Oh that, the radiator fan up front won't turn on which I addressed in the leaking water pump thread. Have to check what's going on there.

Really happy to hear the engine can be worked on without taking it out! For now I'm keeping my fingers crossed that will be fine.

I will check where the oil is coming from and what the compression is. I'm sure I can find someone to help me with that. They can also probably advice me on the trailing arms.

For now I'm going to start transferring this project to private property and suspend the insurance so I can take my time to get things back in check. Cleaning the engine bay sounds like a good plan although I must say it looks relatively tidy. Probably should start looking for a winter car now    Shame I can't afford another one of these at the moment, otherwise I could switch if one breaks down 

quote..."Today I was having a look at the fan and it started leaking oil quite bad"
don't understand.
What fan?

Stiil I first would measure the compression of the engine before taking it out.
This give a indication of the state of the engine.
You can work pretty good on the engine when it is in place.
On the other end it's a easy job to get it out once  you have the trailing arms out. (NB: that can be problematic because of rusted  bolts.
Then you can make the engine compartimant nice and shiney.

Herman

 I removed the head and gearbox today, it looks like the gasket delaminated on 1 water way and about to on another one .

Okay well I have concluded I'm not getting this through the local MOT this season so I'm going to store it and plan out a further restoration, either paid or with help (or both).

Pump was fixed relatively easily enough though but things have gotten worse I'm afraid.

Today I was having a look at the fan and it started leaking oil quite badly (not pouring out but definitely dripping). I assume and fear this is possibly because I didn't notice the cooling issues in time. It hadn't leaked anything where I parked it last week which I suppose is a plus.

I also assume this means the engine has to come out.
I think the following needs to be done to get it back on the road (hopefully spring 2021 since this was supposed to be my daily driver):
•Fix all the oil leaks, engine and transmission if I'm not mistaken. I assume this means taking it all out, engine and drive train.
•Check and/or replace trailing arms.
•Fix whatever is causing the cooling system issues.

Definitely not something I can do alone in any case so I'll need to find someone local that can have a look at it and see if there's more stuff on the list. I'll start with the guy who helped me fix the steering. If there's any tips where I can find more help, I'm always open to suggestions

Price wise I assume it'll be best to just keep repairing this engine but I'm open to suggestions. Speed wise I guess it's cheaper to drop a revised engine in and fix this block learning about it along the way. Then again I guess there's not a lot of engines around that will fit this car (I can only find the exchange engine that Carjoy has on offer in any case which I find a bit pricey for just the engine but I could be wrong of course).

I like that tilting lift, I used a combination of trolley jacks and axle stands, more time consuming for sure. If I did the job again I would remove the gearbox and engine separately even though it's a bit more fiddly, but there's less weight to haul in and out. I have a hydraulic bike lift on wheels for dragging the engine out and putting it back, but it was on the limit of its capacity with the combined engine and gearbox unit, so was I! In fact your photo seems to show you have something similar.

The Politecnic price included the bushes and wheel bearing, but they won't fit them, so you have to do that yourself. I had a nightmare trying to fit the bushes with a small hydraulic press I borrowed from a neighbour, so in the end another neighbour took it to a truck maintenance shop and got everything pressed into place there. I recommend not trying threaded bars and winding these things in, they are just too tight in my limited experience.

Well the engine is out plonked by the air conditioner for a cool working area  Hopefully it is only the head gasket that has failed on N01 cylinder as the compression readings were pretty good on the others. I found dropping out the engine was straight forward, my tilting lift definitely made it quite easy to get the height required.  I did find it  a bit unwieldy pulling it out from under the car. I think i will have to make the custom Trolley like the one  Anders used for his engine removal for the return journey ! 

Excellent, will do!

Clamp the overflow pipe shut, disconnect the degassing pipe at the header tank and put your finger over the tank outlet.  Blow into the header tank as hard as you can until clean coolant with no bubbles comes out of the hose.

Does the politecnic arm come with the bushes or are they an extra cost ? my right arm looks like it has been replaced in the past, it almost looks like it has been galvanised. on my elan turbo the rear lower wishbones are a known weak spot, and are similar price to the murena ones luckily for me they had been replaced in the past and these are galvanised as well now.

That trailing arm has rotted through in exactly the same place as my LH one did. I wonder if that's a common place for them to go, it's right in line with the wheel so would get a regular blast with gravel. I found that the RH one was completely solid, so I just bought a new LH one from Politecnic. I looked at options for welding the LH one, but when I chopped it in half to send the hub to Politecnic I got a full dustpan of rust out of the inside of the trailing arm. That's a lot of metal gone missing, so I'm glad I did it. I could hear it all rolling round inside before I cut it in half, but I could hear very little sound coming from the RH arm. At £670 a pop it wasn't worth buying a RH one when I didn't need it.

Nice bar BTW