In the middle of March, Flivver was due her annual MOT, not expecting any problems because Flivver never has let me down, I booked it in at the garage that does my MOT and delivered it to them.

I helped the tester to identify some of the controls that had to be tested and operate the brakes, etc.  It did not fail exactly, but it was a close run thing!  One of the rear tyres was down to the legal limit of 1.6mm and one of the rear shock absorbers was looking as if it required some attention, especially one of the rubber bushes on one of the link arms.  The other area of concern was the exhaust emission test, whereas it is not part of the MOT for 'elderly' cars, out of curiosity I asked him for a reading.  You know what they say 'curiosity killed the cat,' the reading indicated it was running extremely rich, so much so that when we screwed up the adjusting nuts to weaken the mixture, we ran out of adjustment and it was still too rich.  I realized I had some work to do on Flivver to get it back to its normal state.

The Tyre was the first thing to deal with as I would be going on the Kimber Run shortly.  This is a run organized by the MG Owners Club and is to celebrate Cecil Kimber's birthday (I wish he had been born later in the year, I cannot remember the last time it was a warm sunny day, this years run on the 9th April was bitter cold with rain, sleet, hail and snow in any order you care to make).  However ATS changed the tyre for me, with one of my spares that I have accumulated over the past year or two and that sorted out problem one.

I took both the shock absorbers off next and drove over to 'Recon and Return' in Leicester and Raj did them for me that day, refitted them the next and that solved problem two.

I knew the engine was running rich for some time but did not realize how rich until the exhaust emission test was carried out on it.  I had taken my car over to Colin Quigley 2 years ago when I had a problem with poor pick up when accelerating.  He solved it then but did say at the time that the carburetters would need attention soon, well Flivver ran on for another 2 years until the present time.  When I took Flivver over to him I asked him to sort out the problems once and for all.  This he did, but it needed two complete carburetter rebuild kits and several hours worth of labour to recondition the carburetters.  They were to put it politely 'very worn', everything that could wear had worn, butterflies, spindles, jets, you name it, it had to be replaced.

Now it is finished I have to remember to use the choke, this is a novelty that I have not had to do for some time.  It picks up beautifully, ticks over smoothly and goes like the proverbial rocket when I put my foot down.  I cannot thank Colin enough for his expertise in sorting out this problem.