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MG MGB Technical - Two little fixes

Thought I'd share a couple unusual small repairs I've made recently on my 73 mgb roadster. It would be interesting to see if any others have come up with similar and/or other strange repairs.

FIRST....... done several weeks ago. One of my windshield washer jets was broken whan I bought the car. The base was still there but the screw on short rotatable/pointable jet insert was broken off in the base hub. As such if you used the washer the fluid blew straight out towards the side of the car.

I bought a new set from Moss only to discover that the base hub was a smaller diameter and the tube barb that projects inside and under the dash was one-thirty second of an inch smaller in diameter as well. As such the new one wouldn't cover the hole through the body completely and the fluid tube wouldn't stay on the barb.

My solution was to drill out the broken off threaded in elbow on the original hub and try to retap it. I then would take the elbow off the new jet from Moss and use it with the old hub. Good idea but not enough depth for my standard tap ruined the attempt and I ended up with a stripped out oversized hole. I understand that a "gun tap" has a flat bottom and had I had one it probably would have done the job.

The next part is what saved the day. I drilled completely through the opposite side of the mounting hub so that I could tap it from the opposite side. This gave me new brass for the threads on the opposite side, and a hole for the tap to go through and out into mid air on the original side. This worked great for tapping the hole but I was of course left with a hole in the side of the hub.

The solution was to melt silver solder (electronic solder) into the hole. It shines to a similar color and texture to the original chrome and filled the hole nice and flush to the surface. A final small bit drilling up through the barb to clear out the water path and I was all set.

SECOND....done just this morning. The latch arm that goes from the interior door handle to the latch mechanism is about a 12" long small rod. It attaches to the latch mechanism opening arm through a small plastic pinch sleeve. There is a steel rotating clip attached to that plastic sleeve. When you insert the 90 degree bent end of the rod into the plastic sleeve you then rotate the steel clip around so that it clips onto the rod. The rod end presses out on the plastic sleeve so it can't come out of its hole in the latch arm, and the steel clip keeps the rod in the sleeve. Clean and simple design!

Well, my plastic sleeve was in good enough condition but the steel clip was long gone. As such the arm wouldn't stay in the sleeve.

I solved the problem with a "yellow" solderless connector. Not the "spade" or "forked" type, but rather one with a quarter inch closed loop end. I used a "yellow" connector since its' crimp end was large enough to wrap around the approx. one-eigth inch diameter rod.

I simply used this replacement part exactly as the orignal clip had been mounted. The only downside is that it pinches around the rod from striaght on as you insert the rod into the plastic sleeve as versus rotating down onto the rod from the top. As such I had to pry open the crimp end so the rod could slip in and then pinch it closed around the rod. This would be a pain if I was taking this apart every other day....but hopefully I won't be in there again for a long time. As such I have a solid permanent repair that works much like the original part.

Well, hope someone finds this interesting. I personally got a kick out of coming up with these work arounds.

BH Davis
BH Davis

This thread was discussed on 29/07/2006

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