Your Committee held a virtual meeting using Zoom on Saturday May 30. Much discussion and much waiting for this lockdown to ease when it is safe. Meanwhile events are cancelled or postponed. Watch this space.

I have had several members contact me about oil filters and oil pressure and I will return to this topic in the August issue. Being unable to report on events, we can turn our attention to things mechanical. Talking of things mechanical, I used my MGB to carry out a mission of mercy recently – and on coming home was listening to a new rattling noise from the front of the engine… coolant level is OK, oil pressure OK, fan belt slipping (got a spare), or is it the water pump bearing? Hey ho, something else to sort out then. Take care!

Mike Barclay sent in the following for your edification and perusal…

Perishing rubbers
We all suffer from things shrinking and perishing with age! My MGB is no exception to this, now 46 years old all the rubber components are showing signs of age. Recently, while under the car doing an oil change, I noticed the pads sandwiching the front cross member to the body were showing the dried and split characteristic of aging rubber. So, decision made, replace the pads. On paper the job looked simple: order new polyurethane pads (four upper and four lower), jack up the car and support on axle stands, put a jack under the cross member then undo the four larger nuts in the engine compartment, tap out the bolts and lower the cross member just sufficiently to gain access to the pads. Uhh, no. The rear bolts were easy and came straight out; however removal of the front bolts required access to the spring turret. Not difficult but involved removing lots of nuts and bolts to disconnect the lower wishbone arms, antiroll bar and finally removing the road springs. Having gone this far I decide to go the extra mile and completely remove the cross member and give it a makeover. This involved a little extra work to disconnect the steering rack (Supported on a bungee round the water pump pulley), brake hydraulics and track rod ends. I sent the cross member along with the lower wishbone components for shot blasting and powder coating in satin black, ready for the big meccano exercise of reassembling. Was it worth it? I haven’t had much chance to use the car since lockdown but did drive the car to the supermarket. First impressions are that it seems much tighter and the rattle through the steering column over rough surfaces has disappeared, so well worth the effort.