I had a friend in high school that owned an MG, every other day it was “can I get a ride to school dude” or “I gotta pull the motor so I can get to [insert British car $.50 part that can only be replaced by pulling out drive train or other major component]”
Forced me to learn some auto mechanicing tho, which was helpful/thrifty at the time.
But 90% of it's archaic knowledge these days, what with everything gone sideways and buried amidst a pile of electronic spaghetti.
Had it to do over, I'd have bypassed Leyland and gone right to VW.
Dress warm and change the oil every 20k whether it needed it or not !
Didn't take much to hop 'em up some either .. a good Weber carb, a set of 60s on its feet, and they were little racers.
Would prolly still be running if some idiot hadn't Tboned me on the way home one night . . .
(note to self: don't start waxing nostalgic at 0430 d:^)
Hah...I used to have an MG, first car I ever bought. It was a learning experience. I learned all I ever needed or wanted to know. I was a Navy jet mechanic at the time, and I was a decent mechanic, but...that MG made no sense at all to me.
I was so proud of my new car, so I was going to learn all I needed to know about my car...change ALL the fluids, tune everything up, etc. etc. etc.
Heh, I knew how to replace a jet engine, but the basic concept of checking gearbox oil level on a level surface was not in my scope of knowledge, so I drove the little MG up on a ramp, and it was...low. So I filled it to the level of the plug.
So, it came as a surprise to me when I took my car down off the ramps to drive away and began to smell nasty things, and when I put my car in gear, the engine would race and I wouldn’t really move much.
And, yeah. To replace the clutch...you had to pull the engine! And I also learned how valuable a simple thing like a clutch alignment tool is, too.
But that is another story...:)