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MG MG Y Type - Distributor fitting

I am just completing the rebuild of a YB engine which I bought as a kit of parts (a box of bits in other words). I have a distributor but I don't know how it should be fixed into the block. I can't find any references or drawings in any workshop manuals or in 'Let There be Ys'. My YA distributor has a collar with a tab which is bolted into the block. I do not have this collar on the YB distributor and I cannot find one in any supplier's catalogues.
Can anyone tell me if the YA and YB fittings are the same, are the 'collars' available and is a gasket or an 'o' ring required.
Peter
P S Sharp

Peter-
I believe if you have a later engine, it may have a washer under the body and a fixing bolt goes through the block at about where the locking bolt for the plate did on the earlier engines. This bolt (with a nipple on the end) then engages a slot in the dizzy shaft.
Paul
Paul Gaynor

Paul,
Thanks for this. It is a later engine, SC2/17960; the dizzy doesn't have a washer under the body but the slot on the shaft does match up with a hole in the block. I don't have a fixing bolt with nipple; anyone know where I can find one? Also, is the washer there to keep the fitting oil-tight and are they a special item or would any washer of the right size do?
Peter
P S Sharp

Peter,
The dizzy should have a washer under it and at xpag/sc2/17670 engine number the locking arangement changed from the bolt with a nipple and a clamp to a tapered cotter bolt. The locking hole for the dizzy was moved from the centerline of the distributor for the bolt with the nipple to the edge of the dizzy shaft bore. See Blower's manual page 527 for a picture. Both new and old fixing parts are listed in Moss's and Abington Spares catalog, I did not see it in the NTG catalog. On the engines after xpag/sc2/17670 and xpag/td2/20942 the spacer needs to be under the distributor for the dizzy gear to mesh correctly with the gear on the cam shaft. No one shows the spacer, the dimensions are as follows measured from an origional off a TD, inside dia. 1.072 outside dia. 1.312 thickness .140, stay in the plus side by a couple of thou. Easy and quick to turn up on a lathe.

Butch
Butch Taras

Butch,
Thanks for that, it answers all my questions and there is an illustration of both types of fixing in the Abingdon Spares online catalogue. As to the washer, I haven't got a lathe but I know a man who has.
Peter
P S Sharp

Peter-
Don't forget the washer, as you WILL kill the cam and/or the dizzy gear. Also be sure you are properly seated in the hole, as I have pulled a few with the presure mark from the fixing bolt, in, above and below the grove in the housing. Ended a day at the track when a dizzy gear disposed of itself. Lucky for me it was a the end of the main straight, (Lime Rock) and I was off the throttle. 5 seconds earlier and ????
Paul
Paul Gaynor

There are two kinds of sizes of DKY(H)4A which I investigated. A picture is displayed.

XPAG Masaaki Sakaguchi

Thanks everyone for your help and advice on this, especially to Masaaki for the excellent illustration and drawing. I must admit I was ignorant of Blower's manual but I now have a copy; it does indeed have the answers to almost everything MG up to the early 1950s.
Peter
P S Sharp

This thread was discussed between 30/03/2008 and 15/04/2008

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