Rover owners: MGF 75th Anniversary Edition # 1864

This came up for sale at a reasonable price. The deal was that it must be fixed up and back on the road and as those whom frequent these forums know this is right up my street so arrangements were made to view so at least this time there would be an idea of what I was taking on. It seemed to be quite good so a deal was agreed.

The story is that she boiled up and then was parked up for about 18 months. She was then bought by someone whom hoped to save her but it seems the quotes for the head gasket repair put them off or they discovered soemthing else.

Anyway when viewing I noticed a few things like the driver window had over ridden it's stop and the radiator needed replacing. The interior needs some TLC especially the wood trim and the leather needs a bit of TLC too. Being a non runner or so I thought transport had to be arranged and this bit happened on Monday so she is now home.

That window was a priority so the battery was checked then put on charge meanwhile a spare charged battery was connected up to lower the window. While adjusting it a bit it was noticed that the drivers door handle is broken. Both screw bosses are broken. Before connecting the cars battery the fobs battery was replaced with a new one just in case. The thought that we would see if she turned over. Went to put my foot on the clutch pedal to find no pedal. Hmmm whoops it's stuck on the floor. A quick look at the resevoir shows it's almost empty looking at the slave cylinder with a torch shows the dust cover has popped off so am thinking we are probably looking at a seized clutch release arm here and now a slave cylinder to sort out.

Well the good new is that she turns over properly the surprise was that she struck up really easiliy .................................. really easiliy like she hardly spun over and she struck up. Engine sounded a bit tappety but this is to be expected after not running for a length of time. Some how I doubt this has not run for 18 months or more though!

Water was added to the expasnsion tank and the bleed screw on the engines coolant pipe released and the radiator was aslo opened and coolant flowed. With teh engine running coolant was returning strongly into the expansion tank however once warm and the engine revved a bit this stopped .............................. Hmmmm odd.

Next morning another look and bleeding took place this time including the heater matrix and again coolant flowed. With engine running coolant was again retruning to the tank after a brief spell but again once at operating temp if revved this stops.

So we have a circulation problem but what exactly is it? Is it the thermostat? Jiggle valve? or perhaps a faulty water pump?

This is the state of the radiator:-