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MG MGA - Nuts. The challenge is on.

On 22 January 2006 at 23:57:24 UK time, A Man wrote:
"The bolt head "CKN" should be "GKN" (Guest, Keen & Nettleford)."

The gauntlet is down. Start here: http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/restore/rt104.htm
Who can identify the companies, and what do you know about their history?

This should be a nice bit of nastalgia if us old geezers here can still remember such things. I smell a new web page in the works.
Barney Gaylord

Barney, very interesting information. Can't help with the company information on the British companies, but is it possible that the "DOPMAN" might be a poor strike of DORMAN which is a US company that produced a lot of auto hardware, particularly studs and brake parts but also some nuts and bolts. I remember my father had a DORMAN box of brake parts (springs, retainers, etc:) in his Packard/Studebaker dealership when I was a kid.
Bill Young

I could write many pages about Rubery Owen.

My thoughts turn immediately to British Racing Motors "BRM" and their F1 cars, which was a division of Rubery Owen:-

http://members.madasafish.com/~d_hodgkinson/brmplaces.htm

Rubery Owen dominated the light steel business in Great Britain for the first half of the Twentieth Century. The company, became the leading supplier of components and car bodies for the booming British motor industry. It later expanded into aircraft components, structural steelwork for buildings, agricultural products, machine tools, gas cylinders and the nuts and bolts to which Barney has referred.
Nigel Steward

Todd Clarke"s book "MGA Owner's Information & Technical Guide" has many of your answers and a little, very little, of the history of some of the companies. Names like-Rubery Owen,Linread,Woden,Torrington,TWL,Newton,BAX,GKN,GSF.As of 1980 Mr. Clarke recieved a letter which he included in his writings that Linread,Rubery Owen,TWL and maybe Woden were still in business. Gary
gary starr

Hi, Barney - Here's a little more on GKN, courtesy of Tom Coulthard

BTW - as I'm sure Bill (Lara's Bill) could have said - the letters 'GKN' on the bolt heads must be the manufacturer Guest, Keen & Nettlefold, originally based in Smethwick, near Birmingham. My grandfather worked for them during the war, and an uncle worked for them in the 50s and 60s - they were a very big metals manufacturing and engineering firm, supplying all manner of castings, components and fasteners to the Midlands car industry. GKN plc is now a global multinational (according to their website) but I can't believe the business hasn't been radically restructured since the days when Britain had a car industry (or indeed much manufacturing industry at all...) Tom

Looking forward to what this thread may generate - Cheers - - Alec


Alec Darnall

Barney, with reference to Linread I used to work at the Washington Tyne & wear factory in UK where we produced bolts and screws by the million. Unfortunately I left during the UK miners strike when we had to accept a 3 day week.
Clive Skelhorn

This thread was discussed between 23/01/2006 and 24/01/2006

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