As we near the respray, there is less stripping down work to do. Really it boils down to a couple of troublesome fixings, a sheared bolt on the transmission tunnel and a sheared screw where the heater is fixed. Today I attempted to use a stud extractor to remove the sheared bolt and when I couldn’t get this to work, I tried to drill it out in frustration. This has resulted in an off-centre hole which is no use to anyone. I may have to leave this to the professionals to sort out together with the heater screw.

On a more positive note, following an episode of degreasing of one side of the engine recently, I tried out some engine paint I had bought recently. I first masked off the components (on the oil filter side), gave it a dust and sprayed the paint straight on. I left the spark plugs in which are the old ones which I am effectively using as dust covers for the bores. At first sight, it seems to be a reasonable job, but will only really show when the paint has dried. If all is well, I’ll degrease the other side of the engine and we can have that tidied up. I was tempted to paint the exhaust manifold too, but I think that may require different paint. Black is the correct colour for this year’s MG according to my research, so that should be fine.

Another job done last week (but not recorded here at the time) was my first attempt at cleaning up the gauges. I removed the chrome bevel, which is done by prising up several lugs with long nosed pliers, not an easy job at all. I then cleaned all the crud off the gauges, washed all the parts and re-assembled. I think I may have left some smudges on the glass so I may need to take them apart again and use something like White Spirit to have a smear free finish. Anyway, what was positive was how well they came up, so as a proof of concept, that worked. They are not perfect like new gauges, but I quite like that.

On a closing note, I contacted Gavin at Reef who is going to do the respray. We had a chat on Facebook Messenger, the conclusion of which is that he is will be ready to receive the MG in mid-December. This was exciting news as that is only four or so weeks away! He is going to visit me in November to check the car over for readiness and to finalise the specification. The respray will mark the achievement of the first major milestone of the restoration, the strip down. Once completed, the respray itself will be the second major milestone, and will set in place the rebuild phase.