Classic Car Weekly - Our Classics
One of the regular aspects of Classic Car Weekly is the Our Classics spread, where the writers and regular contributors write about their classics and the adventures they’ve been on, fixes they’ve undertaken and the usual array of issues older cars love to throw up.
When I started on the title, I didn’t have my own classic, so I would write about driving my grandfather’s 1929 Riley Gamecock. At the start of 2023, I ended up buying a 1979 MG Midget at an auction, and it’s been a great companion since. Until I drove it into a river and needed to replace the engine. We’ll get to that. At the same time, my trusty Suzuki Jimny has aged into the realm of proto-classic and would begin to star in articles of its own, too. The adventures of my cars have seen me crest the steepest road in the UK, cannonball across much of France and get a celebrity to help with a brake rebuild at a show. It’s been busy, and the adventures go on! What follows is a timeline of my classics, starting with their most recent adventures and working backwards.
It Takes A Village To Build An Engine
I’ve never built an engine before. I know how they work in practice, I understand the varying elements that form a working engine, but I’ve never put one together. So faced with the dilemma of what to do to get my MG back on the road and two torn down engines, the answer was obvious; I build an engine.
Picking which engine to build was easy; the car’s original block was in good shape despite its swim. A small chunk of headgasket between two cylinders had been blown out, but roughly speaking, it was in good shape. The second engine was scrap. The spun bearing had mangled the crankshaft, and there was no telling how badly the crank had shaken while turning that wobbly conrod, so it was a straightforward call; we go back to engine V1.0.
For the sake of doing this properly, I loaded the head, crank, flywheel and block into a van and dropped them in at my friendly local engineering shop, T.L. Engineering for a full going over. With a honed block, balanced crankshaft and flywheel and skimmed head I had a solid baseline to get building with. Somewhere in all of this, I had to make some running repairs to the Jimny, both a blown heater matrix and tired rear brakes. On top of that, a friend of mine from the Midget and Sprite Club trailered my car to the NEC for the Resto Show.
With all that out of the way, once I’d ordered the correct pistons, it turns out we’re 20 thousandths overbore, and finessed the small end of the new con rods, slotting the pistons into the block and connecting them to the crankshaft was straightforward. With the block still upended on my workbench (a repurposed salesman’s desk from the nearby Vauxhall showroom that had closed down), I could finally address the thrust washer issue. We opted to pack in a slightly fatter washer, which brought the crankshaft end float perfectly to its minimum tolerance.
Slow but steady progress, a rotating, freshly machined crankshaft sat at home in the block. Lovely.
Bolting on the front plate of the engine was straightforward, but sliding the crankshaft sprocket on proved tight. Thankfully, I was able to plunder the specialist tool store of my dad’s engineering firm and borrow his induction heater, warming the sprocket through enough to enlarge it and slide it neatly onto the end of the crank. The camshaft slid home neatly, and its stay bolted down smartly, at which point we noticed the sprocket for it was looking quite worn. We aligned the camshaft with the old one and fitted the new sprocket, and hoped we’d positioned it correctly with the new chain now snug.
1500 engine owners will be familiar with the issues that I’m about to run into. At the front of the 1500cc unit, there’s a sealing block that bolts in three directions and packs out with two little wooden shims. That block is made out of an incredibly budget-friendly material whose threads strip with unbelievable ease. This is a pain as the sump bolts to it on one face, and the timing chain cover bolts to it on another. On all of mine, a careful former owner had stripped the lot. You can order steel replacements, though the machining on these isn’t regarded as brilliant; however, a handy friend and salesperson at Moss had encountered this on other Triumph engines and came up with a natty solution. Drill out the holes, tap them, and use a stepped stud to fix things to it. Another online shopping trip after finding that, despite his enormous collection, my Grandad didn’t have the tap needed, and with a bit of help from my Uncle, we were able to drill and tap the block and threadlock in the needed studs. Cheers for the tip, Will, it’s proven a belter.
Having engineered my way past British Leyland’s finance department, things were going well. I’d ground in some new valves to the skimmed head and set them home with fresh springs and by the mid-June, the head was on the engine, the valves lashed down, the timing chain cover bolted down, a fuel pump fitted and the flywheel on: we were moving in the right direction and by the end of the month, the engine was back in the car!
My original deadline of Drive-It Day in April had long since passed, but my target of my sister’s wedding was still potentially achievable. Only three weeks off, and now with the engine bolted to the car, maybe we’d make it. Saying that, I’d totally forgotten to factor in heading off to the Le Mans Classic and Goodwood Festival of Speed, wiping yet another two weekends off my calendar. Apparently, building an engine in fits and starts on a shoestring budget isn’t the fastest way of going about things. Still, things were looking up!
Originally Published in Classic Car Weekly - 15th October 2025
Stripped Bare
So, the MG is broken, again. Time then to find out what went wrong with the first engine, the one I broke in March 2024; it’s the only logical starting point. So, with a stout table dragged into my little workshop I hoisted the waterlogged engine atop it and set about it with my spanner set. Starting from the top, the valves and rockers looked good, and the cylinder head popped off the block immediately, revealing the crux of the first engine’s problems. A blown cylinder head gasket. An easy fix and retrospectively one that we should have thought about before pulling the entire engine out and plopping an untested one in its place.
A small chunk of gasket had blown out between pistons three and four at its thinnest point and no doubt had been ejected through the exhaust somewhere on the car’s brutal, wounded slog from its point of drowning to home. Peering down the bores revealed relatively tidy metal work and clear signs of a previous hone and polish. The piston crowns, though caked in a bit of carbon, also looked healthy. All in the engine had held up well despite the mechanical torture. At this point, I pulled a rookie error and flipped the block, forgetting that I hadn’t drained it of oil when I removed it in May last year. Credit to Carhartt, it makes a solid set of bibs that look better with a colossal amount of oil staining.
So, with an engine’s worth of oil mopped off the floor, I had the block upended and set about removing the sump. The job that I’d done of re-fitting it at the Restoration Show this time last year clearly held up well, even if it had taken an incredible amount of Matt Tomkins’ Hylomar Blue sealant. Inside, the remains of the oil still looked decent and smelled okay. The connecting rods all seemed fine, and once freed off, it was easy enough to lift the crank out and then pop the pistons through as well. All in, not too bad.
Then came the second engine, which was still attached to the car, though by now I was familiar with the uninstallation process and had the engine out in an afternoon. The neat lines and fresh clips that I’d laid when fitting the engine came free with ease. Even the bolts around the bell-housing came free without a fight, and once lashed onto the engine crane once more, it wiggled free of its mounts and popped right out. Time for the post-mortem, though this time I remembered to drain the oil and water first.
The oil was my first clue as to what had gone wrong – the acrid burnt smell of oil filled the workshop, speckled, rather ominously, with small glints of metal swarf. With the head off, there wasn’t much more to see. It wasn’t until I flipped the block over and pulled the oil pan off that the problem became clear. I should have checked how many miles the engine had done when I bought it. Recently perusing YouTube, I found an MG specialist doing a walk-around video on a 1979 Midget who mentioned that you can pretty much set your watch to the number three piston big end bearing spinning at 60,000 miles. Now looking at the inside of a block that had more glittery surfaces than a disco ball, I gave each conrod a wobble and sure enough, number three rocked about with ease.
The problem became even clearer once I’d whipped the con-rod bolts out. The thin sliver of metal shell that should have been sitting between the connecting rod and the crankshaft was stacked on top of its sibling and ground into a rough, ungainly mess. I guess we hit 60,000 miles on the way to Goodwood, then. Annoyingly, the crankshaft had also taken a mangling in the process. Now I was faced with two engines, both with problems that needed rectifying, and neither was going to be cheap to solve, especially with a Jimny that had hobbled its heater and was also crying out for parts. So, I plumped for the original engine. I’ve salvaged a lot of the parts that I fitted last summer, but the parts list for building up a new engine has already breached £700. And that doesn’t include the machining and balancing work that it’s receiving at T&L Engineering up the road. In the meantime, I’ve got the Jimny to keep me occupied and some money-making schemes to come up with. Does anyone need their lawn mowed, by any chance?
Originally Published in Classic Car Weekly - 9th April 2025
That’s Not Gone Well - Again
When I last wrote about the MG, it was working again. I’d picked up a replacement engine for £350 off Facebook, dolled it up a little and lobbed it in. Job done. With the car now running, I set off for London for a weekend with my girlfriend. We had a live podcast to attend in the centre of the capital, fine for me with my ULEZ-exempt classic. The slow run down the M1 was a perfect bed in, no more than 50mph, barely stretching the engine in the summer heat. The slow traffic of London proved a little heavy going on the new clutch, and with the narrow view out, weaving through the congestion proved a new challenge as a driver. However, my bright yellow sports car brought a smile to a passerby near Camden market who waved and snapped a photograph.
The next day, we took Bridget to Leeds Castle for their Motors by the Moat event. Set in the grounds of the historic castle, the event was packed with classics on display, and I had been hoping to show my MG, but passed up on it as I had no clue if I’d have it
working in time. Nonetheless, even in the car park, the droptop MG drew attention and despite the heat, played well.
Running happily, I enjoyed a dawn raid across the Midlands to the CCW Coffee and Cars event. With the roof down and the early morning sun filling the cabin, this was a perfect reminder of why I’d bought the MG in the first place. The raspy purr of the four-cylinder filled the air, and it was nice to see the attention it drew at the meet. Right up until I went to leave and the belt began to squeal embarrassingly. “I’ll tighten that up later, it’s a new belt, so just stretching out”, I muttered. The Silverstone Festival was next on the calendar, and again, I’d nabbed a spot with the Midget and Sprite Club inside the event. Terrible weather plagued the weekend, though, so after Friday, Bridget stayed at home, and the Jimny stepped into the role of shuttling back and forth each day.
The next adventure on the list for the MG was the Goodwood Revival. I’d enjoyed using the MG at the event last year and was looking forward to it again this year, having completely neglected to check the weather forecast, which would have suggested that an ark would have been a better option. Still, I fired up the little car and the belt squeal returned. Out of curiosity, I grabbed a torch and had a quick check and immediately spotted the cause. The bottom bolt for the alternator had shaken loose from its nut and wormed its way forward and into the path of the spinning belt, which caused the squeal. A quick stop by at the yard for my tools and spares, saw it nipped up and the belt good and tight.
The MG bowled along quite happily, making up for lost time and its wipers batting away the incoming rain as best as their ailing motor would sweep them. And then it all went badly wrong. As I lifted to slow down for a roundabout on the A3 just north of Petersfield and the wind noise died back, I noticed the engine note wasn’t quite as sweet as it had been. In fact, it sounded like the entire crankshaft had shaken itself free of the conrods and was making a desperate break for freedom. Looking down, the water temperature was on the top of the gauge, and the oil pressure had dropped to the bottom of the dial. Not good. I shut the engine off, dropped it into neutral and coasted off the roundabout and towards Liss. It was clear, I wasn’t going much further, so I phoned a recovery service and waited four hours before a flatbed arrived and hauled the again broken MG onto its back.
I was deposited at my hotel for the weekend and, with a hand from the editor, David, pushed the MG into the car park behind and retired for the night. On Saturday, my dad lovingly drove down with a flatbed trailer, loaded up with the Jimny to collect the MG. Annoyingly, the MG now had someone parked behind it, so I ended up using the Jimny to tow the broken sports car from the car park before winching it onto the trailer. Now, the second engine replacement of the year begins.
Originally Published in Classic Car Weekly - 5th March 2025
With A Little Help From My Friends
My MG was in the workshop up on chocks with no engine in it when I last reported on it. An ill-advised excursion into a swollen river totalled the engine, and I figured that replacing it would be easier than tearing the deceased item down and trying to repair it.
The first engine I bought turned out to be a no-show after months of ‘yeah, yeah, it’ll be with you next week’. It was early June by this point, and the MG had been off the road for two months, so I turned to the myriad Facebook MG clubs that I lurk about in with a plea for anyone with a 1500 engine that they didn’t want to come forward. In the end, a chap called Edwyn offered the one that was in an abandoned project car. We exchanged numbers, and he sent me videos of it running and even video-called me for added proof. He was able to get the engine out and ready within a week, but there was a catch – he lives in Cornwall.
So, early one morning, I saddled the Jimny up with a crate lashed down in the rear, plus my tools, and a courtesy copy of CCW featuring the tale as to why I was on this cross-country crusade. Fuelled by coffee and a renewed sense of optimism, I set off and was soon at Edwyn’s house in deepest Kernow, where the promised 1500 mill was sitting, free of the rather decrepit red Midget that was lurking under a tree. We hoisted the engine up and into the crate and slid the whole thing into the back of the Suzuki. With it tied down and stable, I paid Edwyn and headed north once more.
At home, I was able to hoik the new engine from the Jimny with a forklift and set it aside in the workshop, hoping that the pool of oil that it had left behind was just from a dislodged sump plug. It was at this point that I noticed that the Midget’s clutch release arm was loose in the bell-housing – there was no pin holding it in place at its fulcrum, so the arm was flapping around in the housing; no wonder there was a horrendous shudder whenever I slipped the clutch. Yet another online shopping trip secured the required bits. I’ve kept track of everything that I’ve bought for this project, right down to the smallest nuts, bolts and washers. So, excluding the engine at £350, the 538 parts and bits of
hardware that I’ve bought have set me back £842.05 thus far, marking this as quite probably my most expensive mistake to date – and one that I won’t be repeating in a hurry.
I spent pretty much every evening and free weekend poring over the new engine, replacing the coolant return line, rebuilding the manifolds, fitting a new clutch and washing everything in solvent, stripping off years of accumulated dirt and grime. I scrubbed the new engine down and gave it a slap of paint, too. I couldn’t find a specific cause for the oil leak, but a new sump gasket with plenty of sealant and PTFE tape on the plug nipped things up nicely, with no stripped threads like on the old block.
Now I had an engine that was primed and ready, but just needed a hand getting it into the car. So, who better to call in an F1 engineer? Adrian Newey wasn’t returning my calls, so I settled for my mate Andy, who works just up the road from me at Milton Keynes. An afternoon in the workshop had the new engine in place and largely
plumbed in with just a few fuel lines to go. Dad and I buttoned up the last jobs and, with a fire extinguisher standing by, turned it over. Nothing. A little more cranking as the fuel system primed, and then it spat into life. A rush of stale fuel through the lines resulted in pungent, rough running, but with a jug of fresh super unleaded thrown down the filler neck and a little fettling, the car settled down. Later, I dialled in the timing, burped a bubble of air from the water system and topped the oil off to compensate for the lines and new, bigger oil cooler.
With the bonnet refitted, it was time for the little MG to leave the workshop under its own steam for the first time in nearly four months. Easing up on the clutch, which was now smooth and meaty, the yellow car nosed out into the sunlight, idling happily with a rich thrum. Job done. Now what?
Originally Published in Classic Car Weekly - 23rd October 2024
That’s Not Gone Well
In my usual lack of awareness, I again forgot to get the Jimny MOT’d until it was too late, again forcing the MG into daily service and a run down to my girlfriend’s in South-East London. After an Easter visit much enjoyed, I set off back for Bedfordshire aiming to take in a cross-country route and the good weather. Weaving across the southern boroughs of the Capital, towards Slough and then northwards, past Pinewood Studios and up through Buckinghamshire. With the roof stowed, rasping through the city in the rare March sun, it was lush. A friendly wave from other classic owners in the city cheered me along and after a stop for a coffee in Richmond Park, I was soon on my way once more.
I cut past the iconic film studios and into the treelined B-roads behind, remembering to slow for the ford ahead. I knew it was there. I’d driven through it earlier that month in the Jimny and the waters had claimed the front number plate (more on that in another missive). I stopped at the water’s edge, it hadn’t rained for a good few days, so I was hoping the level would be low enough to carefully wade through. I stared out at the depth gauge at the side, it read just below ‘1’ on the board. Now this is where I really should have put some more thought into the matter. One what? Foot? Meter? Fathom? Any off-roader worth their salt will tell you when fording unfamiliar waters to walk it out first, checking the depth as you go. Meanwhile, if you’re cerebrally deprived like I clearly am, the solution is to just go for it.
Water quickly rose up through the floor pan and over the doorsills. I shut the engine off and contemplated the stupid predicament I’d just driven into. There was no time to waste getting my shoes off, so I hopped out of the car and quickly realised just how idiotic I’d been. I’m a tad under six-foot-one with most of my height in my legs. So when the water came up to just below my knees, I quickly realised just how foolish this had all been.
Sputtering and holding on to life, the 1500 Triumph engine somehow still running despite its dunking. It's not running well, but it's running.
It took a huge effort to push the car out of the river, my waterlogged Converse struggling to grip the slimy road surface, but eventually, the yellow sports car was free and dripping dry. Had I bought tools with me, I would have pulled the plugs and turned it over. With no real option on that front, and a sign for a recovery service practically laughing at me, I sat and thought. It seemed that the water had only just kissed the bottom of the air filters in the housing, had I been lucky? The starter motor spun and engaged on the flywheel but with no result. I pulled the distributor cap off and wiped it out for good measure. A bump start from two bemused locals kicked the car into life once more. “It’s white exhaust that is a sign of water isn’t it?” I thought to myself hopefully. Eventually, the engine settled to a lumpy high idle on the choke, and with no choice in the matter, I set off for home. Still some 50-odd miles away across the Chiltern Hills. I phoned my Dad and asked him to meet me with a tow rope at Ashridge Park, glossing over my stupidity in favour of suggesting the car was suffering a prolonged breakdown, he agreed to dig out some tackle and hopped in the truck.
I reached Ashridge Park first, by now the sun had pretty much set and it was getting dark. Dad arrived in the pickup truck with a tow strap. We lashed the sickly MG behind
the Nissan and set off into the night, the Triumph 1500 mill desperately chugging to produce enough electricity to give me lights. The recovery was going well, if a little jerky: right up until we came to cross the A5. A gap appeared, Dad gunned it and set off with nothing but the front tow-eye attached to the line. I think it was at this point I invented a new series of curse words in the English language and set off after him, hollering down the phone to stop. He pulled over and I attached the bungee strap instead. We should have used this from the off, another failure in my thought process. However, in chasing after Dad, the little engine that could, could no longer. It sputtered to a halt at the roadside in a cloud of steam. If I could, I’d give David Eley, the Triumph-Standard engineer behind the SC engine, a commendation for excellent engineering in the face of overwhelming stupidity. Well done indeed Sir.
Finally, we pushed the MG onto the drive and into the garage and I tried to put the whole sorry affair out of my mind and swore to not be as thick next time. I sent a message to the Midget and Sprite Club Young Members group chat jokingly asking if anyone had a spare engine kicking around. Sure enough, someone did and could get it bundled up on a pallet and shipped down to Bedfordshire, a promising idea. Once again, all praise classic clubs! In the meantime, I still needed to strip down and remove the dead engine.
Dad and I set to work, whipping off the bonnet, and stripping the defunct unit down. Again, running into the headaches caused by a previous restorer’s slapdash attitude. Rounded bolts, stripped screw heads and mismatched fittings peppered the car. We ended up grinding out a screw that was trapping the radiator cowl, so badly was it mangled. Further into the engine bay, I gave up fighting the fuel line clips leading to the pump, opting instead to just snip the lines: worryingly cracks were forming on the outer face of the rubber sections, a failure waiting to happen. After a solid weekend’s work and a can’s worth of penetrating fluid to ease out the worst of the bolts, we had the engine loose on its mounts. With the engine crane in place, we hooked it on swung the engine free. I pulled off the carbs, intake and exhaust manifolds with the engine free and added them to the growing melee of cardboard boxes of parts.
Next step, a massive online order of pipes, lines, nuts, bolts, washers, oil, filters, a clutch and an alignment tool. I shan’t say how much I spent, but let’s say that the MG Owners Club spares department won’t be short of Old Speckled Hen for a good while!
In the spirit of eternal optimism, I needed to pull the engine out any way to do the thrust washers, so this whole debacle was going to happen one way or another, just now with the added expense of a new engine. When it arrives! I’ll keep you posted dear reader.
Originally Published in Classic Car Weekly - 12th June 2024.