|
|
Oct 24, 2012 14:03:04 GMT
|
So, I thought it was time I laid down some words about this; my 1998 MGF: That’s it as it stands today after a couple of months work here and there, whenever I get a few spare hours. It’s a reasonable condition 1.8 non VVC model, with electric windows, metallic paint and well, that’s it. When the original owner speced it I like to imagine that he/she was going with a lightweight ethos but in reality they were probably just tight. They did manage to choose the best colour though... Anyway, let’s go back to the beginning. I cycle to work and have a modern 3 series touring which I don’t play with (under SWMBO orders), so wanted a cheap bit of weekend fun to tinker with and thrash round country lanes/the track every so often. On the short list was an MX5, a Golf GTi, or another 80’s BMW. I had just been outbid on an E30 320i touring which I’d been to see and really liked so was a bit gutted about that. MX5’s seemed like a good bet but all in my budget (£700 max) appeared to have rear arches and sills like a tea bag (brown and full of holes) and every auction I watched for a GTi seemed to creep over budget for anything decent. I was perusing the Retro rides classifieds which is when I noticed the MG. I’d not considered one before but it was the right price (eg. cheap) and local to me so having nothing to lose I went and had a look. I’d read all the scare stories on the net so was pensive, but, although it had no MOT or Tax it looked tidy enough, had no head gasket issues and went well so I parted with a few hundred quid and collected it the following weekend. Here are a couple of shots from the Sellers advert:- Getting it home, the first thing I needed to do was to put it in for an MOT, so I could evaluate what needed doing. It wasn’t great news but I wasn’t weeping into my cornflakes either. It failed on:- Headlight alignment – easy fix. Emissions – not so easy but common according to various forums. Brakes; Corroded lines and in-effective handbrake – no problem...
|
|
'03 Porsche 996 C2 3.6 - Sort of Retro '84 Porsche 924 - Definitely Retro!
|
|
|
|
|
Oct 24, 2012 14:42:57 GMT
|
So, time to crack on then... Firstly, the emissions. According to other ‘F’ owners out there, common issues contributing to this are Rotor arm and dizzy cap, lambda sensor, plugs, and the catalytic converter. One thing that may also have been contributing was the cheepy induction kit so I tracked down a standard airbox to swap in. I also knew the cat was knackered as it was giving off a right old rattle (the previous owner had said the exhaust baffles were noisy), so I ordered one of those, brand new at a bargain £40 from the bay. I also purchased an arm and cap and a lambda sensor which wasn’t totally straightforward, but more on that later. I jacked it up and cracked open the engine cover. To do this you unzip the rear window and remove the parcel shelf carpet. You then unfasten the rear of the roof and lift it forward which unearths the engine cover. Remove that and you get this: At first view it looks a bit tight in there but get stuck in and there’s plenty of room (after removing the heat shields): I replaced the rotor arm and cap and started on the air filter box. Looking at it, the standard airbox is tiny, and connected to a secondary box inside the chassis leg, which in turn sucks in cold air from behind the engine. Not ideal. So, I decided to remove the secondary box and plumb a feed from the air scoop in the side of the car which currently does nothing, straight into the airbox. This is the secondary airbox pictured mid-choppage:- Hacking it to pieces is the only way to get it out without removing the gearbox. After an hour with a grinder, a drill and various hacksaw blades I was left with this:- On a lighter note, the secondary box was fitted with a flexy pipe which I could join straight to the normal airbox in a cold feed sort of way: It wouldn’t quite bend into the air scoop so it now sucks from low down, away from engine heat. I plan on building a stainless airbox for it but this will do for now.
|
|
'03 Porsche 996 C2 3.6 - Sort of Retro '84 Porsche 924 - Definitely Retro!
|
|
|
|
Oct 24, 2012 15:16:05 GMT
|
Onto the cat... There was nothing taxing about removing this other than a couple of rusty bolts. Out with the grinder and off! The back box had to come off and I also removed the heat shield at the same time as it’s a big ugly heavy thing which I will replace with a thin sheet of stainless (I work for a stainless fabricators). I decided that since most of the exhaust was off, I should just take it all off to do the Lambda sensor. In the end I ended up removing the manifold as the sensor is tucked between the manifold and the engine. Thankfully this was really easy – no seized studs and only three of the four bolts tightened on the manifold to downpipe flange – good old Longbridge workmanship! So, manifold out and Lambda investigated:- I think it looks like quite a nice, free flowing tubular design, certainly better than a lot of the rough cast stuff out there. The lambda was the early type fitted to the ‘F’. There are two types – the later one is plentiful and cheap, the early one not so (although they work to the same parameters). If you want a genuine Bosch one (recommended) they are a minimum of £60. So, I bought the later one and made it fit. This was fairly simple and involved me drilling out the lambda aperture in the manifold to 16mm, then changing the plug to the early type. The thread is the same so it was just a case of screwing the new one in and plugging it in. At £22, a nice £38 saving over the original one which is what I wanted this car to be about, its good to see how cheap I can build it for. Whilst the manifold was out I took the opportunity to heat wrap the manifold. Obviously this prevents heat build up, but also looks cool and meant that I could get rid of the grim heat guards Here’s the finished item:- I would love a stainless manifold and down pipe but the budget doesn’t cover that at the moment so that’ll have to wait. Anyway, refitted that and the cat, with stainless bolts so no rusty removal issues later on. When I came to fit the back box, I decided to do some rust prevention first as the chassis is in great shape and I want to keep it that way...
|
|
'03 Porsche 996 C2 3.6 - Sort of Retro '84 Porsche 924 - Definitely Retro!
|
|
|
|
Oct 24, 2012 17:09:15 GMT
|
Looks like a great car, especially considering the budget! Should be fun when you get it ready, I had a passenger ride in one of these around Croft earlier in the year, was faster than an Elise 111S through the corners! (did have super sticky tires on though). Look forward to the updates
|
|
|
|
|
|
Oct 24, 2012 19:41:56 GMT
|
Cheers for the reply! Funnily enough I would absolutley love an Elise, but this will do until I can aford one. Ill update as soon as I've got more written.
|
|
'03 Porsche 996 C2 3.6 - Sort of Retro '84 Porsche 924 - Definitely Retro!
|
|
|
|
|
I used to work on quite a few of these. Access to the engine bay is ok, but does eventually give you a stiff back.
If you have it in your budget id strongly recommend swapping the mild steel coolant pipes that run under the car for the stainless steel ones, and getting an ally rad from a mg zf to replace the original steel and copper one. They are good fun to drive, and the hood mechanism is great!
Whats the gear change like?
|
|
|
|
|
|
Oct 25, 2012 11:39:53 GMT
|
I stand on a stool and lie accross it to work on it - reasonably comfortable. I am on the lookout for a set of the stainless pipes at the moment and have been outbid on a couple of sets on ebay. If I really cant get a set second hand then I'll bite the bullet and buy a new set as they're only about £65. Thanks for the info about the rad. I'll keep my eye out for one of those too, along with a thermostat conversion and change it all at the same time after after I've got it MOT'ed. The gear change seems fine, especially as I've greased the mech. Bit crunchy into reverse but then I believe they have no syncro there. I've got a reciept for a clutch too so thats been done.
|
|
Last Edit: Oct 25, 2012 11:41:08 GMT by stevecrx
'03 Porsche 996 C2 3.6 - Sort of Retro '84 Porsche 924 - Definitely Retro!
|
|
|
|
Oct 25, 2012 13:51:51 GMT
|
Cool. Yeah i think those gearboxes are just a bit poor at getting reverse. Good idea with the raised platform, wish id thought of that!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Oct 25, 2012 17:42:55 GMT
|
I spent an age pondering over whether to buy this MGF when it was up on here, and I'm pleased it went to someone who's doing exactly what I wanted it for, a cheap, fun tinker toy
|
|
|
|
|
|
Oct 25, 2012 19:22:29 GMT
|
I spent an age pondering over whether to buy this MGF when it was up on here, and I'm pleased it went to someone who's doing exactly what I wanted it for, a cheap, fun tinker toy Thanks! I didn't spend long thinking about it 'cause I knew at that price that someone else would snap it up. The thing is, bargain 'F's do apear every so often. Theres a bloke on another forum I look at who bought a metallic grey one for £450 and needed to put some water in the washer bottle and change the horn fuse for it to go through an mot. (I wont mention the head gasket falure afterwards - hey ho!)
|
|
'03 Porsche 996 C2 3.6 - Sort of Retro '84 Porsche 924 - Definitely Retro!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Right, time for an update... So, last time, I'd just heat wrapped the manifold, so I got that bolted on, joined up the downpipe and attached the new cat, all with nice new stainless bolts and gaskets (no more removal with an angle grinder in a few years like the originals). So the car looked like this:- You'll notice in the above photo that the brake callipers are missing. The nice man at national tyres highlighted the brakes in the MOT - basically crusty brake lines, and a virtually non-existing handbrake so it was time for an over hall. Firstly, I stripped the rear brakes down to see what the issue with the handbrake was. At worst it was going to be seized callipers, but I was pleased to find that it was just the pads catching on the slider plates. I whipped them out and gave them a clean-up with the file on the top and bottom surfaces and a spit and polish of the slider plates and this thankfully cured it. While they were off, I seemed like the ideal opportunity to paint them. This sounded like job for my step brother; Tom who is 15 and likes messing about with old tat as much as me. Here’s a picture of him getting busy with the Hammerite Smooth: So, plenty of brake cleaner, a good going over with a wire brush and some paint and they look as good as new. And just so the fronts didn’t get jealous, they got stripped, cleaned and painted too. Whilst he was doing that, I proceeded with removing the crusty brake lines. The bad bit was either side of the T-splitter at the back of the car - they literally crumbled in my hands as I removed them. Not good for keeping the brake fluid in then! Anyway, off they came, as much in one piece as I could to make replicating them in copper pipe easier. For making the new pipes I bought a ‘kit’ off eBay which was advertised for the MGF. Long and short is it’s not. It’s a generic kit of 25ft of Copper pipe and 6 male and female unions. If you know anything about ‘F’s then you’ll know that there’s not one female union on the car, and a lot more than 6 male unions. Hey-ho, it was cheap and I can still use the pipe and male unions. While I was in a purchasing mood I also picked up a pipe bender, cutter, and a swager for fitting the unions. Of all this kit I have only really used the cutter. The pipe is easy enough to bend and shape with your hands so I didn’t really need the bender and I’m going to get my local brake specialist to do the swaging and unions ‘cause it’s a hell of a lot less hassle than me trying to fit a great long bit of formed brake line into the vice in my not-very-large shed. I’m still making the brake lines (tedious job!) but they should be on the car in the next couple of weeks, if it ever stops raining (no garage). As mentioned earlier in the thread, I drove to Boston last weekend to collect an AP 4-pot setup. I’m not going to fit this until I’ve had the car re-MOTed and found a set of 16” wheels to go over them. Top of the list (a list of two) is a set of Abingdon Cup’s. I think they really suit the shape of the ‘F’ and will look spot on with the theme I’m going for (more of that later). The other rims I would love to fit are these:- They are my Tom’s (Toyota Motorsport, made by Rays) C7 2-piece split rims, in staggered 17”x7” and 17”x8” flavours. Check out the Engrish:- I love these wheels and I've had them a while now but never fitted them to anything. Unfortunately, being 5X114.3 PCD they are not going to fit on the 'F' either without major rework. No one does a set of adaptors to fit this PCD and having a set custom made is prohibitively expensive (for a budget project). Also, re-drilling the hubs is a no-no as they are simply not big enough. I have considered adapting bigger hubs to fit but this would need different brakes too, I don’t want to do that as I’ll never finish it. So, I guess I’ll just sell them to fund the cups...
|
|
'03 Porsche 996 C2 3.6 - Sort of Retro '84 Porsche 924 - Definitely Retro!
|
|
|
|
|
Can't beat a good MGF! Good mods are a pair of VVC exhaust cams and inlet manifold with 52mm TB. you can go for the early 56mm but play pig sometime with later ECU's. I've also got a stack of Lotus Sport-design inlet cam pulleys, let me know and I'll send you one to try out, piece of curse word to fit. Also let me know how much you want for the Toms!
|
|
|
|
yellowmini
Club Retro Rides Member
Posts: 46
Club RR Member Number: 116
|
1998 MGFyellowmini
@yellowmini
Club Retro Rides Member 116
|
Nov 12, 2012 11:13:57 GMT
|
Nice MGF! I'll be keeping an eye on this as I'm about to take on my girlfriend's old 1999 VVC. Are the brakes you've bought the 'big red' 304mm brakes as fitted to the TF160? If so I've been informed that they don't fit with all the 16 inch wheels. Specifically, they won't fit with the 6 spoke minilite style, which I think are the Abingdon cup ones you're talking about. I checked because I want some for mine. They do really suit the car!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Nov 12, 2012 11:26:22 GMT
|
Yes there is only the F/TF trophy wheels and the 16" square spokes, unless you use some spacers. Personally I'd run spacers as Cups are the nicest wheels.
|
|
|
|
zircon
Part of things
Posts: 327
|
|
Nov 12, 2012 12:49:05 GMT
|
Nice to see an 'F being looked after mate, well done. How much would you be looking at for your C7R's? I have 2 sets of 16's but would love some 17's if the offsets were right. Here are mine.....
|
|
|
|