MG Car Club of South Australia
well- they were cracked—not a nice
bloody thought—hey!!. And—lets look
at the front disks and brake pads as
well. Pads were ok, but when I took the
calipers apart, found that the piston
seals were a bit worse for wear, and
there was a fair bit of muck inside the
caliper body,-- ordered new seals,
cleaned out the muck, all good now—
just like new again—( especially after
the whole front end suspension compo-
nents got a good pressure wash down,
clean and repaint ). As the steering
rack and pinion system also had to
come out, I took that apart, cleaned,
regreased and repainted it as well.
Tie rod ends—replaced—old ones were
rusty inside, could hardly move the left
hand one.
I must say that I was surprised to find
that the king pins and bushes were in
good condition when I checked them –
no slop or looseness in any direction—I
have a feeling that they may have been
replaced in the not too past tense..
I don’t know whether any of you have
had shuddering and vibration problems
with you front ends when driving over a
certain speed. I had, and I think that I
found the problem. Because they were
glazed up I decided that I was going to
remachine the front rotors while they
were off the car, When I put them in the
lathe to machine the surfaces, I saw
that the castings were not at all concen-
tric to the factory machined surfaces.
This put the rotors out of balance, so
after I remachined the braking faces, I
also machined some material off of the
casting . After the car was eventually
put back on the road again, I found that
there was no more vibration evident—
much better….Just a note—when com-
ponents are first machined in the fac-
tory, they must be located, clamped,
positioned as close as possible to their
true centers of gravity, otherwise they
will always be out of balance.
fan on all the time, and the gearbox
whines when in first and second gear.
I put this down to the first and second
gears being straight cut perhaps, which
would cause the whining ( whirring )
noise.( Someone could fill me in on
that.) .I reckon I,m right though, because
this cars got so much grunt, that it could
drag a Ferrari off at fifty paces……It’s a
red MGB—Seee…(straight cut gears are
stronger but noisier, and helical or angle
cut gears are a little weaker, but quieter.)
But—overall, I think that the gearbox is
ok. I like the rigidness of the gear stick
when I change gears. It clunks into place
as if there is nowhere else for it to go,
except back into first if you don’t watch
what you are doing. I bet a lot of the girls
find the same problem—and don’t be
filthy about this either!!!.....
I eventually bought a front and back sus-
pension overhaul kit, ( rubbers and
bushes etc ) and replaced the lot. Suffice
to say, the car rides very well now, no
clunking and banging, drives in a straight
line ( even when you turn corners—na--
just joking… ), and is nice and quiet.
While all of this was happening, I also
cleaned up, washed down all of the un-
derbody of the car and repainted it all
black, blew the rusty flakes out of the
inside of the chassis rails and sprayed
RP7 in them, until it dripped out.( all over
my shed floor ). I must say that I spent a
lot of time cleaning the dripped paint off
of my body parts. I used a paint brush,
that tend to drip if you,r not careful---
Hey—I wasn’t careful, was I. Took the
drive shaft out, cleaned the rust out of
the uni. bearings, regreased, repainted
it.
As we all know, when you start some-
thing, it always turns out that you find
something else to fix, so, when I re-
moved the front cross member, together
with all the suspension bits hanging off
it, to replace the rubbers etc,I found that
the brake hoses needed replacing as
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