Bay State MGA Car Club Spring Tech Session

April 18^th was a beautiful day, not too hot, and with a sleight chance of a passing shower. Cars started arriving at 10 AM. The first to arrive were several pickup trucks carrying MGA transmissions that needed repair. The subject of the tech session was "how to rebuild your MGA transmission". Peter Wadsworth donated his transmission for the demonstration. Within a short period of time we had several MGAs, an MGB, a motorcycle, a BMW, and more trucks in the yard. Bob Freerksen brought some spare MGA parts to put in Jack Horner’s collection of used MGA bits. After the initial kicking of tires and getting reacquainted with old friends and having coffee and bagels we started the tear down and rebuild. We were only able to take it apart and point out the differences between the 1500, 1600, 1600 MKII, and early MGB transmissions. Although the major components were all in reasonable condition the parts that often wear out were badly worn. The Lay Gear was in good condition but the Lay shaft was worn at all three needle bearing locations. This prompted us to warrant replacing all three needle bearing sets, but we did not have enough on hand and had to content ourselves with pointing out tips on disassembly and reassembly techniques. Jack Horner had ordered all the parts typically needed in a rebuild in advance of the tech session. (Jack has since finished putting Peter’s transmission back together again!)

Bob Mabey brought his transmission all in pieces to have Jack Horner reassemble it. He had Don Trembley make a modification to the Lay shaft by drilling an additional oil hole in it and milling the Lay Gear so that an additional needle bearing set could be inserted at the low range end where the gear takes the most abuse.

There were hot dogs on the grill for lunch along with various accompanying chips and deserts. The ladies present chatted by the grill and took care of the food items.

Since the transmission rebuild session was foreshortened we turned our attention to other techy subjects. Ira Cohen was complaining he could not insert the crank into the front of the MGA engine to hand crank the motor. Upon examining the hole through the front bumper and frame extension we determined that the engine mounts were sagging causing the engine to be too low and not line up with the other holes. The motor mounts would have to be replaced to raise the engine to the proper height. Jim Guyot was complaining his MGA was misfiring and the carburetors were loading up with fuel. Don Trembley and Jack Horner adjusted the needle seats to .0075" to give proper power. This did not cure the problem and Jim discovered that the metering rods (needles) were worn down and causing too much fuel into the carbs. He renewed these and solved the problem.

The tech session wrapped up around 4 PM and everyone took their leave. Although not all the work had been completed there was a lot of good information exchanged and everyone had a good time. The various problems that had been examined all eventually received a solution.