Hector's (new) House, aka recommissioning of M16 Maestro.....

[Doctordiesel77]

Easy job for a guru John and that the manifold is at the front

Yes, a lot easier than reaching down the back of the engine. If I'd found a guru to do it it'd have been done in no time at all

[Jeff Turbo]

Easy job for a guru John and that the manifold is at the front

[Doctordiesel77]

On the way back from the show at Locke Park an annoying exhaust blowing noise developed. This turned out to be a blown manifold gasket, much easier job with the engine in a Maestro rather than its original home, as there is nothing much in the way. The only thing that might have been to remove was the heater rail, but whoever fitted it had made a handy detachable bracket, so it could stay put. The gasket is the same as a T16, so very easy to find, only slight hiccup was that the last bolt stopped tightening at 32 lbf.ft when target is 33. This was easily cured with a helicoil though.

[Doctordiesel77]

After the odd bout of coughing the other day I thought it was time to sort the wiring in the area of the fuel pump ballast resistor out. Fitted a new resistor, but this got hotter than I'd like soon after starting, prodding the nearby wiring still induced a coughing fit. Turned out that corrosion inside the nearby two gang connector block was the culprit, so cleaned & vaselined it, then replaced the resistor with a cheap and easy to find 35A bridge rectifier. This doesn't even get warm, but doesn't limit the pump current to the same level as the resistor did, if the pump ever wears out I'll double up on the rectifiers, which should take it back to the original output, but without the temperature rise that the resistor seemed to suffer from. Ran OK on the way to and from Ripon anyway.

[Doctordiesel77]

Out of hibernation and wearing shiny new tyres. The ones I took off the wheels were interesting, one was a Michelin dated 2015 with cracked sidewall, one was a Goodyear dated 2013 & it wasn't perished at all. The ones I put on were Kuhmo, with "A" rating for both wet grip and rolling resistance, bizarre that if I'd got the lower speed rated, but seemingly identical tyres they'd not have been A rated . Be interesting to see what they look like in 8 years time. While I was on I decided to try to fix the overheating in traffic jams..plan a was to fit an extra fan in front of the radiator, a Discovery air con fan looked thin enough to fit in the gap, but was about 3/8" too fat. Plan b, fit the slightly bigger fan from a Rover 25 in place of the existing fan. Wasn't easy to get off the 25 radiator as it is fixed using steel screws into brass 'captive nuts', the same schoolboy error that afflicts Freelanders and many other vehicles..I had to drill the nuts and use a punch to hold them. In the end I had to prune quite a lot off the cowl anyway, including the two ears for the bolts. It fitted eventually & seems to work a lot better than the original, possibly because the original was rotating in the opposite direction to its arrow and had a dodgy bearing. Time will tell, but hopefully fixed. The test run went well apart from a dodgy connection on fuel pump circuit causing a few coughs & one case of bonnet up and cursing while fiddling with various bits of wire/relays/fuses (all test equipment and tools safely tucked away at home of course)

[Doctordiesel77]

A run out to the car show at Alston Gala confirmed that suspension problem is solved and that car is sitting slightly higher at the front. Looking through the spring chart on here, the only conclusion I can come to is that the old springs were 1300 ones..fitting them wouldn't be as daft as it sounds, according to the chart the spring rate is the same as 2.0 springs, but ride height would be almost an inch lower, which more or less fits the facts.

[Doctordiesel77]

I was at that show last Sunday, first car I seen on the way in was your mg maestro, but never seen anyone with it to talk to. Did have a very interesting chat with the owner of the Ledbury and his friend. His friend had many cars including a brg maestro turbo and a maestro turbo he had owned from new with 10k on the clock, can't believe I have never heard of this car before! I did have tickets for both my mg turbo and Rover vvc but the ***** weather + I ended up going out Saturday night knocked that on the head. If your going to any more local shows feel free to pm me and ail meet you if thats OK.

Norman the 10k & brg turbo owner & I was his taxi driver for the day He's got a pair of 1600s too. Next show I'm going to is the car show at Alston Gala tomorrow, which is usually good, but forecat isn't so good, so I guess your turbo will be staying indoors...then Dalemain on sunday with a similarly ropey forecast, next sunday Ripon (which Norman is also booked in for), monday possibly Ripley Castle..then in september maybe Hutton in the forest (12th) & york racecourse (19th) then definately Milton Keynes (26th).. Then I'll be locking myself up for the winter ...Hope to see you at some of the shows either this year or next!

[Andy]

I was at that show last Sunday, first car I seen on the way in was your mg maestro, but never seen anyone with it to talk to. Did have a very interesting chat with the owner of the Ledbury and his friend. His friend had many cars including a brg maestro turbo and a maestro turbo he had owned from new with 10k on the clock, can't believe I have never heard of this car before! I did have tickets for both my mg turbo and Rover vvc but the ***** weather + I ended up going out Saturday night knocked that on the head. If your going to any more local shows feel free to pm me and ail meet you if thats OK.

[Doctordiesel77]

All back together and looks a bit higher at the front, so maybe springs were either too soft or too old...My freezer does have pies in it & I'm not afraid to eat them, but not to the extent hat I should be bottoming the suspension over potholes...that's my story & I'm sticking to it

[Doctordiesel77]

New old stock struts from ebay had perished bump stops..retaining nuts were fairly tight too, so glad I dismantled them now rather than after they'd had time to rust up..plenty of grease on them now too. Old ones had destroyed bump stops, but no other signs of distress, until I looked at the springs...these looked as though they had been fully compressed a few times. No sign of colour stripe on them, so not sure if they were right or wrong..new ones should be right as they have yellow stripe.

[Doctordiesel77]

On the way back from the show at Corbridge Norman noticed the annoying banging and crashing over potholes.. in a 'what the hell is that?' sort of way..hmm maybe I'd got used to something I should be doing something about.. Took back struts off, no sign of anything obviously wrong, but one damper seemed a bit weaker thn the other, so replaced them. The bump stops/spring assisters were completely destroyed, so replaced them. Rover didn't fit a spring insulator to the bottom of the spring on the back, can't think of a good reason for this, so I did fit them. New dampers had different threads, so I had to cut some m10 nuts in half to make the half nut that holds the spring seat on. The top mountings didn't look bad, but had shaped themselves to the mounting hole. I fitted these the other way up & made the gap between the bush and upper spring seat up with sikaflex, left overnight to cure, it will be interesting to see how this lasts. Not sure that any of this would have caused the crashing & banging, so moved on to the front.

[Doctordiesel77]

Had a trouble free journey to Gaydon for BMC & Leyland day, but had a few overheating problems in the queue, opening the bonnet let a lot of very hot air out. The ecu seemed very hot and the exhaust manifold looked to be the culprit. The near side windows decided not to open either, so inside tha car got a bit warm too. Front window started working before I got it fully dismantled, so may have just jammed, lagging the manifold was cheap and easy, time will tell whether it has cured the problem. Can't do any harm anyway.

[Doctordiesel77]

Great pics, and looks like you enjoyed the drive out

Sure did, it's a while since I've had time to just go for a drive and it was a nice day for it in parts!

[Jeff Turbo]

Great pics, and looks like you enjoyed the drive out

[Doctordiesel77]

and a few more pictures for good measure!