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Check your exhaust hangers, engine mountings & battery
Brian Moyse (BRG 1714) from Surrey obtained his UK specification RV8 in May 2002 and just a week later appeared at the Sunday lunchtime V8 Gathering at Hazeley Heath. Shortly after he sent in this workshop note. (May 02)

During a thorough initial check of the car following my purchasing the vehicle just 10 days ago, I heard a mysterious and worrying clonking on bumps which was being transmitted up through the steering column. Well initially it seemed to have been cured by fitting new rubber hangers on the exhaust. The offside front was broken and that ahead of the rear box was well elongated and on its way out. It is interesting that the RV8 "passed" an MOT in that condition just a week ago!

I also noticed that the steering column was very close to the underside of the manifold so I became a bit suspicious of the front engine mounting on the offside, which seemed lower down in the chassis bracket than that on the nearside, though as far as I could tell it had not broken away.

A discussion with Brown & Gammons more or less confirmed that the engine mount was likely to have
sheared (the rubber block from the metal plate), it appears to be a recurring problem if I use the engine to the full as the torque reaction of the engine under acceleration can literally pull the engine mount apart. I purchased a replacement mount from Brown & Gammons and had a local MG Rover dealer (Trident Garages in Ottershaw in Surrey) fit it. The steering rack has to come out so the labour cost is not insignificant, but the steering column is now well clear of the manifold and all the clonking has gone. Also cured is a minor clutch judder which must have been the result of the engine not being correctly located.

During the checks, I also found the battery, a Halfords replacement, unsecured in its hole with no brackets in evidence! - another MOT failure point which was missed by the MOT tester! It did at least have a full acid level and the plates look fairly new, though physically it is not much bigger than the 6volt units on my MGBGT. The Halfords battery could not be fixed with the standard securing method (Brown & Gammons were able to supply me with the correct mounting bracket and bolt) so a new, correctly dimensioned battery which is sufficient for the workload in the RV8 has been fitted and properly secured.

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