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Back to this month's car of the month
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Car Of The Month :
June 2014
'Ms Moonshine' by Moonshine Mark
My MG Rover story starts back in 2007 when I bought a Rover 200 as my first car and was impressed with what you got for your money compared to other manufacturers.
I bought several more Rovers over the next few years before taking a break with a Vauxhall Omega, but it wasn’t long before I was craving another car from the Great British manufacturer.
Whilst initially looking for a good Rover 75 during 2009 I bought my 1st ZT, a CDTi in Trophy Yellow.
After 4 years of ownership and many miles it was time to look for a replacement, I was tempted to walk away and try something different but then one day whilst browsing the forum an advert popped up.
A Moonshine 190 SE which had the benefit of an LPG conversion, a brilliant colour and cheaper running costs, I couldn’t resist finding out a bit more information about it.
A couple of days later I was off to take a look. Although it was a slightly overcast day there were hints of the colour showing through and I knew I just had to have the car.
It needed a bit of a clean up and the wheels were looking rather aged however I looked forward to having a tinker in my garage. The deal was done and I picked the car up a few days later.
This is the part where I’d love to say how great the ownership has been however the fact is lots of work has been put in to get the car where it is today.
The first long trip I did in the car was to the Club’s National Meet in Wales, on the journey the car lost a lot of its coolant from the lower cooling rail and required careful nursing home.
For a while after that the car kept on loosing coolant even though all the usual culprits were replaced. The final nail in the coffin for this engine was when a camshaft broke. The engine was replaced with a unit sourced online.
With the car up and running it felt like I was finally getting somewhere however after 4 days the new engine decided to go bang! At this point many would’ve given up but driven on by insanity I was straight on the case of sourcing another engine.
The engine was replaced again and finally after 6 months the car was back on the road.
My car is 1 of 5 ZT saloons made in Moonshine and is the only ZT 190. Made a month before the closure of Longbridge it is also the second to last Moonshine 75/ZT off the line.
It was now time to enjoy the car and since that day it has been brilliant
Being an SE the car is already fitted with most of the kit however between all of the mechanical works I have also fitted in some modification time.
My first job when I got the car was to remove the wheels that were in desperate need of refurbishing and replace them with a set of freshly refurbished Hairpins.
Next on the list was to swap the Alcantara seats for a set of Sports Leather.
A simple job some may think, but not in this case.
I had a set of Manual Leather seats but wanted to keep the electric adjustment and memory functions of the Alcantara so set about recovering the seats.
This was a job I had carried out before so I started off fairly confident. After completing the passenger seat I discovered that somebody had rounded one of the bolts on the driver's side.
Instead of messing about with drilling the bolt out I decided to replace the cover with the seat in-situ, a job I will never be doing again!
Other modifications to the car include;
• BMW Widescreen Monitor with Widescreen TV Tuner
• BMW Mk3 Sat Nav Drive
• Rover 75 IPK Surround
• Brushed Aluminium Effect Dash
• Drivers Cupholder
• Footwell Lighting
• Refurbished Hairpin Alloys
• Stainless Steel Exhaust
• Stainless Mesh Front Grilles
I have attended lots of meets in the car including Pride of Longbridge and a couple of National Meets as well as a few smaller local meets.
The car was also featured in a Monogram line-up at Duxford last year. The positive comments I receive at such events about the car and the colour make all of the hard work worthwhile.
For anybody interested in more information on the car I have a progress thread in the 75/ZT Club Gallery where I post updates and of course lots of photos.
Article written by member Moonshine Mark
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