weekends to strip clean up and refit it all. Luckily it all went back together and seems to be ok. Well they have not mentioned it so I am assuming it is ok. Although I did advise them to sell it as soon as because there was some corrosion around the waterways that will mean the gasket will not hold indefinitely. Beside they have had the car a good few years now.

So I finally got some time to replace the sender. The fuel tank was run down (or at least I thought it was). I disconnected the wires to the old sender and tapped the locking ring round. I was suprised by the fact it turned at all given the rust. A little fuel dribbled out so I got a petrol can ready. I pulled the old unit out and bugger me I got drowned. The fuel level was an inch above the bottom of the hole for the sender. I tried to position the can so as to catch the fuel but only succeded in getting most of it up my arm. I pushed the old unit back in the hole and held it there. I could just reach the new sender which was in the boot so I then did a quick switch getting more petrol all over me and the driveway. I fitted the locking ring and reconnected the wires. With the ignition on the gauge rose to just below half. Much better than showing a full tank all the time. I put in my spare can of petrol and the needle went even higher. great job done.

I have also got round to fitting a cd player in the car. I must be mad really as you can't really hear it above the noise of the exhaust when you are traveling at speed but at least it fills the hole in the dash. I have also repositioned the speakers. These are pod mounted units that were screwed into the roof panel at the back of the car. They looked terrible and I had been meaning to do something about it for ages. My dilema was that I did not want to cut the interior panels about to fit speakers in the doors or kick panels. I decided to just push the pods under the front of the front seats. I'm sure that this position does nothing for stereo imaging or audio quality but seeing as you can bearly hear it it will do. To be fair it's not that bad.

A couple of weeks ago I started the car up for my drive to work. I got to the corner of the road and noticed the oil pressure was very low. Oops. I blipped the throttle and it went up a bit. I decided to go round the block and if things did not improve then I would have to leave the car at home and investigate during the daylight hours. I pulled up outside my house lifted the bonnet. Checked the oil level and the dip stick was dry. Sorry, to me the car and the world of MG fans out there. The car had been going so well I had not even checked the oil like I normally do each weekend. There were no oil leaks to speak of so it could only be burning it or from minor leaks. I simply had not checked the level for about three weeks. I topped up the oil and the oil pressure returned to normal. I guess I will have to make more of an effort to check it regularly.

I recently had a week off work using up some holiday. However, we were supposed to be going away but could not afford to do what we normally do which is have a week fishing and take our two dogs away to give them a break. Besides, my car and the wifes car are not suitable for putting the dogs in to get somewhere. We ended up taking the time out to take them for walks locally and also going fishing at a couple of local lakes every other day. It was nice to relax and enjoy some time together, even if it did rain most of the time.

After this week off my return to work went down well. I woke up early on the monday ready to drive myself in to work. The car started but was running poorly. The idle speed was varying and there seemed to be no power and the engine struggled to rev. I limped off the drive way reved it a couple of times and slowly nmade my way down the road. It got a little better then a little worse then better again. By the time I got to the end of the road and needed to decide if I was going to chance it or not it was running ok so off up the road to work I went. If I reved it hard it was ok. I got about half a mile and it suddenly got worse. I had to give in and return home. I pulled up on my driveway lifted the bonnet and checked the float chambers to see if they were full. They were both ok. I checked the fuel pump was pumping fuel and that was ok. I had wasted enough time. Enoughs enough. I woke the wife up (bad move) and she drove me in to work. Bless.

After puzzling over the problem all day at work, I got home ready to test anything and everything. I started the car up and it was fine. I took it for a test drive, it was fine. In fact it has been fine ever since. The only expalnation (ruling out alien intervention or a relative of that medling rabbit) I can think of is that due to not using the car for over a week and having a week of almost solid rain then expecting the car to be fine on a cold damp morning was all too much for it. Maybe the damp got right into the HT leads. Who knows. I also learned that I had upset my next door neighbour with all the noise that morning. Oops. Atleast I have also fitted the 2nd silencer to my straight through exhaust. The cherry bomb came and was duely fitted.

Actually it may have been something to do with the last time I drove it. The friday before my holiday. It had been raining all day and my friend and I set off home after work. As I drove along I had to use the wipers not only for the rain comming down but for the spray coming up from the road. In palces the sides of the road were flooded with a good siz inches of water. I ended up driving almost in the middle of the road just to keep out of the deep stuff. As usual we battled with the traffic and finally made it a a large roundabout. I needed to turn right so I dove down the outside lane with a grin on my face as all the other traffic was in the left hand lane. We stopped at the traffic lights and waited out turn. It all looked good as the left hand and middle lane were full of cars but the right hand lane was empty ready for us to blast away a continue the rest of the way. The lights changed, amber then green. Roar, we were off. I swerved to avoid a driver who jumped the light the other way and was now just about to change to third gear when I suddenly reallised whay all the traffic was in the left two lanes and nobody was in the outside lane. Fu%*. The lane was flooded and the water was well up over the kurb. Infact the water was about 12 inches deep. By the time this had all sunk in we were in it. Not only did the water woosh up the sides of the car it came straight over the bonnet and over the roof of the car. I was doing about 25mph but did not want to slow down because the water was well above the tail pipe and I had to keep the revs up and pray the ignition side of things held out. So there we were ploughing through the water with me slipping the clutch a little as we went. We passed two cars by the side of the road who had obviously fell foul of the water. Somehow, we did manage to get passed the roundabout and out of the water. I said a silent prayer to the Alden Ignitor god who must have been looking down on us that day.
Looking back on it that was the last time I drove the car before my holiday so water ingress is most likely the cause of the running problems discovered on that monday morning.
This water tale reminds me of another story of when I had my TR7 but that will have to wait until next time. For now fingers crossed for tomorrow morning.