I'd just collected the car from the shop where I'd had the welding done when, while on the way home, I noticed that whenever I put the engine under load it would stumble and I had to change down just to keep it running.

With the engine-bay all coming together nicely, it seemed a shame to put the old heat-shield back on, so I decided to splash out a little and go for a new one.

Smelling fuel is never a good thing. We were getting the car ready to go down for its MOT, running through all the usual checks, when we realised the fuel pump was still ticking. A quick look around the carbs and we saw fuel dripping from underneath.

While I've got the carbs. off, I thought I'd shine them up a bit and clear any gunk from around the linkages.

Part of the investigation into the starting problems has been the floats in the carbs. As these can become gummed-up it was a possibility that this is where the fuel starvation symptoms were originating, but it would also give us access to the jets.

The MG's been off the road for a couple of weeks after breaking down on an afternoon run around the block.Right now we're trying to work out what's wrong.

With the MOT passed and the road tax paid we took it out for a celebratory run and it's first visit to the pumps in a while.

The new fuel pump installed. It was a bit of a pain to get at without a socket set. The white line is to help get the outflow hole lined up to allow the fuel out; the first time I did it without the line and spent and few minutes wondering why no fuel was appearing.

Bit of a rainy day, so the car was left in the garage to fit the fuel pump. I chose a solid state fuel pump for reliability.

The original fuel pump isn't working, which you can easily tell as they should make a 'tock-tock-tock' sound when the ignition is on, and if you've a clear fuel filter you will see some fuel run in.

This is the fuel pump viewed from underneath, showing the 2 hoses to pull in fuel from the tank and pump it up to the engine.