MK2 Firefrost Red V6 Saloon

[Big-Jay]

Ok guys, as you may have seen I've recently decided to move my XPG saloon on as she wasn't seeing much of the road. I didn't really want to sell up but it's a shame to keep a perfectly good car sitting around unused, especially one as nice as her.

Now, I didn't have any plans to buy another ZS, or any other car in fact, but after a bit of late night browsing (and a few beers if I'm honest) I stumbled across this on an MG sales page -





I absolutely adore the Firefrost Red MG/R colour, it's my all time favourite, so I guess you can probably see how this was going to pan out.

To be fair, I was going to do a bit of saving and buy a project car to play with after Christmas, but seeing as I don't currently have a project I thought why not. Ive driven many cars but nothing delivers the bang for buck that the ZS does. Nothing really comes close for the money you can pick one of these up for.

Anyway, a five hour round trip last weekend and she was mine -













She's low milage and completely standard and unmolested, barring a sheddist clutch kit and a few dark ice designs bits. It's a nice blank canvas for me to start with.

There wasn't too much service history with the car but I'm not too worried on that front as I think this'll be a full strip down restoration.

I've already made a start last weekend on that front. Here's some pictures -

Front bumper off -



Headlights out and N/S wing off -



N/S skirt off -



Rear bumper off -





O/S skirt off -



O/S wing off -



So far so good. Next up I decided to degrease and clean the underside of the car so I could take a look at the general condition and check for any rust.

O/S under arch cleaned -



N/S under arch cleaned -



Floorpan cleaned -



Jacking points -





Surface rust and some pitting but most importantly they passed the screw driver test, no holes !

O/S rear under arch cleaned -



N/S under arch cleaned -



Rear end cleaned -







All in all I was pretty pleased, not too much rust and no holes. I did however discover an oil leak, I'll get back to this though.

Into the garage she went -



And up on axle stands -



Back to the oil leak, traced it to the dipstick oil tube -



Appeared to be coming from the bung that the tube sits in -



So I went online and ordered a new replacement from rimmer brothers -





And got to work removing the old one. A lot easier said then done, involved a large flat head screwdriver and some long nose pliers. Come out in the end though -





New one fitted and we now have no oil leaks -



To be continued in another post.