Whilst in France I like to keep my fingers busy so I built a model of my 'Born Again' motorbike, a Yahama Virago. I got busy with the glue and airbrush and you could be forgiven for thinking it was the real deal.
Back to the temperature gauge, I got straight to work on Stella. I drained the coolant and unscrewed the sensor bulb from the rear of the left hand cylinder head. I released the instrument panel and eased it forward to allow me to free the gauge and then withdraw the capillary tube back through the bulkhead and under the dash and and out through the gauge aperture.
There did not appear to be anything wrong with the old gauge or the long capillary tube, but I put the sensor of the old and the new one in a mug of boiling water and quite obviously, for whatever reason, it was no longer working.
When I was ordering the replacement gauge I initially checked out the company who provided the original one, but they wanted £128, a bit steep I thought, so I searched on EBay and found one from an MG spares supplier for just under £80, that will do, but when I came to fit it I realised that I would need a different adaptor for where the bulb screws into the head.
A couple of days later the adaptor and washer arrived and soon it was all back into place. I started the engine and ran it up to temperature, checking for coolant leaks, there were none and I now had a fully functional gauge.
Next job is to find out why the heater control lever has stopped working the heater water valve, good thing that I can get to the valve and close it by hand as Jacquie was complaining that her feet were beginning to melt, there is always something, not complaining, that's the way I like it.
