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MG MGB Technical - mini restoration project question

I bought a 72 roadster. Have replaced most of interior and just had engine rebuilt. Runs great. Put new seats in. inside looks good.

Ride is good but steering feels notchy. Basically if I let go in very mild left or right turn it stays there. I just ordered new steering boots and tie rod ends. My boots are cracked. What are the other things that I and my chief mechanic (wife) can do with 100,000 mile suspension?? What items will make the biggest diff?

Thank you
Michael Callaghan

I’m in line for polyurethane suspension bushings and rebuilding my shocks at some point this summer. Come next week I’m putting new rack boots on mine, too. My steering seems fine, which is odd because I figure your car was better cared for than mine.
Soon to be Charleston bound,
eric.
Eric King

Michael,
Check the steering u joint, I bet you will find that it is half frozen. They rarely if ever get checked or greased. I have seen this more than once. A new one is about $12.00.

HTH

Ron
Ron Smith

Michael. Ron's comment about the steering U joint is a good one. None of mine are capable of being greased, however. Still, you and your wife can check it for ease of movement and roughness just as any other U joint is checked. I have had one bad one, in my 68 GT, recently, in 35 years of driving these cars. But, I suspect that people will see this problem more frequently as the cars get older and it is an area that is seldom checked.

As to the front end. I would recommend a complete rebuild. World Wide Auto Parts in Wisconsin has an excellent reputation for the quality of their rebuilt shocks. I installed some on my GT something over a year ago with great success. The rubber bushings tend to deteriorate over time and replacing them (use V-8 bushings on the bottom, inside of the A arms) will tighten up the system a great deal. Whether to use a poly bushing is a personal decision. Some like them very much, others do not. Check out the Archives. Steve S likes them and has some excellent information on where to obtain them and the ones to use. Lower A arms can have the holes oval as the bushings get old. Inspect and replace them as necessary. They are not that expensive.

With an old car that you do not know the previous maintenance history of, it is an excellent idea to take apart the kingpins and inspect the kingpins and replace the kingpin bushings. The front end needs to be lubricated every 3K miles, as a minimum. Some of the more experienced people believe this should be done every 1K miles. Most cars have not seen this level of service. So, stripping, cleaning, examining and rebuilding the front end is a great way to find out what you have, catch any problems early and provide a much better handling car when it is finished. Les
Les Bengtson

Les and others,
What about the Nylatron bushing instead of the Poly ones. I am a little concerned bout stiffness of V8 ones. Are they much stiffer?

JTB
J.T. Bamford

If someone has altered the shims in the steering rack in the mistaken belief that this would 'correct' for wear and overdone it you can end up with stiff steering. Jack the front off the wheels, if there is *any* stiffness there is something wrong, it should float from lock to lock smoothly and freely. Could just be many years of dirt and rust, and quite possibly a wrecked rack, if the gaiters have been split for some time. Track rod ends ususally go sloppy, they are stiff from new.
Paul Hunt

JTB. The standard rubber bushings, using the V-8 style rear A arm bushings rather than the stock MGB bushings, has been my standard rebuild. The MGB suspension, when new, was a rather good system. When rebuilt back to factory standard, using the V-8 bushing, and including new front and rear springs, it is quite capable of providing an excellent handling package. One that allows the car to hold the road well, but is not excessively harsh for street driving.

I suspect that most users of these "upgraded" bushings replace their old, worn out bushings with the poly bushings and say, "yea, that is good" and then go out to spread the good word about how much better poly bushings work. But, this is not an accurate test. In many cases the rubber bushings being replaced are old and worn out. New rubber bushings will also show a significant increase in handling performance. Secondly, many people seem to get buy with the old, worn springs. In this case, a suspect a poly bushing can be of significant effect. The old springs are somewhat softer than when they were new and the new poly bushings are somewhat stiffer than the original rubber. Between the two, they approximate what you would get by using new springs and new rubber bushings.

This, however, is mostly theory based on observation, conversation and reading what others have done. I do not know anyone who has gone through the trouble of doing a through and complete test of the suspension system using, as their baseline, an old worn suspension, then adding new rubber bushings and documenting what improvements are noted. Then, replacing the new rubber with some form (or several different) poly bushings and noting the difference in handling and ride quality. This would show what happens when replacing bushings on the old springs. A second set of tests would then be conducted using new springs, new rubber bushings, a handling/ride quality test (new baseline) and following up by using different forms of poly bushings to see what improvments are to be had and what the drawbacks are.

Steve S. has done some work with poly bushings, including some of various densities. I trust his experience sufficiently to believe that he went about this intelligently and used a systems approach rather than approaching the problem piece-meal. Therefore, if I were to begin to experiment with poly bushings, I would use his research as my starting point. This information should be in the archives and, if you cannot find it, address a thread to him about it. Les
Les Bengtson

Just and addendum to Les's note -- I put V8 bushes in my front end when I rebuilt it several years ago, and am quite pleased. I'm not sure if the rubber has a different durometer from the stock bushes, but the V8 piece is much more robust -- larger, and with a metal sleeve. More recently, I redid the rear and my supplier took it upon himself to order urethane bushes and spring pads. They seem to work fine and I have no complaints, but I found it interesting to note that they are noticeably *softer* than the petrified rubber that came out. So, if someone was to do a strictly before/after comparision, he might wrongly conclude that rubber=harsh, urethane=smooth.
Rob Edwards

Have to go back and look at my original invoice for suspension work I had a shop do when I got the car but believe I got new front springs then and did my own rear springs last fall to cure some unevenness in height from side to side. Rather have better handling (read "firmer") than not as it feels safer so will probably go with the V8 ones as they do seem to get good reviews all round. Thanks for comments as usual and for Les' thoroughness.
J.T. Bamford

Michael, You may have nothing more than a lubrication problem. When I bought my 74 roadster over 5 years ago it had stiff steering. When I buy any used car I don't start driving it until I have done a complete checkup of all electrical and mechanical components. When I checked the 74 I found the inner A frame bushes were OE type and the lower trunion and kingpin grease fittings wouldn't take grease. Since I wanted to replace the A frame bushes with V8 bushes I decided to to disassemble the front end. The king pin bushings were not loose even though I couldn't get them to accept grease. I ordered some new hardware and rubber parts and took everything off the front end. The grease in the wishbones assemblies was hard as a rock. I cleaned up everything, installed new steering rack boots and filled the steering rack with 90 weight gear lube. Installed the V8 bushes assembled everything and the grease fittings took grease, steering stiffness was gone. I have driven the car around 15K miles since and the steering is still good. If you cannot get the grease fittings to accept grease the problem can usually be corrected using a blow torch in the area of the fittings, the heat will soften the old grease enough to get fresh grease into the fittings. Just have a fire extinguisher near at had in case the grease flares up.

The steering u joints I have checked were loose because the grease was gone, I haven't seen any bind.

FWIW, Clifton
Clifton Gordon

Thank everyone for your input. I think I will go ahead and rebuild the front end this fall. Ihave just started driving this car again after 1.5 years in my garage waiting for me to finish engine rebuild. I am noticing that it takes a lot of effort for slow speed sharp turns. I know this is hard to measure but I feel that my wife would barely be able to steer around slow hairpin. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

Mike
Michael Callaghan

This thread was discussed between 07/05/2003 and 09/05/2003

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