Saving Private Puddles
 

First of all a big thank you to 2750hp for passing her on to me.

This will be a progress thread.

So where do I begin? She is a 2004 75 Contemporary T, bought new in 2006 by 2750hp and driven by his wife until late 2016 when the head gasket failed at 108,000 miles. At which point she was parked.

I went to collect her yesterday, I found her tucked away behind a farm, a runner, with a rather soggy interior. I have a friend with a recovery truck so he collected her and drop her at my garage.

So my plan is intially to sort the headgasket to make it a little more mobile (I haven't got alot of room to get around it in the lock up.) I need to clean out the Plenums -the reason the interior is so wet- then I can pull her into the yard and go through the brakes and suspension. Hopefully then it will be time for an MOT, I am hoping to have it on the road for POL 2020. I have another project I am getting through at the minute, so when that is done, there should be alot of progress relatively quickly. So watch this space :)

She has also now become affectionately known by the name 'Puddles'

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I like the name. Good luck with the project.

Nice colour by the way .:smiley:

Well done for saving another one 👍👍

I thought the heading was a new film? good luck with the project.

Glad she has gone to a new home. With four off ZTs in our house she was being neglected and when Tom gets her back on the road nobody will be more pleased than I.



Regards
Steve

Just a quick little update, I have had a few free hours this morning before I had to get ready for work.

So my first plan was to replace the battery with a known good one I had from a previous car. I now do not have to jump start her every time she needs moving.

Since I had been down to visit her the offside rear tyre had gone completely flat, despite being 'new' it had perished quite a lot. So for now I have fitted the space saver from the boot. Whilst I was in the boot I noticed there seems to of been mouse activity.

The next job I moved to, was the Plenums. Having taken all the trim pieces off under the windscreen, I had a look down (I did take photo but the focus was all wrong) there was about 2-3 inches of water in the bottom. As luck would have it, my jack handle was just the right diameter, I pushed it through and drained about 3 litres of water, mud and leaves out. Luckily it wasn't deep enough to reach the bottom of the ECU. I then cleaned and flushed out the top drains too.

I notice on this later 75, there doesn't seem to be a top drain on the drivers side, just a blanking plug. My 2000 model does have a drain.

It also seems some sort of animal had been nesting in the bonnet insulation. I am guessing from the squirrel's foot in the scuttle panel, they are probably the culprit.

From a quick check over despite sitting for so long everything excluding the stereo seems to work.

The jacking points all seem solid also.

Next on my list is finding a way to get the water out of the footwells. Any ideas with this would be great, I have a carpet extractor but no power at the lockup....

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Quick start
 

Sensible to clear out Plenum - suggest now get some basic Plastic net to fix beside ends of the scuttle and stop all those leaves / muck causing a new plenum block. I think Rev Jules also sells a suitable plastic unit. Of course you may now have done this by now!
Great to see another one of our cars being saved - well done.

Well done in saving Puddles and look forward to watching your progress over the coming months,
Just as an aside, I never took to the Facelift 75 and I think your picture of the two front ends speaks volumes, that the original front was spot on.
Having said that, the facelift certainly improved the MG version for some reason, which suited the ZT so much better than the 75.
Not to detract from your saving project though, and wish you all success with it.

Thank you, I personally prefer the look of the pre-face lift also. Although I can completely understand the reasons behind it. I think they were trying to pull the model away from the 'classic' luxury look (i.e Chrome, leather, wood etc). With an attempt to make it more in keeping with the other cars in the same/similar class.More of a clean look.

Although just from a glance over the car I can tell the quality doesn't seem to be as high as my other, the cracks a crevices seem to have alot less paint, if any. Also the paint doesn't look to be as thick on the body.