February already, and for those who were saying that 2021 had to be a better year than 2020, its wasn’t looking that way for the first few weeks with a guge increase in the rate of infections, hospitalisations and deaths. Having said that, across the family we are gradually having our vaccinations and what a giant leap forward that is. I had my vaccination through a curious querk of my job. I work as a Programme Manager for a company owned by Guys & St Thomas’ Hospital (GSTT for short) in London. Once GSTT had vaccinated all the clinical staff, they rolled out the jab to non-clinical, and after that to affiliated companies. I hesitated initially to go forward, as I didn’t want to be seen to be jumping the queue (being only 50 years old), but conversations with colleagues persuaded me otherwise. Their view was twofold – firstly, that the Trust had surplus batches and were not permitted to send them back or give them to anyone else, secondly, that if offered, you should accept the vaccination as part of ‘doing your bit’ towards everyone being vaccinated. One less jab for our local GP surgery to do. Anyway, a brief round trip to St Thomas’ Hospital saw me heading home with a slightly sore arm, but feeling really grateful. London roads were deserted which was a bit odd, but of course completely logical.

On the MG front, I was being barracked by a couple of friends on a Teams call on Friday who were asking why I hadn’t finished the MG yet. I replied that it hadn’t really been the weather for it. One of my friends asked “Is it snowing in your garage then?” Thanks Rob. The truth is that busy-old life just keeps getting in the way, what with the 9-5 itself, walks in the countryside, ironing, picking up the shopping, keeping on top of Church stuff like PCC meetings via Zoom, cooking and so on. However, I have made some progress with the MG, as reported here.

Gearbox loom – a leftover from fitting the loom was the part which runs to the gearbox to operate the overdrive and reversing switches. I decided on a recent dry day to jack up the MG, crawl underneath and feed the loom through. I tied a piece of string to the end of the loom so I could pull it through all the right places. Weirdly, it was quite hard to work out which switch was which and yes, you guessed it, I got them the wrong way around first time. this is where the loom is always worth listening to (stay with me) as it usually wants to ‘sit’ in the right place. If you are having to drag it around against its will, chances are you have it in the wrong place. My spacial awareness isn’t great so you can imagine that with a gearbox having a front and a back and a car having a left and a right that when I was under the car I was getting confused about what was left, what was right and which way was up! Add to that my hat kept falling off and my gloves were on and off (where did I leave them this time?) and it all took a lot longer than it would had it been a pleasant spring day with a friend at hand to help. Anyway, its in, just needs testing now.

I also purchased a revotec electric fan, a conversion I’ve been planning and that required assembly inside the house before I can attempt to install it. I have Phil the electrician in mind to connect it all up, once I have the hardware installed. I am stalling on installing this just now since I need to commit to draining the coolant and I want a good day to do that outside and have to buy the new coolant ready.

I did have a second go at the n/s front brakes today. Having pushed the MG into a position in our single garage where I could get the n/s wheel off, not the usual way it is parked, I jacked it up and placed axle stands. With the wheel off, I gave the caliper nuts a good 20 second blast with freeze spray to try and budge them (I had previously failed). Unfortunately, today I was still no longer able to get them to budge. I can get a good grip with a 5/8″ socket and bar but there is just no movement back or forth with the nut and I can feel the bar flexing rather then the nut yielding. So that was a bit disappointing, but perhaps this needs an overnight dosing (I’ll give it another spray) and another attempt tomorrow (after work!). Alternatives would be to apply some heat, but I’m not sure whether that would be effective (hasn’t worked for me in the past) and there is always big Mark, although that would have to wait until after lockdown. So a bit frustrating as sorting the brakes is key to the next few stages of the rebuild, so its holding things up. I have left the car jacked up to make other attempts so at least the job is ready to be tackled.