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Back to this month's car of the month
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Car Of The Month :
July 2015
'Gruple' by Fusilier
This is the fourth MG ZT with a V6 engine I’ve owned since becoming interested in the marque.
My first was an MG ZT 160 in Anthracite which I sold in 2012, that was followed by another 160 I still own that has become known as “Blue Moon”,
next I bought a Solar Red MG ZT 190+ which I spent over a year working on.
However in order to be able to purchase “Gruple” I had to sell one of the fleet, the decision was made to dispose of the Solar Red 190+ to give me the room in the man cave for the impending purchase.
“Gruple” is an MG ZT-T 180+ and is finished in Monogram Chromactive Poseidon with full SE leather, black oak dash and an electric sunroof.It got it's destinctive name because of the cross between Green & Purple that Poseidon flip paint gives.
I purchased it from forum member A19 Graham who had spent quite a bit of money on the car; it already had four new tyres, new rear springs,
Navall 2 head unit, together with front and rear cameras, plus a lot of other “toys”.
The car on delivery was in very good condition but I had set myself a goal and that included giving a thorough clean from top to bottom.
I started with a little tender loving care, first snow foam, rinsed off and washed with a good quality shampoo, then onto claying the whole car and finally a quick polish.
Whilst doing this I noticed a couple of other things that needed doing to get it to the high standard I had set myself for the project.
The ZT-T then went into the man cave and onto axle stands, the wheels, which were in need of refurbishing, were removed. I then set about cleaning the underside of the car;
it soon became apparent that some areas, especially the subframes, were in need of paint. After some thought I decided to completely paint the underside of the car,
so it was off to the local paint supplier for them mix up a litre of HFF British Racing Green, which was the closest to match the original underside colour of the car.
I then repainted all the underneath of the vehicle to complement the fantastic exterior colour. After a couple of weeks the recently painted areas were finally finished with a coat of lacquer.
The next job was to remove the wheel arch liners and give them a good clean with paint thinners to remove the tar stuck to them; whilst they were off I cleaned the brakes and painted the inside of the wheel arches.
The wheels were then taken to be refurbished, the company doing them had a hard time removing all the old coatings from the inside of the rims, however five days later they had done a fantastic job and they returned resplendent in Silver Sparkle.
I really prefer the look of the Mk 1 stainless steel mesh, I was lucky to have a set to hand which I fitted.
Next of the list was the engine bay, I changed the yellow header tank for a nicer black one, fitted new breather pipes, removed the K & N filter and fitted an original air box. I’ve cleaned the engine mount, throttle body and alternator,
plus I’ve now added a few of my personal touches to the engine bay.
To follow further developments on Project Gruple, take a look at the thread I have running on the forum by clicking Here
Article written by member Fusilier
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