Clive

The answer is..... nobody knows how many TSSC members are users of this forum, as there are no link from this firum to the member database. A shame, as having a "club members only" section can be jolly handy. And this forum software is capable of far more than the Club website is (plus teh shop). But that is another story. We don't really know how many TSSC owners attended malvern and stratford as many(most) buy tickets on the day. And numbers are futher muddied by the number of people who are members of more than one club. And people like me who may buy tickets via the TRR as it is easy to buy online rather than the archaic print/fill in/scan forms that the TSSC insists on publishing.

MG owners club is not really a club at all. It is a privately owned company which is nice and profitable. MGCC is the "proper" MG club.

Lucky chap! The early cars used type 12 calipers, later type 14. Same disc, no real difference in braking. Easy to tell the diffrerence, the t12 caliper is held together with 2 bolts. t14 with 4. Squeal could be lack of use, or lack of anti squeal shims. Unlikley to be anything serious. Engine number will tell you where the car came from. GE/GK herald, FD spitfire, but could be from a toledo or dolly 1300. It sounds like the temp gauge is faulty if a new sender does the same. The power for teh temp gauge comes from the same terminal of teh voltage regulator as the fuel gauge. And teh voltage stabaliser is attached to the back of the speedo. Check the wiring diagrams to see if your car had a voltage stabaliser, I know early heralds don't. So possible there is a mix of gauges? But the wiring for the temp gauge is 10V from voltage stabaliser (or if non stabalised, 12V) to one terminal on teh gauge, and the other terminal goes to the temp sender. What happens with the connector piulled off the sender? if teh gauge still zooms up there is a fault to earth.

Colin, I am unsure what you think it will be like at Silverstone. But the area inside teh track is simply huge, many timesthe size of Stafford. Yes, there will be many MGs there (of all ages) and the Triumph Clubs my gather a similar number of cars? And I expect it to be similar to the Stratford/malvern event in terms of Triumphs, but with far more facilities available. I still get the feeling that you think everything is dominated by the racing. That simply is not the case. Unless watching, you are unlikely to hear the racing let alone see it. I just hope the Triumph owners turn out in force. In other news, I have booked for teh Silverstone Classic Festival, along with kids and husbands. We are taking 3 Triumphs for the weekend. That was excellent when we attended a few years ago, all sorts of stuff going on as well as all teh car displays etc. And the evening entertainment was brilliant (except teh rain on the Friday evening, and daughters tent leaked leading to an emergency Decathlon trip on Saturday morning)

Re Silverstone, I was thinking an idle thought. With zero idea if it is being considered by "the Management" But if the MGCC underwrites the Silverstine event (as I think they do) is there a possibility that the event may stay there in the future. It is an "oven ready" event and would make life easy for the Triumph clubs. I can imagine the TR owners may not like it as a permanent fixture, and prefer to go to malvern and maybe lincs etc in rotation. I think Stafford should be avoided in future. But any such ideas should wait to be expressed until we have had a chance to experience this one in June. And then ONLY people who attended should be allowed to express a preference. Too many people want things to happen with little intetst in actually going. Too far, too expensive, too many flies, no 5 star hotel on site etc.

Snap on buy a lot of tyheir stuff in. I have some snap on stuf-d extractors somewhere, my friend who was an Irwin sales manager acquired some as they were made by irwin. Good stuff generally, but I wouldn't pay for the name. And yes, I know of a garage who had some snap on diagnostic stuff, not cheap. Went wring just out of warranty. Snap on were decidly less than helpful. He bought the replacement elsewhere.

No real surprise that only 5% of membership responded, Most seem to be inactive. Doing the maths, I think the club membership is around 4K. A couple of things stood out to me. 1. About half of the respondents wanted a hotel (though not clear if that includes people who don't want to attend an event) 2. only about 3% of the club members positively want to attend either for a day or weekend. 3. On the plus side, nearly half the respondents are happy to travel more than 100 miles. It seems the membership are pretty much disinterested in these events. If they had an opinion, they would make their views known.

A surprising range of people can get a tradecard. You can check what documents are required, and apply online, I think it is a business card and maybe some qualifications. Should be easy enough to create if you need to. Iblagged mine instore years ago, but could now legitimately get one. I thought at one time they accepted car club memberships?

This has made me interested. Plenty of people have used them, the 5-8kw chinese ones for about £100. Needs a 12V supply, and half a brick out of the wall to run the inlet and exhaust, or if you run it outside the garage a bigger hole. I would like to know how runnig costs compare to electric.

I have some halfords imperial ones (bought cheap when they stopped selling them) and they are very good, so expect metric ones to be the same. Mine are fixed, so can't comment on the flex head types.

Late to the party here, but after trying a variety of ideas over the last 30 years, I bought one of these JBL Charge 5. Although mine is now a few years old. Loud enough to hear at any speed. Charge lasts all day easily, as in 12 hours. And I reckon a simple cradle could be fashioned to hold it in place (I have an unusal interior, so I plan to use velcro to stick it to the carpet on my flat gearbox tunnel) Links to your phone, all super easy and reliable. No holes anywhere, plus you can take it with you and play some mellow music whilest enjoying your picnic, or in the garden when you have friends round for a bbq. Really has to be the simple solution, all for about £100

Even better is you can pressurise a cylinder at teh top of compression stroke, and listen for where air is escaping. ie bore next to it, inlet valve, exhaust valve, water bubbing etc. Far more useful than a basic compression test. I made one from a braken compression tester, attached to my compressor and set at 80psi. Diagnosed a blown head gasket that a compression tester failed to show.

What is the topn seal? Middle looks like the piston seal, and the bottom the little seal on the end? Those 2 are the most important.

Oh, contact details please

You have a brake master cylinder fitted (as opposed to a clutch) The only difference is the size of the resevoir. And the fact brake master cylinders came in several vaieties from all allow to yours, through to a oddball looking thing on the late spitfires. A rebuild kit is a fiver or so. Easy to do, and often sorts an issue. I usually hone the bore using fine wire wool and a pencil in a drill (works for me) with a squirt of wd40. Then wash off with brake cleaner (everybody should have tins of break cleaner to hand, great for all sort of things, and can be had for £2 a tin) Some new master cylinders are not great, and many do not have a normal size bore. Beware "uprated" ones with a bigget bore, they just give a heavier clutch. For simplicity, teh county one looks a decent bet. I bought a TRW a few years ago, cost double what that county one does. No idea if it will last longer.

I always use a bit of hermatite blue.

My dolomite recently passed the MoT. The emissions were, ahem, a tad higher than they should have been, but I guess the tester was feeling generous. However, it would seem a good idea to drop the emissions test for 40+ year old vehicles, as it discourgages people takingthem for an MoT (And I think I have found the cause of my high emissions, just waiting for some bits)

Only the arch and the a post are a vague concern, but should pass an MoT. The welding is very much "workmanlike" but run a grinder over it and some seam sealer and it would look fine. If you can weld, it should be pretty OK if a little fiddly.

To check the sticky valve theory, next time you start and it misfires, stop immediately and do a compression test on that cylinder. That should tell you.

There is a chap in Ireland who did a mates stag dash, and it was a VERY good job. Took a while, but worth it I reckon. https://handmadebyheary.wordpress.com/products/ On the other hand I bought a cheapish new mk3 spit dash off the bay, it is pretty good

R14 is low predssure hose that is ethanol resistant. So "different" to R9. R9 is possibly more common as it is suitable for injection cars. The important thing is to buy from a proper supplier (NOT AFS on ebay! theirs was fake, no idea if it is OK now or not, but why take the risk) GAtes, Coden, Cohline. All proper stuff.

They show if you arer getting a spark at that cylinder, but if no spark you don't know if it is cap, lead or plug. But easy to swap stuff around. Thet are a simple but useful diagnostioc tool. I carry one in my toolbag.

I think yopu now inderstand teh pricing. Rarityxdesirability+high value. If you want them you won't find them cheap unless very very lucky. Have you triend Jon Fallowell? he has loads of TR7 stuff.

Or one of these, dead handy for diagnosing issues

I would try a few simple checks. Maybe swap the plug and leads around, see if the issue moves with it. (for a moment I tjough you may have swapped a modern 1500 3 cylinder engine into the car. That would be tasty!)