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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - pedal bushings

great site! I'm new here and hoping someone can help with this. I am looking to replace the bushings in the brake & clutch pedals, and also the pivot bolt in my 79 midget as there is a lot of play there. I have looked in moss & vb and they have no listings. A web search has not revealed much either, not sure where to look now. I have read lots of threads here & on mg experience, but none of them reveal where they can be purchased. I can't beleive that these would not be readily available as they do wear out over time. I would be very grateful for someone to point me in the right direction to find them. Thanks!
penguininn

In my near 50 years of servicing these cars, I don't think I've ever replaced these. A few seized ones, freed up without much trouble.

As I recall, each pedal has a bronze bush and a distance tube on which it pivots. Usually the tube is the most worn. If the through bolt which holds it all together is loose, it will feel quite sloppy. The corresponding parts for MGB are available from Moss, not too expensive, at least in my somewhat old book. If you measure yours and can get through to someone with a brain, you may find they are the same. Otherwise, anyone with a lathe can make them up. Bushes should be a standard industrial parts item; could be bronze, Oillite, or a modern plastic - Garlock or similar, or moly filled Nylon. Tube should be somewhat hard, but Garlock DU bushes will run fine on unhardened mild or stainless steel, so long as it is polished - stainless is good because it doesn't rust and seize or tear up the bush. If you take it apart and accurately measure the parts, I might have more ideas.

Normally, most slop is worn clevis pin holes. Brazing these up with bronze rod and redrilling gives a better than new bearing for the pin.

FRM
FR Millmore

Use two crankshaft spigot bushes, 1A1559, per pedal - one each end. The fulcrum bolt can rust and play develop from there. It is a special - stepped, 1/2" OD most of its length reduced to 3/8 over the last 3/4" or so. Par tno AHA8075.

Definitely attend to the clevis pin holes while you are in there - they nearly always have slop there.
Paul Walbran

There is a guy in Australia who sells them - Colin?
Daniel Thirteen-Twelve

I'm with Fletcher on this, I've never replaced those parts, just cleaned up and greased.

Paul's info about the pilot bushings is great, a relatively easy source, although I'd get down to my shop and make some :-)

By all means check and fix the clevis pin holes.

Where in NH are you? I'm in Nashua.

- Bill
Bill Gavin

thanks you all for the replies. We found that the clevis pin hole is slightly elongated and had plannned to repair it as you suggest-we -ordered new pins for it already too. The holes at the pedal box where they attatch is ok. Knowing that the pivot bolt was worn & needed replacing, we just figured we'd replace the bushings too while we were there to make it all fresh & tight.

I also have a 73 that I purchased nearly 30 years ago & have always worked on it myself-I had to as when i bought it no one would! This car has had shifting problems since we purchased it a few years back. We put on a new slave, then rebuilt the master. Bleeding was a bear. The pedal feels good, but is still on the floor-so we looked to see what else could be causing it, that's when we saw that there was play where the pedals attatch. Also-the clucth pedal is not quite as high as the brake-seems that is not right either, but wanted to tackle it one at a time.

Paul-thank you-I will try that-are those Moss part #'s?

Bill-I am north of you, just west of Plymouth.
penguininn

when we took this apart, there are brass colored bushings on a through bolt-nothing else, so I'm not sure what is meant by a "distance tube"-is that another name for the bolt?
penguininn

by the way, the pivot shaft is 1/2", so most any good hardware store will also sell those bronze sintered bushings

soak them in oil overnight before installing (any motor oil will do)


Norm
Norm Kerr

Sorry for misleading you with foggy memory!
No distance tube from Paul's description. As Norm adds, The bushings are then common hardware or bearing supply items, at much lower cost than specialty houses. Buy by size.

Pedal height is only controlled by a spring pulling the pedal back against the piston stop in the MC, so deviations in rest position are from wear, mostly at the clevis pins. You can braze up worn pushrods the same as pedal ends.

"The pedal feels good, but is still on the floor". Confusing: is the pedal low but OK after you get past that?
Low pedal with good hydraulics, and the bleeding problem, are the result of air being trapped in the pipe from MC to slave. It is a brain dead design error. The large diameter and stupid routing of the pipe cause a bubble in the high run behind the battery. The best cure is to make a new pipe. Out of the MC, down to the front of the heater shelf, across to the RH side, down to slave. This is very near to a self bleeding layout, if you keep the bend at the rear of the MC as short and tight as reasonably possible.

FRM
FR Millmore

For all those people who've never replaced the pedal bushes you either don't drive your cars enough or like sloppy pedals or both!

I didn't find them as a stock bearing part.
Daniel Thirteen-Twelve

I recall this coming up a few years ago it it was mentioned then that the early cars had different bushes to the later ones. I replaced mine in my frogeye and they were a standard size and I made a new pin also. When doing some work on my A40 Farina steering box I found the bushes in that were totally unobtainable being 1/32" wall steel backed bronze bushes so ended up reaming the box housing to take readily available 1/16" wall steel backed bronze bushes. I even spoke to Vandervell who made the originals and the guys wasn't even aware they had done them so thin.
David Billington

The part no's I gave are the original BMC ones; sorry, not sure what Moss USA no's are but they can probably cross reference.
Paul Walbran

sorry to be confusing-the pedal has good pressure & feels "right", but disengages just off the floor-after we fix the hole for the clevis pin and get it together with a new bolt,bushings, clevis pin & springs we'll see what happens........ may need more bleeding-if that's the case, we're definately rerouting the line! The way you described it FRM, is the way my 73 is, and I've never had a problem bleeding the clutch on tha one.

penguininn

New condition clutches take a lot of pedal travel to release, since the driven plate cushion springs still have spring. Old clutches with flattened springs release with small pedal travel. I prefer the latter since it takes less foot movement, but it is harder to drive for some, especially beginners.
I've never been able to figure out why some of these (identical) cars are harder to bleed than others, but rerouting the pipe fixes it every time.

FRM
FR Millmore

This thread was discussed between 20/05/2012 and 21/05/2012

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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