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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Carbon Fibre Pushrods ?

I'm assuming that's what these are.

They came with a dismantled engine which I bought.

Dave O'Neill 2

Can anyone help to ID them?

Thanks

Dave O'Neill 2

Looks more like tubular rather than carbon fibre. The main shaft will be a steel tube with hardened end pieces inserted. Get out a magnet and see what results you get. It helps keep the weight down by removing material that doesn't significantly contribute to the strength of the pushrod as a strut.

I took apart a FIAT 650cc twin year ago and was surprised to see that construction, in that case the pushrod tube section was aluminium.
David Billington

Well spotted, David.

They are indeed ferrous.
Dave O'Neill 2

Ahh you had me interested there for a bit--
One of our racer mates here ran carbon fibre pushrods in his B but they looked a bit different to those in your pic
He had no issues with them but I worried about their design, they were waisted in the centre section which I thought was a bit back to front as the centre is where the strength is needed--but they worked
I'm using VW pushrods ,or parts of them,they are like David's Fiat rods having steel fittings and aluminium tubes , i used the ends and replaced the alloy tube with GR2 Titanium tube at the length to suit my B engine's setup--bit of a job(expensive and time consuming), probably wouldn't bother doing it again but man they'll have the bling factor splattered all over the place when it goes bang----------------lol
William Revit

Yes, my wife's Fiat 500 ran those alloy tubular pushrods too.
Dave's pushrods look like the chrome moly ones in my B.

We experimented with carbon pushrods for a while but found on some agressive profiles the foot of the pushrod collapsed. Theory being that to get the most out of them the greater rigidity of carbon (Young modulus typically 4 x that of metals IIRC) would allow higher opening and closing accelerations much closer to overhead cam rates than pushrods. However, it was not to be, but was fun trying and felt really promising till things broke :-) I suspect it was a temperature related thing, affecting the resin. Since then son Andrew has gone on to do a PhD in this stuff, must chase him up and see what's possible now.
Paul Walbran

This thread was discussed between 12/05/2019 and 13/05/2019

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