I’ve posted a couple of entries to the blog over the winter, which were mostly silly things to be fair, but each little thing that was done didn’t warrant it’s own post so I decided to clump them all together.

So what’s new, what’s changed and what broke? Thankfully nothing broke, apart from the starter motor. Not exactly an unimportant part to break but that’s sods law for you. The starter motor was still working but was failing to disengage, meaning it was turning over with the engine speed. If you’ve seen the high idle of the MR2 you’ll realise this is more of an issue than it normally would be. It took quite a while to locate the problem as, like any irritating fault, it was intermittent. Once we knew it was the starter motor Ian set about removing it, ignoring the advice of the Haynes manual which suggests dropping the exhaust for easy access and wiggling it out instead. Once on the bench the contacts were cleaned and the whole thing lubricated which fixed the problem, but a starter motor repair kit would probably be a good investment for the future.

During the winter updates Ian asked if he could keep the car in his garage for a week to complete some work. He got a couple of the small jobs done, and late one afternoon declared that later on he would remove and reseal the sump which was leaking. Bearing in mind it would be going dark in a few hours I thought he was referring to tomorrow or something, but I should have known better. Night or day, warm or cold, as to Ian it doesn’t matter, as he set about dropping the sump at night. While he was there he also went round spanner checking everything. A few things were a bit looser than you’d ideally like, but there was one bolt which stood out a mile which was holding the roll cage in. Thankfully it turned out to be nowhere near as bad as first thought. While the bolt looked like it was only half way in, it was in fact very tight, and required a considerable amount of force to fully tighten into position.

Finally, the biggest change was an upgrade in the springage department, although if you look at the stiffness of the car you might well ask if the suspension was simply welded. The springs were supplied from Jon Winter and suit the car much better than the old ones, allowing it to sit much lower, and of course are much stiffer. Combined with some new adjustable anti roll bars I’m expecting great things in the handling department for this season, as long as I can stop fiddling with all the new settings!