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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 TD TF 1500 - Main & Rod bearing crossovers

Years ago when we were racing stock cars and open-wheel midgets, we would use Pontiac connecting rod bearings and modified connecting rods in some of our Ford engines, forgot the reason, but anyway, has anyone ever found a cross-over bearing guide for the xpag/xpeg engines? It's a shame we're locked into using the inferior new products available today for these engines.
PJ Jennings

Thanks PJ,
This fits right in with my earlier post about bearings. Right now it looks like King bearings are the only option?
Thanks,
Jim
JV Smith TD17744

Hmm---ACL bearings are just up the road from me, I've seen a monster size list of the bearings they are doing now
Bit of a project searching through that, then there'll be locator positions and oil squirter holes etc to check
Next time I'm in there I'll have a look and ask.
ACL concentrate mostly on the race series bearings now--- really good bearings so yeah, probably worth checking out, there are four different options in them with dowel locators and extra clearance, or combinations of either or not.
onto it
willy


What's the world coming to,pontiac bits in a FORD
lol
William Revit

Willy, do they have bearings for our engines, (Xpag/Xpeg)? Or do they lean heavily on modern engines? PJ
PJ Jennings

PJ
Bit of history for you-
ACL used to make bearings for just about anything worldwide, they supplied the new car manufacturers here but covered everything and had a long list of customers including the NASCAR market with the highly developed Race series bearings
I'm not sure what happened but the place went down the gurgler and the receivers put it up for sale as a whole or bits of
Most of it sold to India, then the ACL Race Series distributors from the USA got together and bought some back before it was lost
Production restarted ,limited to Race series bearings for NASCAR engines only but they've gradually increased production to cover a wider and ongoing wider range -They supply a lot more than what's listed in their catalogue so there's always a chance of getting something
They're pretty good at answering requests and I've only just now sent a message asking what might be available or not for XPAG-XPEG
We'll have to wait till Monday for a reply - Shame this didn't come up a few days ago, I was up there on Wednesday
Should be interesting, I have a mate who had a engine reco business up where ACL is (about 100Klm from me)and he would just go up there and get what he needed as he needed it, they had a monster stock back then
Bit of info here- ACL were originally Repco, the manufactureres of the legendary Repco Brabham race engines
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-07-12/acl-bearing-factory-to-reopen-in-launceston-after-2014-closure/6613578

Till Monday
willy
William Revit

It's good to know they are trying to make a comeback, I would say mainly to get the jobs back to so many deserving people. Thanks for the comeback Willy, be interesting to hear how they are doing. Hope all is well down there with the Covid thing, it's still not under control as much as it should be here, someday. PJ
PJ Jennings

Thanks for the research on the ACL bearings, Willy. If successful, this ACL connection could be a real benefit to all XPAG/XPEG owners. The ACL history information is helpful too. Honestly, until I started looking for bearings I had no idea that we might be down to one, possibly inferior manufacturer.
Good luck to us all,
Jim TD17744
JV Smith TD17744

Cheers
To be honest though the King bearings aren't too shabby--I've been using them in some fairly serious B series engines without an issue and I believe they are about to or have already, come out with their own race series bearings
That's one thing you really have to be aware of ordering ACL Race series bearings
The part nos for say for example an MGB will be the same for all options except the last letter or two so you have to be alert and select the correct item

Been looking in the TD workshop book and can't find the tunnel size of the conrod or the width of the bearing listed, I have the crank journal size, but will need the rest to compare bearings on the size chart to see if there's a 'Pontiac' to do the job--Matching up Main bearings would be almost impossible but bigends have got half a chance if we have those measurements -- anyone-?

On the covid subject, we were lucky/unlucky here on our little island seperated from Australia. We had an outbreak early on in one of our hospitals which made everyone very aware of it--Our border has been semi closed off to the world for probably 18 months now and we live in a protected bubble thanks to our Health minister and the Premier's wise decisions
Basically anyone coming in here has to have a pass which is fairly difficult to get and go into quarantine for 14 days ----- we have '0' cases and it's been like that for a while
The Prime minister of Aust. has got the pressure on to open up but our guy (Premier Gutwin)is standing his ground and everyone here except for some of the tourist industry is quite happy to back his decision----He's doing alright
Stay safe
willy

And by the way, I believe that 4B3108 and 3M3109 were the original ACL Be/Main bearing set numbers
William Revit

In the late 60s, early 70s REPCO was huge, we got everything there.

Got a short motor replacement for a grey Holden motor in about 68.

As I left Australia in 1980 I was not aware that they had failed, I thought they were too big to fail.

Thanks for the heads up.

Peter
P G Gilvarry

Peter
Repco are still going but are more of an automotive parts retail shop now -
As I remember it (to be corrected) Years ago Repco split into retail(Repco) --replacement parts company
and manufacturing(ACL)automotive components limited

The engine machining workshops that were a part of most Repco stores fizzled out as the shops became more retail and over the counter exchange engines etc became more popular instead of having your own unit reco,d
ACL pistons kept going ok but for some reason the ACL bearing company here got the axe from ACL, probably because the place was getting a bit out of date, but it's a very modern setup now and going strong
willy
William Revit

Hi guys,

Many years ago I found a Peugeot bearing which would fit the XPAG con-rod. I never needed to use them as I bought up Repco and Vandervell spares. But if you are interested, the details follow.

Peugeot (From memory 4/04 or similar) con rod bearings fit the XPAG con-rod tunnel size perfectly and were available in lots of over-sizes. The oil spray hole also lined up perfectly. However, there were two complications which could both be overcome.

1. They filled the whole width of the XPAG big-end ... which is possibly a good thing (more bearing area) so long as the edges do not bind in the end radii of the crankpin. If they do bind, it would be an easy task to chamfer the offending edges.

2. The "tang" which prevents the bearing shell from turning in the rod, is on the wrong side. If XPAG bearings became difficult to source, I would have no hesitation in grinding new "receptors" (or whatever they are called) in the rods.

I also remember finding an Alfa-Romeo bearing which was of similar interest. Sorry, I can't remember the model or the issues associated with that option.

Cheers from South Australia,
Bob Schapel
R L Schapel

Hi Bob

Got a message back from ACL and NO nothing, too old but,
I now have a list of what they do make by size so some research to get into--I'll measure up a rod and an old bearing for width and see what we can find

willy
William Revit

OOPS! Sorry guys. I just checked my notes and saw that the Peugeot con-rod bearings which "almost" fit XPAGs come from the Peugeot 403 (not the Peugeot 404). My excuse is that I was working from memory which had not thought about the topic since before I was married! I now have six grandchildren!
Cheers,
Bob
R L Schapel

One of these!


J Barry

This thread was discussed between 01/10/2021 and 05/10/2021

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