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MG MGA - How does one fit the fresh air pipe to carbs?

I just destroyed my new flexi(not very) hose that runs to the carbs while trying to fit it. How in God's name does one massage the hose enough to get it to fit on that fitting near the front carb? The cross brace made it impossible for me to curve the hose down enough to get it to fit. The bloody thing eventually unravelled in my hands.
Ron

Ron, my car came without the cool air duct hose.
I found the only way I could fit the hose was to take out the grill, and then feed the hose up from the front, gradually working the hose into the necessary contour. I tried first without removing the grill, but gave up, particularly as it quickly became apparent that fitting the front clamp to the hose was also going to be next to impossible with the grill still in place.
Hope this helps a bit.
T Aczel

Hi Ron,

if you mean the mighty 4" diameter pipe, the answer is BF and I with ALOS. Brute force and ignorance with a lot of swearing.

T Aczel is right - you've got to remove the front grille.

It's just a matter of slowly teasing it into position, and I found that sticking my arm up it helped a bit (coming in from the front of the car).

Also, if you can acquire a second pair of hands (wife / friend / random passer by) that will help, so that whilst you are bending it from the inside, someone else can guide it on the outside and just maybe get a clip on it.

Good luck,

Grant :-)
G Hudson

Your recommended method of fixing and aligning the carburettor air hose makes me wonder if you have ever worked as a veterinary surgeon Grant!
:-)

Colyn
Colyn Firth

Thanks all, I do have the grille off. I'll get another hose and try it again.
Ron

Hi Ron I fitted mine with the grill off and I had to bend the ducting a lot but I found that it did bend easily with a little effort. I got my ducting from Scarborough Faire and it was very nice stuff. But I do wonder how well it works with the grill in place because the grill slats face the other way and kind of prevent air from entering the ducting.

Andy


Andrew Preston

Thanks Andy, yeah, I doubt if much air really reaches the carbs at all. I'm more interested in getting it to look right and blocking the hole by the rad and maybe improve engine cooling. I'm going to try another hose from our local parts shop(Octagon Motors) and see what happens.
Ron

No one has mentioned yet that the tubes come fully collapsed. First thing you do is stretch the tube to it's maximum length. Takes some time and patience to work it out. Then bend the upper curve by collapsing/shortening the inside radius of the curve.
The front edge of the tube should point straight forward and the metal bands should be 90 degrees to the front and parralel with each other. The tube should also be as far forward as possible.
Andy before you install the grill the tube needs a turn at the front to tuck the tube edge back behind the grill opening edge. As pictured both tubes are too close to the center.
I went to hit upload for the picture but hit submit. I immediatly tried to delete but couldn't.


R J Brown

Thanks RJ, that make much more sense now. My mistake was not stretching the the hose out enough before trying to bend it.
Ron

Now you tell me RJ
Thanks for the tip.
Next time....
David Holmes

Ron

A nice little finishing tip is to take some small diameter rubber piping, slit it along its length, then affix round the circumference of the front end of the pipe(s).

Steve
Steve Gyles

Great idea, thanks Steve!
Ron

Colyn,

no I'm not a vet, it must just be the rigourously enforced regime of "all creatures great and small" when I was a child ;-)

Good luck Ron.

cheers,

Grant :-)
G Hudson

Well I'm about ready to give up and bolt the grille back on without those bloody hoses. Spent another 90 minutes fighting with the new ones and no matter what I try I can't get them to fit on those intake snouts on each side of the radiator. Stretching, squishing, bending, it all doesn't seem to work.
It's going to be nice out this weekend and I'd really like to take the car out for a spin.
RK knowles

RK, I have never actually attached new hoses to the fitting behind the grille but I have been giving this some thought.

With the grille off, you could remove the front hose clamps from the duct panel.
You could then fit them to the front of the hoses whilst they were off the car.

After this, the hose with the front clamps fitted could be installed through the grille opening, up into the radiator panel fixing points.

Lastly you would have to re-bolt the hose front clamps back to the bottom of the duct panel.

Hope that makes some sort of sense!

Colyn
Colyn Firth

Ron

Thinking outside of the box for a moment, assuming the trunking is standard and that other MGA owners have managed to fit it ok, I wonder if you have inadvertently increased the ducting outside diameter with too much paint? It's a tight fit I agree; I think I used vaseline on the inside of the trunking and blew hot air through it from an electric fan heater for some time to soften it.

You may find you run hotter without the ducting in place. Air that should go through the radiator may find it easier to go through a free flow 4" diameter hole (or 2).

Steve
Steve Gyles

Ron, as Steve says, they are a tight fit but not tight enough to be a problem. There must be a problem with the diameter of your trunking or again, as Steve says, too much paint on the stubs the trunking fits on. When I fitted mine, it took longer to form them into the correct curve than to fit them to the stubs. Incidently, my trunking came from Moss (UK).
Lindsay Sampford

Thanks all, I ended up returning the one piece of tubing that I hadn't distorted yet and then went and found some black industrial grade flexible tubing that looks close enough for me. The coils are just wider than the original stuff and it doesn't retain a curvature. I tried a quick test fit this afternoon and it slides on with a bit of grunting. I think I will smear a little vas on them when I fit them permanently just to get them to ride up the snouts as much as possible. There's enough length on each piece that I should be able to replicate the curvature of the factory items fairly closely once I push them towards the inner fenders and then tighten them down onto the flat panel(at least that's the plan)!.
So those pieces I was trying to fit were from Moss in California.
Again, I appreciate all of the input.
Ron

For what its worth, I've run my MGA for 20 years without this piece of tubing in place and I've never had an overheating problem
David
David Marklew

This thread was discussed between 26/04/2011 and 30/04/2011

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