The utter arseache this little coreplug has caused me
Long story short. Was given the car by my dad, did most of the work required and kept it going, but never thought to check the cooling system, we are on holiday and the thermostat jams, the engine boils and steam is coming out from under the intake manifold, we are recovered home. Took a look with an endoscope camera and spotted a core plug with a hole in it. Simple, get the ‘full’ core plug set from MX5 parts along with the intake manifold gasket, strip it down, replace the core plug and put it back together, I thought.
Except … the core plug in the head is not part of the ‘full’ kit. It’s 20mm, so the car is in bits while I wait for a 99p part to arrive. Not happy
I did take the time to fit some very sexy orange hoses though
That would have been very annoying. MX5Parts need to change their description to engine block core plug set and a note specifically mentioning that the head 20mm core plug(s) are not included. Did you get a refund on their set? I would leave a review to warn others.
I see that generic 20mm core plugs are readily available - did you buy one of those off ebay?
Murphy’s Law corollary no 78. “It is the simplest things that cause the most grief.”
On my 19 year old rust-free reliable Mk1 Cavalier there was a microscopic leak from a Welch plug on the rear brake pressure regulator. (A quick wash with a hosepipe before each MOT and it was OK) SWMBO was the main driver, and I was not prepared to take the risk on repairing a safety critical item myself, and at £180 in 1996 a new regulator was more than triple the scrap value of the car. So in the end rather than taking the risk on a long tour we scrapped it.
On my 20 year old rust-free reliable Vectra that replaced the Cavalier, the first ever breakdown was when the 3 year old tension spring on the cambelt failed. So we scrapped it.
On my 15 year old rust-free reliable Astra at 205,000 miles the first ever breakdown was bits falling out of the clutch, noisily. I could use the Vectra or a bus pass, so we scrapped it.
By the time the Mazda3 or MX5 are past it, I will most likely be the simple thing that is no longer capable of driving…
