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MG MGB Technical - Stop that knob rattle!

I, along with many other MGB owners, are plagued with the dreaded gear shift rattle, or should I say I used to be plagued with the gear shift rattle. In an attempt to silence the noise I removed the knob, wrapped some teflon plumbers tape around the threads, put a rubber O ring between the tightening nut and the knob and tightened the heck out of it. Took it out for a highway test run and listened to the sound of the engine, exhaust, but NO rattle. I should mention I have an aftermarket wood knob on a 1974.5 B roadster. Try it, costs little and might work for you.
John M

Thanks John for posting your fix....when I get mine back from the paintshop and reassemble her I will try your fix. This problem seems to be common with the wood knobs and others have suggested just going back to the original knob. It would be nice to know this is an alternative.
Frank

..I was about to say get a younger wife

but then I thought that would be too crass
Stuart Robson

For those interested in the billet gear knob offered by MOSS for their early MGB, it can be done. These knobs have a boss that is intended to fit the 68-76 sticks.

I measured the depth of the boss then trimmed some aluminum flashing accordingly. Coil the flashing one revolution and then insert into the boss, being sure that the overlap is no more then 1/16-1/8 of an inch, taking into consideration the direction of spin, of course.
Then slowly and firmly turn the knob onto the stick down to the stop nut..I did this without any adjustment to the nut by backing off about an 1/8 of a turn then tightening again until the logo lines up perfectly.

It is incredibly tight, so much so it would take both hands and a great deal of effort to loosen and remove.

jegawatt

So your knob can't get stolen. I assume?

:-)

Luigi
Luigi

As stated, I did not see a need to turn the nut at all, you can "try" if you like, to turn the nut.
jegawatt

That's a very interesting fix John, I won't have to try it because I solved the problem by fitting the original golf balls but I wonder why it works. The PTFE tape must provide some form of decoupling between the knob and stick and so alter the resonant frequency so that could be one point. The other is tightening the nut very tightly must prestress the knob in some sort of way but I'm not into the theory of prestressed concrete. As to what the poor O ring does squashed in the middle I have no idea but it must still form some form of damper. I't a simple fix and well worth knowing.
Iain MacKintosh

This thread was discussed between 07/10/2004 and 08/10/2004

MG MGB Technical index

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