MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

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 MGB Technical - grease nipple size

I have a '76 RB roadster. This morning I was trying to grease the front suspension grease nipple (6 of them on my car).

My brand new grease gun clipped on to the nipples easily enough, but was very had to get of - to the extent of nearly pulling the car of the jack.

After the third one (the lower 45 deg one) I had to give up because I pulled the small angled part out of the base part.

From a quick look through the archives I see that the nipples are 1/4" UNF, but do the heads change size? Could I have a new metric grease gun?

Thanks,
George.

PS for the purposes of closure, I posted a thread before christmas regarding a suspected broken brake servo - thanks for all your help on that one. It turned out not to be the servo after all, just air in the system which I had assumed wouldn't be case as I had just had a new master cylinder fitted by a proffesional MG speciallist - oh well...
G Kerr

George, New ones are tight, instead of pulling it straight off, bend it across to the right or left till it forces itself off - if that makes sense. rich.
Rich

George. To the best of my knowledge, all grease fittings (zerks) have heads of the same size. I do notice that a new grease gun fitting seems to fit somewhat more tightly than my 20 year old one. That may simply be age. As to almost pulling the car off the jack--use jack stands. Anyone who crawls under a car supported only by a jack is playing "do you feel lucky today". Most of the time you are. But, not always. Jack stands are very inexpensive as compared to a broken bone. Les
Les Bengtson

Les, you're right, I know. But I thought I would only be "reaching in" to clip the grease gun head on and off. Just goes to show that almost any job can get bigger that you thought.

Strangly, After I did the front of the car I tried the grease gun on the new handbrake cable - no trouble at all.

George
G Kerr

I have the exact same problem. There is an art to getting the damn things to unclip I find. I have to do what Rich says and bend it around at different angles until I find the one where it pops off.
Simon Jansen

George. We cannot afford to lose an "Enthusiast" because he was "only reaching in". Your comments are valuable to me and everyone else here. Please take the time to stick around and pass on what you have learned to future generations. Do it right and teach them right. We all have do "stupid" things and gotten away with it. Mayhap, having not had good quality instruction when I was young, that is why we did so many stupid things back then. Now, I know better and try to give my friends the benefit of my youthful inexperience. Like the time an Austin-Healey dropped on a friend of mine (minor damage to his face) because we only used a jack. I have relatively few friends and count you, and most of the others here, among them. Please be so kind as to be more careful in the future so I can continue to pontificate among my friends. (A cheap shot at Grahame, sorry.) Les
Les Bengtson

The problem here is that it appears we have forgetten physics.

True, most metal contracts in the cold...nipples, on the other hand, have the characteristic of getting larger when cold, hence difficulty in getting the grease gun off!

:-)

rick
rick ingram

This thread was discussed between 27/03/2005 and 30/03/2005

MG MGB Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGB Technical BBS is active now.