Any admin for Motorgeek on here? I need some help on MG. Thx. Steve
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Welcome to 2024... and off to a very slow start.
The Historic Mt. Philo hillclimb, hosted by the Sports Car Club of Vermont (https://www.SCCV.org) and sponsored by A-Plus Towing & Recovery in Orwell, VT (https://aplustowing802.com), is this coming weekend.
That means all the issues and improvements that I had all winter to work on come down to 6 days before the first event.
So, this past weekend was oil/filter change, inner tie rod, spark plugs, running issue at the last 2023 track event, new RBF600 brake fluid, tire inflation and wheel torque.
But... I didn't get to any of the "improvements" that I wanted to do over the winter. Lazy and busy with local club and hillclimb organization stuff didn't help.
The running issue turned out to be a very rusty #4 spark plug wire on the coil end. Replaced it, cleaned and applied dielectric grease to all four coil posts, replaced the spark plugs, and she is running perfectly again.
One of the improvements for the 2024 season was to install the much larger Mann W940/25 oil filter.
Given more time to see if I could relocate the wires on the bottom of the fan shroud, perhaps I could have made it fit.
This is how close the stock size oil filter is to the wires. This is because I have a much thicker aftermarket radiator.
Replaced the inner tied rod. The ball was a little loose in the socket. Surprised as it is relatively new. Since it was a concern of the hillclimb tech inspector at the end of the 2023 season, I replaced it.
Changing of the guard. The MK1 Scirocco returns to the garage and the Golf is heading out for the Mt. Philo hillclimb.
In other news... last summer I had a tire blowout on the trailer on the way to a track event. Replacing a tire in the breakdown lane of I-89 isn't all that fun. Thankfully, I was able to jack up the trailer without removing the car.
On my way back from the track event, I checked all the tires again and noticed that one (same side as the blowout) was low on air pressure.
(don't worry, I'm getting to the point)
My cigarette plug in air compressor wouldn't reach from the truck to the back of the 24' enclosed trailer nor did I want to remove the tire. So, I had to use my air tank to ferry air from the air compressor plugged into the truck dash to the tire on the trailer.
What a pain.
Enter the new Milwaukee M18 battery air compressor. Very simple and very functional.
It threads onto the tire. Bonus.
You can hold the manual inflate button to add air.
The real bonus is the memory. Connect the hose to the tire, press the 1 of 3 memory options, press Start, and it will inflate (and draw back down if it overshot) to that setting. Great for setting the pressure for all tires on a vehicle. Hit the truck tires next.