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MG MGA - BMC Diesel engine

I learned something new tonight while browsing MG sites. Apparently, there was a diesel version of the BMC "B" series engine. Based on a google search, I think most of them must have ended up in boats, but this one somehow wound up in a Magnette:

http://www.mgcars.org.uk/mgccz/technic/diesel/magnette_diesel.htm

What I have been trying to find, is if any of them were installed in Massey Ferguson tractors. Back in '66 or so when dad last rebuilt the engine for the '59, he had the cylinder bores sleeved back to standard. He was quite specific about the fact that the machine shop had used sleeves for a Massey Ferguson tractor. I'd always assumed that it was just by some odd coincidence that they had been the right size, but maybe it wasn't.

Another tidbit I read is that the crankshaft counterweights pass within 1/16" of the camshaft as the engine turns. This explains another thing that never made a lot of sense to me. When dad broke the crankshaft prior to that last rebuild, it left some significant marks in the camshaft, apparently due to the rear section of the crank whipping around. Since the cam was nearly new at the time, and was not bent, he re-used it and I got to see the marks that were left when I tore the engine down in '92. Kind of wish I had saved that cam.

Anyway, I thought the bit about the diesel engine was interesting enough to share. I'm new to the group so sorry if it has been posted before.
Del Rawlins

Del

It may have used the same sleeves, but the engines are (as far as I remember from driving an old Massey Ferguson tractor when a teenager) rather different.

According to Neil Cairns, the Diesel version (BP15J, 15Y, 15Z) put out 40HP at 4200rpm with 90lb/ft pf torque so it would be pretty useless in any application that required performance rather than sheer pulling power. He quotes 72BHP at 6000rpm, 85lb/ft fro a 1500 A, 92/5500, 97 for a 1622.
dominic clancy

I agree with Dominic the sleeves may have been the same, but the Fergie engine was the same as fitted to the Standard Vanguard, Triumph Roadster and the TR2!!

Colin
Colin Parkinson

Somebody correct me if I'm wrong but wasn't there a diesel engined Austin 1800 ( land crab ), I've definatly worked one, it could have been a modification. Not the sort of car you tend to remember
in detail, it was incredibly slow, 0-60 in a fortnight!

Terry
Terry Drinkwater

Haven't seen anything about an 1800 diesel Austin, but this article says there was a 1500 diesel version from 1962-1969. http://www.co-oc.org/A60Diesel.html
Jeff Schultz

A google search shows this same 1489cc diesel version of "B" series engine used in the Nuffield/Leyland 154 tractor, and also numerous adds for boats with this engine.
Jeff Schultz

The 'B' series engine did appear in a diesel version, but it was not popular in cars: too rough and low on power for the application. The 'A' series also had a diesel version, and I've seen these a couple of times in little garden-sized tractors. Both regularly did duty in boats, being marketed by BMC for this purpose. Later today I shall remember the names they were sold under. As for the sleeves, a machine shop would not normally stock sleeves for the A or the B, they would need these only when the block had run out of rebore sizes. But the Ferguson engine was based around the block of the Standard Vanguard/Triumph TR engine, and this was a 'wet-liner' engine. With one of these, you didn't/couldn't rebore when it was worn, you replaced both the bores AND the pistons in matched sets, much as you would do with a BMW motorbike engine these days, so a machine shop would have these as a matter of course, and may have machined one, I suppose, to liner down a worn B block if it was to hand and they were clever enough. The sleeve in the Ferguson/Vanguard/TR engine was directly in contact with the coolant in the block, and sealed at top and bottom with gaskets, arranged to give a pre-load when the head was torqued down.

Gus Gander

Leyland offered an 1800 'B Series diesel in the Sherpa van.

http://www.austin-rover.co.uk/index.htm?cv306storyf.htm

There was apparently a 5'speed gearbox vailable in the Sherpa diesel:-

http://www.capriracing.co.uk/Usinthesrs.htm

There has been a diesel 'B in one of the MG magazines.

"The October 2004 edition of Total MG (a UK MG magazine) has an excellent article on a gentleman in the UK who swapped a 1980 Sherpa diesel into a RB MGB with OD. He says it gets 60-70 MPG, has gobs of torque around 2000 RPM, and the engine revs to 4900 RPM (although the tach isn't connected....no place to connect it)."



Derek Nicholson

By the way,does anyone have a copy of this magazine? I'd love to read it and would appreciate it if you could scan it and email it to me. Or post it somewhere on the 'net.
Derek Nicholson

Regarding Fergie tractors, some - not all, of them used the TR style Standard block. I believe a lot of them used Continental engines. How this relates to the diesel question may be remote.
Tom

According to Lindsay Porter's 'BMC and Leyland B-series Engine Data' the diesel version of the B-series was still being used in Newton tractors and Petters refrigeration plants at the time of writing in the mid eighties.
John DeWolf

This thread was discussed between 02/01/2007 and 03/01/2007

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