MGA front suspension repair
John has been sorting thru and re-wiring a partially restored MGA 1600 which has handed him a few challenges. MGA front shocks are mounted on top of the coil spring towers by way of four 3/8″ studs & nuts, however the inner front mounting on the driver’s side was thru-bolted with a 5/16″ nut & bolt, which is a blinking red danger signal for us because the shocks hold up the top of the front suspension.
He pulled down the suspension and it was an ugly sight, as only one of the three remaining studs had any grip at all in its tapping plate. Worse still, one hole wasn’t even round any more.
John ground out a crack
The crack after grinding
John ran two 3/8″-16 heli-coil inserts into the two repairable tapping plate holes and Butch welded a captive nut into the irrepairable hole. Additionally, John discovered a nasty crack running all the way thru the spring tower from top to bottom which was also ground out and welded.
Butch preps a BN7 Healey dashboard for installation. More on this next week.
If you’re not familiar with the term “heli-coil” here’s a quick primer on the subject. A heli-coil is a stainless steel replacement thread insert which is used to repair a threaded hole where the hole has been irreversably damaged. It’s a clever and effective technique in which you drill an oversized hole thru the damaged threads, and re-tap the hole with an oversized tap. Using a special installation tool the repairer winds in the stainless steel insert and , Et Voila ! Back in business with the original size thread & thread pitch. We heli-coil most of the usual Imperial thread forms found on Jaguar, MG, Austin Healey, etc, as well as the somewhat more esoteric British Standard Fine sizes which feature on “T”series MG’s & Morgan etc., as well as the truly esoteric metric sizes, most commonly (for us) the 8×1.0 milimeter threads found in the engines of those “T” series MG’s. And as if that’s not bad enough, the original bolts have Whitworth heads
Girls Can Do It in New York
A TD delivered in Vermont
It’s a short report today. We’re storny busy which means a lot to write about next week. So here are a couple of recent pictures that haven’t made it in yet. On the outbound leg, the now fully fettled Daimler SP 250 didn’t make it on the trailer under its own power. No one could find a team of horses, either, so we used the next best thing. The MG TD picture is self explanatory, the owner & the repairer are happy.
