steve, sure it's not leaking from where the dipstick tube seats into the sump (bit like a john guest fitting)

I have a spare oil cooler and pipes which you are welcome to if that's what's needed to fix it

thanks pal, it could well be the dip stick tube. i have read of some people having difficulty removing and refitting these when they have the belts done. the oil change will hopefully show up where its pissin from. just going to throw a gallon of halfrauds own in for the purpose of identifying, i didnt much like the look of the oil thats in there when i last checked. bet its not been changed that many times since staccato had it.

Really interesting thread Ste - fingers crossed you can restore this 180 to its former glory - such a shame to see it's current state!

any updates on this yet?

not any that are post worthy. matt helped me swap the bonnet over yesterday off the diesel donor car. i need to remove the good body kit from the bad wings and the bad body kit from the good wings to make 2 good wings with body kit. so far only removed the good body kit from 1 wing, what a ball ache that is. i.m tempted to get the shark gill part of the wings hydrodipped carbon fibre whilst ive got them off but not certain yet. they do look good in firefrost so may just keep them original. i will however be painting the splitter part of the front bumper in cellulose gloss black to match the ratech splitter that will be going on and change the mesh to a finer black mesh with pillar box red border the same as my BRG hatch.

it will be slow progress as i am already spread very thin with everything else ive got cooking at the moment. but at the end i should have a nice subtlety modified MK2 180 with all the desired performance mods.

Why and how someone can let a car get into that condition after being a show stopper, it's beyond me.

Poor Derv!!! As well.

Excellent work dear boy, she Will be an excellent specimen of ZS again. Firefrost is still one of my favourite mg rover colours which helps!

Ste, I did forget to mention yesterday about the front splitter, reckon you'd be better off going with plasti dip in black, easy to apply can be done in a day and very little prep.

thanks matt, think im going to give this stuff a go.

http://www.halfords.com/motoring-travel/cleaning-body-repair/specialist-decorative-paints/halfords-plastic-bumper-paint-black-300ml#[object%20Object]

small update. Front end is back together and several minor small jobs ticked off the list.

http://www.themgzs.co.uk/vb/picture....pictureid=1870
http://www.themgzs.co.uk/vb/picture....pictureid=1871