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MGF RUNNING LOG 2002 |
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December 2002 |
Winter is generally a pretty quiet time on the MG front with most people keeping their beloved machines indoors and out of the salty roads. The F spent the first half of the month this way but due to a change at work I now have to use her to get to and fro - a round trip of 34 miles each day which is going to bump the mileage up but at least I get the pleasure of driving more often so there is an upside. Keeping an eye on the suspension which seems to be holding up. Now the car is out more I'm getting a bit worried about the leak from the side window gulleys - I might have to try the rubber tubing technique (as mentioned on the MGF register website) to see if that works. The Runnymede group gathered at the end of the month for it's annual quiz night. This year we divided into two teams cunningly called "left" and "right" and were bombarded with questions from Tony both on the subject of MG's and more general knowledge. We just managed to pip the "right" team by a few points and won the grand prize - a small box of Ferero Rocho chocolates - just enough for one each !. A fairly quiet winter month although we did venture out on the 10th for the Valentines Treasure Hunt (see events).
The events season is beginning now - the Annual Awards Dinner Dance and Cobweb Spin have already taken place - see events and the MG Car Club Spring Naviscat due to take place on the 17th. Time to start preparing for the coming season which means tackling some of those stone chips acquired over the winter - sadly I'm not going to be able to keep the car off the road much this year so I suspect it's prize winning days may be over already but we'll have a go. Out with the rubbing compound and paint stick. Noticed that the rim of the near side sill was bent out of kilter , must have happened when I banged the sill underneath in France a while back. Out with the delicate lump of wood and nice big hammer - a couple of thumps and you'd never know the difference. Found a few more stone chips than I thought so I've got a stone chip kit from Halfords - quite handy with a stick of red primer, stick of solar red paint, light abrasive pad and a fibre glass stick for hooking out the mucky bits. Wouldn't recommend using the primer though unless you've got a really deep chip down to bare metal - the ordinary paint stick will fill small holes quite nicely. Best to use the metal nib for tiny holes and keep the brush for any longer ones, the nib is far more maneuverable. Trouble is it keeps raining and as my garage isn't big enough I keep having to wait for a fine day. Further problem with the nearside alloy - I scraped it on the Naviscat earlier this month and have been trying to repair the scraped wheel ever since - I've rubbed the craggy bits of alloy down and , thanks to a kit from Halfords, have filled the resulting unevenness and primed it and painted it in Rover Silver Leaf which seems a pretty close match. Finally a touch of lacquer and a good clean - It's not too bad but you can still see the repair - short of getting the whole wheel re done (which would actually mean all four to get the colour match, and the other three are fine) this will have to do. Other than that it's polishing time and the car is starting to look pretty good again - still got the wheel arches and underneath to go but should be ready in time for Brooklands on the 7th April.
Well I did manage to get the car prepared in time and it is now probably in the best condition it's ever been however didn't get a prize at Brooklands due to the strange way they ran the Pride of Ownership competition - see Events for a general Whinge. It was good to see some other Runnymeders at the event though - bumped into several with their cars - Tony and Bob , Tony, Derek, Russ and assorted wives and daughters, John and Muriel in their Midget. Also caught up with some other F'ers including Elaine and "Woof". You have to take your wheels off if you want to beat me at the next Pride of Ownership Elaine ! All in All Brooklands was a lovely sunny day out surrounded by MG's from 1924 - 2002. Congratulations to Bob for winning the post war Pride of Ownership with his MGA by the way. RUNNYMEDERS GALLERY
Had a good day on the Regency Run, met up with Elaine and Keiran and the rest of the Essex Roadsters at Brooklands. Full report in Events including a slight whinge at the organisation. No problems to report with the car this month, in fact I've had very few problems with it anyway and it's just so great now that the warmer weather has arrived and we can get the top down more often. Gave it another spruce up and a coat of autogylm gloss finish before the Regency Run Looking at the rear tyres I think it could be time for replacement at just over 20,000 miles. Managed to get to another Runnymede club night at the Crown where we had a talk on the country life history of Surrey. Lots of rain in flaming June this year and it didn't hold off for the New Forest Run either so it was a damp day amongst the trees. Those tyres were too bad to take on the run - lots of wear on the outside of each one and a bulge appeared on the nearside tyre wall prompting a swift replacement. Never be complacent at the value of ringing around - I tried several local tyre places and found that Kwikfit are to be avoided at all costs - they wanted £137 for one Good Year eagle F1. Prices then descended until I found that my usual supplier - Merityre of Chertsey could do me one with balancing and valve for £71.86 - so I took the pair and had the front wheels balanced and the tracking re set again all for a total of £177. Just polished the car ready for the Parham rally when a shed across the road from us caught fire depositing a lovely layer of ash all over JayPeG - so it was out with the chamois leather again !. Parham was a great show - being combined with a country fair and steam rally meant there was so much to see as well as a good selection of southern MG's. JayPeG picked up first prize in the MGF/RV8 Pride of Ownership competition as well. Had the car serviced at Trident in Weybridge but surprised to find it had turned into a Honda Dealership !! Luckily they were retaining an "F" mechanic for the time being anyway. MGR are still represented at the Ottershaw branch of Trident luckily. £220 for the service and there was nothing wrong with it. Theo Flutters comment was that JayPeG was the best detailed car under the bonnet they had seen. Once I'd washed the grease off the paintwork the car was back to it's normal condition ! The end of the month was a day out at Cliveden house - more on that in events. July started off fairly quietly on the MG front - no shows or runs until Silverstone on the 22nd. We could only go on the Saturday this year due to Liz's parents 50th Wedding anniversary on the Sunday but nonetheless it was a great day as usual - see events for full report. Took the F to the Golden wedding and got my brother in law and cousin in law (?) interested in sports cars but sadly one of them is more interested in getting an old Eunos but more hopefully the other is thinking of an MG. A fair bit of polishing and preparation and polishing went into Silverstone before more preparations for Plumpton in August - checking out the underside of the car now and repairing some stone chip damage underneath - also trying to repair an annoying stubborn chip on the front offside wing which is proving difficult to get rid of.
An F, a picnic, a Bud and me at Silverstone
Attended the Runnymede MGOC AGM on the 22nd. Nothing too revolutionary to report but we did hear the sad news that one of our members had suffered a stroke - a Get Well card was rapidly circulated - hope you're back in the Midget soonest John. Nothing wrong with the F - which incidentally has been reported as 100% reliable by a Which? report however the 2nd car , a F*** suffered an HGF in Wales and had to be ignominiously towed back behind an AA van. See it's not only F's that have this problem !. Plumpton on the 4th , unfortunately , was very wet which spoiled what could have been a rather enjoyable day out- see events. Liz amd her hat managed to get her photo on the East Sussex MGOC page - follow this link http://www.mgcars.org.uk/esmgoc/wepics3.html Some good news on relatives and MG's - the Brother & sister in Law have finally succumbed and purchased a russet brown MGB of 1980 vintage from Geoff Leggett in Ashford. It is in an unrestored but excellent condition with not a sign of rust on it. It has rarely been out in the rain and has been kept in a heated garage as well as being regularly undersealed. Mechanically it seems very well maintained and runs pretty smoothly - I drove it home down the A3 and it performed admirably. This has resulted in a rather good basic car - there is some tidying to do on the paintwork and a possible respray due to fading may be required but otherwise it is immediately usable and we expect to see him accompanying us to various events in the very near future. Below are a couple of Pics of the B in question - just look at the fantastic condition deck chair seat covers - you can hear the seagulls now !.
The 17th saw us at Windsor Racecourse for the Runnymede MGOC annual charity fund raising in aid of the Thames Valley Hospice. Seven cars presented a nice display in front of the Tombola stall - Two F's, Two rubber bumper Roadsters, one GT, One Chromed roadster and a GTV8. Being right in the middle of the showground meant we had a steady stream of visitors including some with ice cream covered fingers and a certain Tom O'Connor who chose to sit on the bonnet of Derek's nice E reg Roadster for a publicity shot - with a little polishing we managed to remove all the fingermarks afterwards !. It was a gorgeous day which makes a change for MG events this year and we all certainly brought home evidence of the sun's rays, mine in the form of burnt backs of legs !. It was all in a good cause and all the Tombola prizes had gone by about 3.15 so we raised in excess of £200 for the hospice. Click on the pictures for bigger images \/
The following day was the MGCC SE summer gathering at Loseley Park. Rob & Elaine joined us in their new B for their first MG Event. See events for piccies and report.
We also had a short trip to the Woking Classic Car show where there was a reasonable MG contingent sandwiched between the theatre and the council offices. The once white Midget was there as recently featured in Safety Fast along with Runnymeder Bob Borchardt in his newly hard top fitted MGA. Good selection of other cars too with three Ford GT40's lined up in Commercial Way and several ancient Triumphs, Austins, US cars, Rolls Royces, and the more humble Morris Minors and Vauxhall Chevettes. A strange site for a car show as the cars are all spread out on the pedestrianised areas of the town centre with car enthusiasts mingling with the Bank Holiday shoppers weighed down with their shopping.
Frantic cleaning and polishing - the autoglym was out in force again - another layer of extra gloss protection added and a lot of cleaning under the floor pans revealed a rough red finish which has now been duly polished. Found some surface rust starting to form on a couple of the undercar cross members already so I've cleaned them down and used black hammerite to tidy them up a bit. This was in aid of the Queen Victoria Concours on the 1st. A good day out you can read about in Events - managed to win the Blueprint shield for Best MGF and got runner up in the Post 1960 Concours so the effort paid off. Following weekend was the White Horse Run - an MGF Register outing which was fun despite sporadic rain. The next weekend was the MG Car Club SE run to Chatham Dockyard so there was a bit more cleaning to do for the Premier POO competition. I was in the premier class with Phil Bicknell's MGBGT and Richard Bakers MGB Roadster but classes were amalgamated so a nice early TF won the day. I'm not sure that is the right thing to do especially in a self judging competition and after the judging has finished unless our three sets of points were deducted from those awarded to the winner who was originally in a different class. It doesn't really matter if there is only one entrant in a class - at least they bothered to enter into the spirit of the thing. There was then a couple of weeks off until the 29th and Totally MG just down the road at Kempton. Another opportunity to do some sprucing up. Elaine Osbourne beat me to the post in the MGF Concours this time (Congrats Elaine by the way) but just wait until next year ! There is a bit of repair work to do on JayPeG over the winter - scratches on the cubby cover, marks on the windscreen, grille needs tidying etc etc. The In Laws turned up in their new Roadster. Elaine sporting a new MG Bakers Boy Hat !, very nice. Ocotber's been a fairly quiet month. The only MG Event was the MGCC SE Autumn Naviscat held on the South Downs near Chichester. Several MG's and few non MG's turned out on a damp morning to meet at the Houghton Hill Viewing Point. You can find a write up in Events or check out the December issue of Safety Fast where you'll find us mentioned as runners up in Class D - something we're quite proud of as these are really difficult. Got a nice rosette and a reason to turn up at the MGCCSE Annual Awards dinner next year. Looks like I'm going to be able to protect JayPeG from the worst of the winter as my daughter has kindly left her car with us whilst she is at University. With the MG season well and truly over and the weather back to it's normal wet and gloomy self it's down to organising events for yourself again. This month we took a weekend trip to the Cotswolds staying at Dumbleton Hall - an interesting old manor house with associations ranging from John Betjeman to Adolf Hitler via the House of Lords !!. Currently run by an organisation affiliated to the Post Office the hotel has recently opened to the public and is set in a great location if you fancy a few days away at a reasonable price for a Country House Hotel. JayPeG wanted to visit Brum at his museum in Broughton on the Water but was saddened to find when we got there that it was closed....never mind had a nice photo taken instead and we did find Brum later in Stratford Upon Avon in the Ragdoll productions shop along with Rosie and Jim.
Well here we are at the end of another year. Finished up this years MG season with the Runnymede MG Owners Christmas dinner at Rumbles in Shepperton which was very pleasant. All in all it's been a pretty good year, we've been to about twenty events and picked up six trophies along the way. A lot of the event s were wet unfortunately but the weather did brighten up towards the end of the year. The wettest were the New Forest Run and Plumpton and the best weather was probably Loseley Park. Hopefully we'll get some better weather in 2003 !!! My brother in law joined the MG clan with his B in August and we look forward to seeing him at events next year. We also hope to see the occasional person who may have stumbled across this web site next year - look out for Moggles and the event board and come and say hello.
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