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MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG Midget and Sprite Technical - rubbish rubber parts again

any one else having trouble with the middle exhaust mount im on my 5th in 5 years the rubber keeps comming away from the mount plate where can you get one from that lasts looking at making one to take a modern rubber mount.
mark heyworth

Yes. I drill through and add a through bolt to take the strain off the bonding
Dominic Clancy

correction just been under and the back one had gone as well so thats 6, going to make something better that uses modern dounuts.
mark heyworth

The middle one is in shear which is not good unless the rubber/metal bond is perfect. I've just put a Maniflow exhaust on and I've been considering modifying an MGB one which has 2 rubber bobbins in compression.

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/363035652872


MG Moneypit

Agreed they are rubbish !

Original ones lasted years - No idea who supplies ones that are fit for purpose.

I have had numerous ones debond - incl one at an MOT.

R.
richard b

Yes, *sigh* me too, and my young midget owner mate too :(

That MGB one looks like a potentially good solution, do you know what diameter pipe its for ? I too have a Maniflow exhaust so I'll be very interested to see what you come up with Rob.
Chris Madge

It would be easy to put a stud and nut into one of the captive nuts in the bulkhead and suspend the pipe on one of the modern thick rubber 0 ring exhaust supports, using an exhaust clamp and hook.
GuyW

I got a new old stock one from a motorbike repair shop.
G Lazarus

the middle mounting is fitted to other cars, Jag Mk11 I recall. May be better quality?? The NOS part is made of thicker material than the repro stuff. For those with a single rear box its possible to use the Frogeye system which is a solid threaded pin. The back box is held on rubber bushes.

Bob Beaumont

Chris
MGB pipe is 1-5/8”
The V8 uses a similar bracket, but larger diameter. I have one somewhere.
Dave O'Neill 2

correction just been under and the back one had gone as well going to make something better that uses modern dounuts.
mark heyworth

I’ve modded 2 of the MGB mounts for rear and middle an never looked back
The current quality rubber can really only be used in compression.
O K

It would be interesting to know the make up of modern rubber compared to the old stuff. I have often wondered why neoprene is not used more as I learnt a few years ago that it doesn't perish. I didnt know this until I went to Tangmere aircraft museum and they have a German liferaft there from the second world war which is still perfect. Apparently it was invented by a German scientist as they weren't allowed to use rubber for such things.

Trev
T Mason

I'm surprised the rubber used on our aftermarket parts seems so much inferior to what is presumably better rubber in modern cars (well they do seem to last many years without changing rubber parts, in my experience, although that is mostly Volvo).
Bill Bretherton

With our sort of classics the general demand, even if there's a better alternative but higher priced part, is for very cheap (so often rubbish) parts - unless it's bling parts of course.
Nigel Atkins

i made up hooks that screw into where the bobbins should be and made hooks to fit to the exhaust pipe and use modern exhaust O rings, been on there over 15 years.

Mike
M J Pearson

The MGB mount uses insulating washers between the bobbins and the bracket.


Dave O'Neill 2

The 'B''bobbins' have a longer thread on one side than the other, I've never thought about it before but why is this as looking at the photo they don't need the extra thread?

I used the B bobbin (for the extra length of thread) on the (single) rear silencer on my Midget and replace it about every 18 months but when I've used up the last of my stock I'm just using a long setscrew (as I did as a temporary measure before) as my middle exhaust rubber must be older stock as it takes the weight and stops enough vibration.

Nigel Atkins

While searching for something else, I stumbled upon a photo of my exhaust mount, complete with fibre washers - and short studs ;o)


Dave O'Neill 2

The short stud (both sides) bobbins are the Mini type.

Have you got the insulating washer on there (I thought they were a smaller OD), I've got some new insulating washers somewhere.

So why the extra stud length on the B bobbins then?
Nigel Atkins

Three of the washers on there are the originals. The fourth - next to the bobbin on the right - is a fibre washer from an autoclave. Don’t ask.

The bobbins were bought from Roversport back in the nineties. I think they were Midget. They do have longer studs on one end, but they don’t seem as long as the Paul Depper ones.
Dave O'Neill 2

Dave
Thanks
I think 1 5/8 is the same dia as the Maniflow exhaust I have fitted. :)
Chris Madge

Previously I thought of fitting that set up to the tail pipe but I'm always out of stock of other materials, facilities, and skills but I did learn a lot of GEX numbers, forgotten them now of course.

Later I'll look out my stock, I'm sure I've one last B bobbin and some insulating washers.
Nigel Atkins

Curiously, I found the packet for my bobbins today. There are still a couple left, and the part number is GEX7493, which is the correct MGB part.
Dave O'Neill 2

Perhaps the part supplied more recently is more generic and the odd lengths, and extra length, stud(s) were for other marques and models rather than needed on the MGB.

Nigel Atkins

Like most folk who posted, I've had problems with middle exhaust mounts failing.

I think that part of the problem is the weight of my Maniflow straight-through silencer. Like others, I have also spent a lot of time trying to align things so that the silencer doesn't hit the fuel tank or foul the lower shock absorber mount. Part of the problem is that the pipe has to pass through the fixed point that is the middle mount which limits the range of adjustment available.

Rob and Dave's photos of the B mount got me thinking. As stated, part of the official mount's problem is that it's a block of rubber in shear and I like the arrangement that puts both bobbins in compression. After several months' gestation, I finally got round to fitting my new exhaust bracket today and the photos show its evolution.

I'm inclined not to trust bobbins in tension so I came up with a bracket and yoke arrangement and mocked it up in carboard. I decided that version 1 would probably bend under the weight, so version 2 sported supporting webs underneath. Playing around with it further lead to version 3, with what I felt were more elegant triangular webs. To avoid having too heavy a chunk of metal for the yoke, I folded up the edges of the 2mm sheet to save weight and add stiffness. The slotted holes for the bobbins are to allow for lateral adjustment to help with positioning the silencer. Picture 4 is the net of the bracket prior to folding. I used 2mm steel as that's what I already had but I think it's the same as the official mount.

After a bit of folding, fettling and welding (the webs were too big and fouled the yoke), I was able to assemble it all as in Picture 5. Using a bolt to suspend the pipe below the bracket allowed for vertical adjustment. I feel that is currently a weak point as I'd run out of welding gas and had to braze the tab into a slot in the bolt's head using my cumbersome carbon arc kit.

Partly for my own amusement, and partly in the interest of rust prevention, I did some homework (Googling) and rigged up a plating system to zinc plate the parts using a sacrificial boat anode for the zinc source. I was quite pleased with the overall result but more research is required as a bit of rust appeared around the welds and the zinc didn't get to the bottom of the bolt's thread. Just for good measure, I gave it all a coat of silver exhaust paint!

When I came to install the bracket I was more than a bit disappointed to find that, to accommodate the silencer, the yoke had to be at maximum adjustment and, as it sat higher than I anticipated, the head of the domed bolt vibrated on the bracket. After more head scratching, inspiration dawned, and I turned it upside down! Although this now puts the bobbins in tension, I figure that, as there are two of them, they should be OK, but I will keep an eye on them.

Picture 6 shows the finished bracket in situ and I hope it won't be too long before I manage to give it a run out - the engine is still awaiting its first post-re-build start up!

Colin







C Mee

Colin,
well done, the bracket looks very elegant.

You may have doubled the life of the bobbins by having two but based on my experience of them that means replacing at 24-36 months instead of 12-18 months.

I was very lucky to get a centre mount before they turned to rubbish, it has on quite a few occasions now held the weight of the centre pipe and lone rear box by itself, a few times intentionally and other times unintentionally as the rear bobbin split.

For a while I thought about using a rubber ring as other exhaust do but I've just finished the bobbin stock instead.

As you have access to a welder why don't you weld a bracket on to you middle pipe and have a hanging bracket and use a pignose rubber ring mount.

I've now got my single rear box held by nuts and washers on to a hanging setscrew through one of the weld held nuts for the original bracket leaving the centre mount to do all the flexing. It was going to be a temporary measure, that I'd done before, but as it's solid and no noisier than with the bobbin it can stay like that until I get a roundtuit or the centre mount rubber finally goes.

Nigel Atkins

Looks like you have lock down fever! Too much time on your hands! ha ha. That is some fun and clever looking fabricating, and playing around doing zinc plating too, cool :-)

Malc.
Malcolm

Colin,
you might like the following video and how much time, thought and effort is put into producing a cover, and previous videos of making the instrument binnacle and lots of other stuff.

My mate has been to the place and said there's no more to the barn than you see in the videos with bikes under lean-tos and covers against the shed.

I'd imagine the shed would sit in the corner of one of your garages.

Enjoy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6g8dvEKbyPA
Nigel Atkins

Thanks for the link Nigel, as you surmised, I enjoyed it. Good to hear a decent East Midlands dialect that wasn't Guy Martin!

Sadly I'm a disorganised dabbler in different types of work and skills and I am truly a master of absolutely none of them. My workshop/shed is nowhere near as tidy or organised as his bijou workshop as I accumulate tools and bits of kit for different projects.

I may well watch more of his videos to gain inspiration for yet another dabble!
C Mee

Nice tyre brand in Nigel's video.
David Billington

Colin,
my mate been following for a while and went over to offer some equipment, I've only been watching since December but looking at past videos he's obviously of a slightly obsessive and one to worry nature. My mate said he really worried (off-camera) about the people who wouldn't win the prize of a bike so threw in two other prizes too. The amount of time, effort and development (binned fabrications that don't met his expectations) would never be able to be charged for, or appreciated by most customers. Which is partly why I expect he decided to got to only making bikes for his channel.

I suppose his shed is reasonably tidy (until the work begins) and that it needs to be given the space available. I do worry about his health being in such a small space with all that goes on especially when he starts some of those bikes in the shed.

The delivery reminds me a bit of Jack Hargreaves with a bit of meandering and repeating but all the better for not being a fasle slick presentation and a truer personality coming through.

As he's not got a discernible accent to me I asked my mate if he was originally from Norf'nptun and apparently not he's from just outside The Rose of the Shires.
Nigel Atkins

David,
yes that caught my wonky eye straight off too, bit of the 'tun up boys' attitude I think. :)
Nigel Atkins

I've just been pulling the engine and gearbox so that I can swap in the re-built box. Mid-way through the process there was a clatter when the gearbox cross-member dropped out of its own accord. A quick glance at the photo will tell you why.

When I rebuilt the engine in 2020 I treated the Sprite to new gearbox mounts. The old ones didn't look bad but I thought I'd err on the safe side an put new ones in. Looks as though I made a mistake.

Two year's and 1200 miles seems a bit unreasonable to me so MGOCSpares will be getting a snotty email.

As I never got round to chucking the old ones away they'll be going back in.

Colin




C Mee

Colin, thats why I havent thrown away old parts for years anymor. ;)
First find out if the new part is good enough and fits properly.

Just bought new rubbers that go in the rail on the side of the windowframe to seal the gap between windowframe and doorquarterlight.

theydont fit... they are to small so the gap between windowframe and quarterlight doesnt clos/seal

Partnr AHA 7092

Why put energy/effort/money in producing some thing thats not even the same dimension as the original thereby not functioning as what is suppose to do?

Have to leave my 25year old rubbers in untill I find n.o.s. or properly reproduced ones like the ones I bought in the late nineties...
A de Best

I recently bought two used but original rear spring/damper drop links, on ebay, Dave O' I believe. :).

Much better than one of the ones I took off, which was NEW, barely a couple/few thousand miles ago, and the rubber was disintegrating already. These original used ones, will probably last me now, forever.

There was a time when all rubber stuff was good. I got these wellies circa 51 years ago from a Gleeson's stores on a building site when doing temporary electrics as an apprentice. I've worn them countless times since. I use them every year, in the garden mostly, but also out in the street in really wet weather or when it snows. Not a crack in sight, and they still haven't leaked. No idea of the maker, no mark, but guess Dunlop. If only rubber was still as good today. Bet a pair bought today wouldn't last 51 years without deteriorating, even if you didn't use them.



anamnesis

One of the poorest parts I have bought lately is the rubber seal that goes round the fuel filler. These deteriorate into cracks within a year.
Mike Howlett

I guess we all call these parts 'rubber', but nowadays very few of them can trace a lineage back to a tree, other than possibly a giant tree fern of the Carboniferous period,
GuyW

Anam, I had a pair of Dunlops like those that lasted around 20 years of hard usage.

The next pair lasted about five years.

The photos are of the most recent pair bought in October 2021.

Dunlop boots just ain't wot they used to be!

Mike, I guess I can expect the same pretty soon as I replaced mine last year. The fit isn't anywhere near as good at the old one, which, you won't be surprised to learn, I still have.


C Mee

"One of the poorest parts I have bought lately is the rubber seal that goes round the fuel filler."


Mine is still in good order but then its the original one from 1975.
Not bad for a part that spend almost 20 years in the US sun and another 27 years in Holland. :)
A de Best

I don't know if my 50 year old wellies are Dunlop, but whatever they are, they are superb. It's pretty depressing that Dunlop today should put its name to stuff that lasts only a couple of years.

Apart from feeling ripped off, there is a far more serious matter. Pullution and waste. The uk gov' is just about to ban throw away one time use plastic in takeaways. Maybe a closer look at ALL mamufactured goods would be a good idea. It's no wonder we have such a great need for landfill, when the stuff we buy is useless after only a couple of years, and is then chucked away.

It REALLY WAS better in the past, and tha is not only a view through rose tinted spec's.

The rubber ring round the fuel filler neck on my Sprite, is the original one from 1966. The screen rubbers are the originals from 1966. Even my engine mounts are at least 30 years old. Seems to me it's better to buy good very old used if you can get it, than waste money on new rubber parts.





anamnesis

Original 1966 canvas covered rubber fuel filler neck too. And original hardtop rubbers.

My quarterlight rubbers are both original too.

I think a mistake is to renew/discard original parts when 'restoring', because the owner/restorer wants it all to look shiney and new. Actually they kid themselves they are restoring. They aren't. To restore is to turn back, not replace with new parts. And since in many cases we can't get decent new parts, and NOS is increasingly scarce, fixing/keeping the car by using used original parts when one can, is a far better option I reckon.






anamnesis

Another shout out for 1966 parts.....


David Cox

Is it still pliable or has it hardened. I know I'll need a new windscreen rubber in the frogeye as it has hardened and perished and the replacement rear shroud fuel filler grommet from 1986 has hardened and is showing a few cracks. Both those items live out in the weather and UV so not too surprising. The boot fuel sleeve is in a somewhat more benign environment but I wonder what would happen to it if flexed.
David Billington

Original rubber responds well to a clean up with brake fluid. It cleans off any surface hardening (oxidation) and softens and lubricates the rubber pretty well. It won't repair cracks though and if you do use it don't apply it to rubber parts 'in situ' if they are in contact with paintwork!

I suspect that a proper rubber lubricant sold for brake piston seals - or any other appropriate rubber lubricating task - would also work, but likely wash away with the rain too readily.
GuyW

Still flexible David, I had my tank and filler neck out only last year, and my sceen off. Both tank rubbers and the screen to body rubber still 'soft'. As for cracks, some may look tatty, but often it's only the surface, but that rubber part can be fine below the surface and dumped for a new item only because it looks nice. And then a few years or less later, it's knackered.

Maybe poor rubber began quite a while ago, after the 60's and 70's. Maybe that's why some of my stuff, and David Cox's, '66, is still ok.
anamnesis

Here's the filler neck rubber...still pliable and still doing its job....👍🏻


David Cox

I'm sure old rubber was better but, as David B. alluded to, it surely depends on environmental conditions. I'm surprised David C's filler neck rubber is still good but it may be because it's not in direct sun unlike a Frogeye's filler.

I presume if NOS rubber parts have been stored in the dark and at room temperature then they'll have lasted longer but will still have deteriorated to a degree. I mean, you wouldn't buy old tyres surely, however they were stored.
Bill Bretherton

I think the later rubber fuel ring gets plenty of sun. Mine has. But anyway, the rubber we're talking about isn't a safety issue like tyres ( a whole other discussion lol). So yes, I'd rather have old used serviceabe rubber parts than some of the new nice looking crap, being reported as being fooked, after a very short while.

But is it ALL the same? Are there cheap items and more expensive items? Can you get better rubber parts by paying more?

anamnesis

I think most 'rubber' parts these days are either neoprene or a synthetic latex, not natural tree latex based as they would have been 50 years ago. Maybe that is why they don't last so well.
GuyW

During my restoration I’ve been using this product on the original rubber parts that were good enough to keep.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/SONAX-03400000-Rubber-Care/dp/B002MZZNU8/ref=asc_df_B002MZZNU8/?tag=googshopuk-21&linkCode=df0&hvadid=309775958298&hvpos=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=15752782584454537275&hvpone=&hvptwo=&hvqmt=&hvdev=c&hvdvcmdl=&hvlocint=&hvlocphy=9045653&hvtargid=pla-563823596601&psc=1

Certainly seems to bring the rubber back to life.


James Paul

I’ve just seen this review on the product!

Made me chuckle 🤭

My car has a noisy boot. However, my house has a dungeon, equipped with a love swing. When ever I am clad from head to toes in a latex gimp suit, on my love swing, the seat, stirrups and harness make a loud squeak!
neighbours complained, so I thought I would try this.
Works a treat, no more noise, complaining. Great product !

Works on black mambas!!
James Paul

Guy, I dont think neoprene is used as it doesnt perish like rubber, or least that's what Tangmere aircraft museum say. Apparently the Germans invented it during the war as they were not allowed to use rubber for liferafts and it has been found that they are still perfect today unlike our rubber ones. Of course neoprene now may not be the same as it was then.

Trev
T Mason

# James Paul
LOL!!!!
Thanks for the tip, when ever I get a house with a dungeon and loveswing I now know what to do to prevent noise!!!! LOL!!
A de Best

😅😅. Yep brilliant James. The wife will be pleased. 🤣.
anamnesis

Had to have a grin at that review - there's always one ain't there!

The stuff that James linked to is what I bought to fix the seals in the folding steel roof of the Focus cabriolet that the Leader of the Opposition had.
They had gone hard and shiny and the roof was leaky but that stuff worked brilliantly. Solved the problem immediately.

Didn't solve the problem of the Focus cabriolet being a bloody awful car but at least it was dry inside!
Greybeard

MGOC Spares have redeemed themselves: Replacement gearbox bushes arrived FOC today.

I now just have to decide which ones to fit: the new ones or the originals and keep the new ones as spares.

C
C Mee

This thread was discussed between 30/07/2020 and 21/01/2023

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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