So today I clocked up my 200th mile in it since picking it up on Saturday morning.

After this morning's little escapade with the horn I was intending having a tinker with that this afternoon after I got back from my third meeting of the day where again the car created loads of positive comments from my clients. Coming back home though the gears started to become harder to select, like all the syncro's were failing. Once in gear though the car drove perfectly well, so time to start double declutching again. On pulling up at a junction and dipping the clutch I got that inevitable creep as the car wanted to move forward under power from the engine. Fortunately traffic moved off thus allowing me to also move off. I knew there were some junctions coming up on the homeward journey where I would have to stop and sure enough when they came about it was a case of pulling the gearstick into neutral and killing the engine so I could select first gear ready for the off. Thank goodness the car has a good starter and battery as there were three junctions in quick succession where I had to do this. Inbetween though it was a case of clutchless gear changes simply letting the revs drop and slotting it into gear on upchanges or blipping to match engine revs on down changes. I've got this off to a fine art in the race Midget but not quite so on the Magnette yet so there were the occasional horrid graunch of gear cog against gear cog when I got it wrong... more wrong that right I'm afraid.

However, bless the little thing, it got me home in one piece and hasn't had the ignominy of being brought home on the recovery truck yet (not discounting it though!).

So head under bonnet time yet again. There's no leaks visible on the slave or the master and the fluid level appears okay. It's one of a few things I guess. 1. The Master Cylinder is letting fluid past it's seals. 2. The slave cylinder is letting it past its seal. 3. The carbon thrust bearing (does it have one!) has worn down and collapsed.

So, do I pull the engine to take a look inside the bell housing or check the cylinders at which point I'm at a loss as to how to determine if it's the cylinders that are the problem.

Hope you aren't getting sick of me already with my posts

And I'm still loving it, if I had expected a totally reliable car then I'd have stuck with our family runabout or not ever bothered with old MG's.

A.

Andrew, I would pull the rubber cover off the slave and see if it is wet. Fortunately, swapping the slave is relatively easy on a Magnette and it is easy to bleed. Lou Shorten will have rebuilt slaves if you need one.

I would think you'd have heard the throwout bearing if it was taking a dump, lotsa grinding noises when you put in the clutch.

Pulling the engine is not a big deal, leave the trans in the car. All that front stuff comes off so you don't have to go in and out of the engine room at such a radical angle like the MGA/MGB.

Bonnet off I imagine though.

We can pull my race engine in 34 minutes from running and put it back in again to running in 58 minutes. Bet this one takes longer

No need to disturb the bonnet. Just put some padding on the windscreen and lay the bonnet right back.

It's possible to pull the engine without disturbing the front end panels, just remove the radiator to avoid damage.

---

Member of The International Society of Luddites (Unrepentant Chapter).

Take the time to understand what a part does and how it does it, then you'll have a better understanding of how to fix it when it goes wrong. Beats the scattergun approach every time.

Ignition testing made easy.

Making your MGB handbrake work

My You Tube Channel

Life with an MG TA and an MGB GT in the UK.

Thanks Owen.

We might do that at the weekend just to have a look see and get familiar with it, I must remember I have work to do during the week and not really time to mess with motors, or that is what my good lady wife keeps saying to me anyhow.

I have booked it into a local classic preparation company who build lovely oldies for Goodwood etc, he'll take a look at the clutch and get that sorted and even if it isn't that then at least I know it's been professionally looked over and one thing less to be concerned about in the future when I let my mate take it down to Silverstone.... we've also been invited over to the Wreath laying ceremony in Amiens this November. Having previously been to the one at Ypres a couple of years ago on the back of a Motorbike it's my turn to take us this year and we're going in the Magnette. It has to be reliable by then!

A.

A quick check for master cylinder problems.

Wrap a cable tie round the slave cylinder and clutch operating arm to stop the arm moving. Depress clutch pedal. If it sinks to the floor, it's the master at fault.

I hope it's not a master problem. Unless things have changed since I owned mine, master cylinders are like rocking horse droppings, and resleeving isn't cheap.

It's a long time since I last had an engine out of a Magnette and I've been trying to think if there's anything that's a problem. The only thing I remember having trouble with was refitting the downpipe to the exhaust manifold.

Whatever it is, lets hope it's an easy fix.

---

Member of The International Society of Luddites (Unrepentant Chapter).

Take the time to understand what a part does and how it does it, then you'll have a better understanding of how to fix it when it goes wrong. Beats the scattergun approach every time.

Ignition testing made easy.

Making your MGB handbrake work

My You Tube Channel

Life with an MG TA and an MGB GT in the UK.

Thanks again Owen.

I put a strong cable tie around the back of the slave and the fork where the rod mounts to it with the clevis pins and pulled them as tight as I could. My eldest lad got into the drivers seat and after I reminded him about the backwards ABC rule he pressed the clutch down. I could here the fluid squishing about and watched the rod of the slave move to actuate the fork. Tried as I might I couldn't pull the cable ties any tighter so I'm hoping that means that the slave is okay.

As I mentioned before, it's booked into a classic race prep company on Monday and they have a Master Cylinder on their shelf so I think I'll let him sort it. Though I must admit I am tempted to take the engine out over the weekend just for the hell of it. I'll see what my wife had planned for me and if it's gardening then I think the engine will be out by Saturday afternoon

A.

Andrew-
Master cylinder. You can use an MGA one, with the Magnette pushrods.
If it were the slave, fluid would be running out.
Release bearing would be making horrid noises and beating on your foot, and it would not do the creep thing.

FRM

Well I managed to resist taking the engine out of the car over the weekend and spent some quality time with my eldest son reorganising my garage/workshop behind our house after it had a new insulated roof fitted to it to replace the leaky concrete asbestos sheet one it had on it. His race Midget is coming back from the paint shop this coming weekend so no doubt he'll want to do some tinkering on that soon and my first race of the season is the weekend after that at Mallory park on the Bank Holiday Monday (and both races are televised across Europe on MotorsTV) so I'll also be needing to have another quick look over the car before we go there.

Anyway all has not been lost on the Magnette as I've been making a little secret something for it. Whilst driving it about for the first few days I could I figured that the Fuel gauge and water temp gauge were a little too small for my liking and whilst I could see the Ammeter and Oil Pressure gauges perfectly I was having to peer and squint to see the left hand pair, they were also a bit errant in what they were showing (hence running out of fuel on the way home with the car).

So I've made a bolt in auxillary dash board, nothing fancy though. This one fits behind the radio blanking panel. You'll gather mine doesn't have a radio or indeed a clock as they must have been options at the point of sale for this one. Anyway I was intending getting some Jaeger gauges until it occurred to me that the dials were in the upper half of the gauge and therefore would be hidden by the wooden dashboard as I'm intending recessing the additional one a bit so that the radio blank panel can still be fit in front of the additional panel to hide it if we go to a show etc.

So I've dug out a spare Smiths fuel gauge, I've won a matching Smiths temp gauge from a classic Mini to use on the panel. I've also left space from a 12v power socket (or old type cigarette lighter socket) to be fitted, which I did this evening, and there is space above that for a switch as I'm also considering fitting a rear Fog light. As I don't want to butcher the wooden dashboard and want to keep the look of a standard car it made sense to make it so it all fits neatly in the spare space and can be hidden too.

All I need now is the car back to get it fitted and see what it looks like then.

Crossed fingers we get the car back tomorrow afternoon.

Andrew

Big smiles here again.

I picked the car up this afternoon with new master cylinder fitted, it's from a MGA so isn't quite the same and has had a new filler top made so it's very much bespoke to a Magnette now. I had a chance to look under the car whilst it was up on the 4 poster and whilst there's a liberal coating of underseal on the underside there doesn't look to be much in the way of flaking or failed underseal or nasty panels being fitted previously. Though I'm sure we'll have fun scraping off the underseal to reveal some nasty surprise when it's time to do the body in the coming months.

Today's little vagary is that the combined indicator and centre of the steering wheel has now decided it wants to turn with the steering wheel so the self cancelling of the indicators no longer happens and it's confusing the living daylights out of me which way to knock the switch to cancel them... workshop manual time to see how the whole things comes apart to then tighten it up.

The dashboard is now fixed in place and is hidden perfectly when the blanking panel is refitted. Just waiting for a temp gauge to arrive via ebay and then I'll get my head underneath the dashboard again to sort the wiring out. Apologies for the poor quality of the photo's as they were taken on my phone in twilight and my phone is a good phone and not a great camera.

Oh one more question... what are the press studs behind the rear seat for, surely they are too early for some kind of rear sunscreen and I can't see anywhere to attach anything at roof level. Is it for detachable seat cover or simple a why or attaching another parcel shelf to the back?

Andrew

Hi Andrew,

I had the exact same problem a couple of years ago. The fault was in the master cylinder, as you already suspect. In the short term I just got used to giving the clutch an extra pump during the shift, At junctions you kind of pump up the clutch to get it into gear then get away quickly.

The final solution was a re-sleeve, The cost was surprisingly small at GBP £84 from these guys

http://www.classiccar-brakes.co.uk

If you can cover the return shipping, I would thoroughly recommend them. They only took 7 days to turn the Master cylinder around and it arrived fully assembled and tested, ready to fit.

Sounds like you are having great fun with your new toy.

Rgds

Paddy

I certainly am indeed.

He fitted the MGA master and gave me my old one back so yes I think I'll send it off for resleeving and when we strip the car completely we'll rebuild it with the original one again and have the spare on the shelf for just in case.

I'm not missing my Midget at the moment with having the new toy to tinker with. Happy days.

A.

Andrew
Nice looking car. The turn signal rotating is usually a very simple fix with two people. There is a nut on the bottom of the steering rack that has wires coming through it. All you need to do is have some one hold the turnsignla asembly in the correct position while you tighten up the nut. The nut clamps a ferral that hols the stator tub that is attached to the turn signal assembly. Actually 3 keyed tubes thet slip togeather.
Good luck and have fun with your new toy!
Steve C.

Thanks for the advise Steve, I'll get my eldest fired up to help me this weekend if we can tear him away from his Midget. Though I did get down and looked under to see the nut concerned and tried to turn it to see how loose it was and it seemed extremely tight to my fingers. I've been known to overtighten things and snap bolts so I don't really fancy doing that the the column and a Torque wrench won't fit obviously. Gingerly does it I suppose.

The temp gauge arrived today so this afternoon I got my head down into the footwells and fitted the gauges and 12v power point, then with the aid of a Wiring guide set to on the additional wiring and buddied into the original loom to take feeds from the existing gauge wiring. As usual when I attempt to do electrickery things it normally ends up worse than it was when I started and yet again it was so. No fuel gauge or temp gauge readings. Off I went for a little drive and found no indicators so guessed that I must have blown a fuse.

Sure enough when I got back the fuse had gone, so I disconnected the gauges and fitted a replacement fuse, horns and indicators work fine now and I've just read the loom plan again and see that there isn't a voltage regulator fitted to the car so I guess I now need to figure out how I can buddy the two new dials in whilst also running them through a voltage regulator. That added to the fact that my loom plans for the Smiths gauges are all based on a negative earth set up and the Magnette is still positive earth.

We'll get there.

A

Andrew-
Trafficator control may be a loose compression nut/ferrule on the bottom as Steve said, or the telescoping tube inside the column may be broken. You can feel the end of the tube at the bottom; if it moves when you turn the top then tightening may help. It is pretty much the same as a 3/8 tube compression fitting, and you can use the ferrule from such as a replacement. If the top and bottom do not turn together, or there is a noticeable hysteresis when reversing direction, then the tube is bust - not uncommon, and sooner or later will short wires inside the column. There should be various stories about this on Gunter's Z site.

Are you aware that Magnette instruments are very near a unique design? They are nothing like MGA or MGB, which are different from each other. If you are trying to use stock wiring or senders, you are doomed! Dave DuBois has info and knowledge on these things.

FRM

That sounds not so good then. My luck it will be a sheered tube no doubt.

Also sounds like I ought to bypass the existing loom and fit a new sender in the temp gauge so I get a constant reading instead of boiling hot one second then cold the next and simply ignore the original one.

Suppose the fuel tank sender is a harder problem to solve if it's different system from a B or a Midget, I'll do some more digging on that one.

Thanks FRM.

Andrew

Andrew-
The loose ferrule is common and easy. The broken tube is mostly fatigue, so would depend on miles vs use. Mine was well over 100,000 miles with no failure, but I've seen other cars with less miles and broken tubes.

The temp gauge has one power feed and the wire going to the sender is just a wire. So, you can use both, but need the voltage MGB stabiliser and sender to use the MGB gauge. The fuel gauge also has power and a wire to sender. Again you can use both, with the MGB stabiliser. I do not know off hand what the Magnette tank unit characteristics are relative to the MGB one.

I do suggest that you study up on these and fix the OE ones if possible.
In addition to Gunter and Dave DuBois, Trevor Jones knows some tricks.
DO NOT throw any of the Magnette bits away - very rare and possibly salvageable!

FRM

Update on things.

Clutch is working nicely again now so that's one thing off the list.

Gauges will wait until one of my race mate's whose an Auto Electrician comes back off his holidays, he'll moan like a good un but I'm sure he'll do it correctly so it won't end up in smoke as I've been known to make the Prince of Darkness appear when I mess with Lucas Electrics on the Midgets.

We've had the Magnette through the back and into my "workshop" and over the pit to find the inevitable oil leaks in the axle. It appears that I'll need to replace the front seal to the diff in the long term, also the gasket around the diff appears to be seeping a bit, however there is an Exxon Valdiz type leak further outwards near the spring mount. I'm guessing that like Midget axles this point is a natural muck collection point and can cause the axle to become porous. So with plenty of narrow screwdrivers (old ones) and lots of WD40 I've cleaned all the crud and mess out from that area and yes it does appear that the distinct whiff of EP90 is present in that area.

I've fixed one of the axles we had on a previous race Midget with a leakfix Plastic Padding product which worked an absolute treat for years afterwards, infact the only reason we through that axle away was when the race car was rolled multiple time and the axle actually got bent like a banana. So if I can get it clean enough I'm hoping that this little creative approach to a fix (bodge) will suffice for a while and we can then search for a replacement axle at our leisure.

Oh FRM, I didn't wear gloves this evening as the weather is really warm and they were annoying me, but some good hand cleaner and then a cooling shower got rid of the thick oily mess that was coating my hands.

A.

A.

Another clean of the offending area on the axle and with a mix of Plastic Padding Leak fix it looks like it's done it's job. It's actually quite neat as the plastic applicator that comes in the packaging is the absolute correct width to fit between the spring seat so with a couple of confident swipes of the applicator a smooth finish was managed. After 15 minutes it had set firm enough to apply a second layer and hey presto it's back to normal appearence, excluding layers of grime of course.

The centre of the steering wheel indicator boss thing is now reading normal and as suspected it was the ferrule nut that required a subtle tweak of the spanner.

I've beeswaxed the wooden trim and that's brought the pattern out nicely. Also I've white infilled the lettering on the knobs on the dashboard and then polished them to get rid of the extraneous paint so it only sits nicely in the recess. The leather has been fed once again and it's starting to get more supple, it will still need replacing when the body gets done but at least it will look better this summer whilst I'm endeavouring to continue to break it.

That's about it for today, tomorrow's jobs are to give the race Midget another check over as we're racing at Mallory on June 4th on the MotorsTV Queens Jubilee special in two races. So if anyone in Europe wants to watch old MG's racing (well including a race for the MG Metro's) then it's being broadcast live across Europe. We're supposed to be on track around 14.50 and 17.40 BST. No doubt that one will break down too knowing my luck at the moment

A.

Hi Andrew,
The auxiliary dials look like a very neat fit, it would be a good place to fit a voltmeter if you decide to upgrade to an alternator.
I wonder if you could post a picture of the MGA master cylinder fitted, I would like to see where the filler cap is in relation to the battery tray. I am thinking of going down this route and fitting a low fluid level indicator from www.teelectronics.co.uk as well.
Thanks, Martin