Following yesterday’s post where I noted the rear window heater wasn’t working even though 12V was present, I woke up this morning to find everything frozen outside.

I scraped the ice from the exterior of Murphy’s windows before heading off, but I’m now wondering if the rear window heater is actually working after all, albeit very slowly, as I could swear the rear window seemed to clear of condensation faster than usual, (usual being leaving the window open until it clears).

Either that, or the condensation evaporated naturally, as I did have the window for a few minutes, but it wasn’t for that long since it was so cold.

Intriguing… I’ll be checking more closely tomorrow, as if this is working, I’ll be very pleased.

Does anyone know how the rear window heater performs on MGB GT’s?

Is really slow, actually normal behavior?

Should I invest in that hot air fan thingy I’ve seen on eBay for a tenner to blast the rear window clear???

Today I drove Murphy to Chichester to see Nick, as he’s over from Ireland for another two weeks, and was very kind enough to give me a hand with a few improvements I’ve been meaning to do.

It was drizzling/raining in Chandlers Ford, so I phoned Nick at lunchtime to see if he still wanted to meet up, and he told me the weather was “alright” in Chichester, so come on over.

Well, there’s clearly an Irish to English translation issue here, as “alright” in Nick’s world actually means “it’s chucking it down and you’re going to have a fun time getting here as the roads are flooded”. I definitely need one of those translation books!

I wonder if the “book” might also explain the difference in the movement of time between Ireland & England – not a timezone difference per se, more something that makes time run slower in Ireland, and sometimes causes Nick to be delayed by many hours 🙂 Must be something in the tea – but that’s another story!

With limited distraction from the F1 race, and Lewis Hamilton’s well earned victory 🙂 we reversed Murphy under the garage door to avoid the worst of the rain.

The first of the “simple” jobs for the afternoon was to remove the boot door and fit a rubber seal around the boot, which had been missing since I acquired the car. Simple my arm!

Fitting the rubber seal was easy, as was replacing the boot – and successfully proving the electrics for the rear window demister were actually working, even if the demister itself wasn’t (a job for another day!) – but would the boot shut???

NO!!!

By far the toughest job I’ve ever undertaken on this car was replacing the heater matrix to the uprated version.  The original was so poor, with not enough airflow to even lightly demist the front windscreen, let alone melting ice in the winter.  As an all year round daily driver, this upgrade was essential, and has paid off immensely, so I’m glad it’s out of the way.  Not only does the window demist rapidly, the car really warms up now 🙂

Nevertheless, crowbars, cursing and cut hands, I feel for anyone whose ever undertaken this work!

I was fortunate to have a massive helping hand from my father-in-law – I’m not sure his term “active relaxtion” counted here – and my brother-in-law, who joined in when we needed an extra pair of hands.  It took an entire weekend, but we did it! 🙂

The big question… would we have started if we knew what we’d have to go through?!?!?

All hands on deck!

Driving up the M3 motorway, I pulled into Fleet Services to fuel up.  I should have taken notice of the strange, but very slight whining noise, but chose to ignore it, thinking it was no big deal, and that I could investigate it later.

A few miles from the Woking junction, traffic started building up, requiring me to slow down and change gear.  Not the gear change I’d hoped for, there was an almighty clunk which shuddered the whole car, followed by a perpetual grinding sound, and the clutch pedal lost is tension.  I could no longer change gear!!!!

Managing to engage 2nd gear “clutchless-style”, I was able to get off the motorway and pull over safely out of the way.

One tow-truck later, (which included an interesting conversation with the driver about which vehicles he mostly recovered – oh dear Mercedes!), and an engine-out autopsy by Church Garage revealed that the thrust-bearing had shattered.

Investigations also revealed that the clutch could do with renewal, so off they went.

With the clutch – and thrust bearing – replaced, Murphy was back on the road and in good form.  I do notice that pushing the clutch down does occasionally cause a very slight “grinding” sound, but I’ve had this double-checked a number of times, with no issues found. Lot’s of stuff on this on Google, I do think at some point that I’d be well of to get the bearing alignment checked!

Where there used to be an engine…

There’s now a hole!