I had a couple of hours on the MG this afternoon, but conscious that my back has been a bit painful, I was keen to only perform ‘light duties’. I decided that I would finish off removing a bracket (photographed below) which holds the loom under the bonnet and which has been difficult to remove. It was time to stop messing about and take some positive action, so out came the angle grinder and the drill. It you are mechanically sympathetic it might be a good idea to look away now. I ground off the heads of both screws and then drilled them out. Sounds simple, but was the usual PIA. I did try undoing them from inside the wheel arch, but I couldn’t get any leverage from where I was and taking the wheel off seemed like too much work to save the bolt. Anyway, the little blighter is off so there! Building on this progress, I uncovered the engine and had another go at removing the sensor from the cylinder head using penetrating fluid, a blow torch and mole grips. I didn’t succeed in this, so it was MG 1, Adam 1 this afternoon. with the engine uncovered I took the opportunity to turn it over by hand and to spray some WD40 down the bores and into the water jacket to stave off corrosion.

Having a little bit more time on my hands, and thinking about my idea of getting a few loose components sand-blasted when the car goes away to be done, I dug out the heater and took it apart. The heater housing and matrix are corroded, but the motor seems fine. I wonder how the housing would respond to being sand-blasted. I will look to see how much a new one is, although it would be nice to have the old one refurbished. I believe that the matrices are easily obtainable as new so that’s a definite.

A pleasant time on the MG today.