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MG MGA - Grill External Release

Whilst I have the grill out to work on the bonnet release mechanism I was looking at the possibility of making the grill releasable externally.

The thought occurred to me to fit rubber grommets in the 3 top locating holes in the body and then screwing tapered pins into the 3 upper captive nuts on the grill. The grill could then be simply pushed up into place with the pins locating in the grommets; then pushing the bottom of the grill inwards to locate the bottom bolts as normal.

Has anyone tried it? could it work?

Steve
Steve Gyles

Sounds a good idea Steve. If the bonnet latch sticks and you have to remove the grill to fix it, how is that possible now?
Art Pearse

Art

Currently quite difficult and often resulting in considerable damage.

With my idea you just remove the bottom three bolts from underneath the car, then ease the bottom of the grill out slightly and pull down to disengage the pins from the grommets.

I have my grill piping glued to the grill so no problem of the piping needing to be held too firmly between the grill and body.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Steve

What type glue did you use when gluing the piping to the grill?

Bob
Bob Ravich

Bob

I don't remember, it was a while back. I don't think it was anything special though and I am sure there are some very good ones on the market these days. There was a discussion quite recently on the subject so I am sure someone will 'pipe' up with a good answer.

Steve
Steve Gyles

I used standard UHU hobby cement to stick piping to grille. I used an in-store screen wizard to say what materials had to be stuck together and that it what is recommended. I had tried superglue before and that was a miserable failure.

Steve, what may be easier than the three lower bolts would be a replacement of the two "fancy" grille bolts holding the frame to the mounting bracket. I always just remove these tow and leave the lower mounting bar in place. If you were to convert these to a screw with a chrome cap (like those used to mount mirrors for example) the it would be much easier to remove those than struggle with those three inaccessible bolts under the car.

For those worrying about originality, those same chrome cap screws are used to fix the rare radiator muffs to the grille.
dominic clancy

Dominic

I don't quite follow you. On my car the slats have 6 brackets (3 at the top and 3 at the bottom)that hold the whole lot to the car. The 2 'fancy' grill bolts attach the bottom of the slats to the grill frame. There are a further 3 attachment bolts along the top serving the same purpose. Surely you cannot get all 5 undone with the bonnet closed?

I found those 3 car attachment bolts underneath very accessible and all were off in less than 5 minutes.

Steve
Steve Gyles

I drilled a hole in the pan directly below the latch mechanism.
I painted a left over rubber grommet to fill the hole. In the event the bonnet release fails I can use a long screw driver to hopefully open the bonnet.
Lmazoway

Steve

I meant that if you put pins and grommets at the top and did the fancy screws mod at the bottom, removing the grille would be a two minute job. On my car the duct panel just has holes for the lower bolts (sounds like yours has captive nuts), so it is a real pain to get to both ends of the bolt/nut when the grille is in place (its definitely a two-person job), but getting to the back of the fancy screws is easy with the bonnet open. I then just remove the two lower screws and the top three bolts and the grille is then free, leaving the lower mounting bar mounted and undisturbed.

Depending on how your grille is constructed this may not work, but it does work with both my grilles

dominic clancy

Steve - A fellow club member with a twin-cam (since sold to a chap in OZ) did exactly as you described to his grille - he demonstrated to me how easy is was to remove in minutes. It is something that I have meant to do to mine for the last 5 years - but never quite got round to.Another interesting mod that he did was to drill a hole in the boot floor just below the boot lock activating lever - this meant he could open the boot from below if the linkage ever came adrift ( the hole was closed with a large grommet. )You may gather that he had seen several cars with locked bonnets and boots whilst he was a foreman at a BL garage in the 1960s.
Cam Cunningham

Good to hear that Cam. I will keep going with my experiments.

The basic theory worked and the grill was firm in its mountings, but it needs a bit of refinement. I made 3 taper pins and screwed them into the top 3 captive nuts. However, the top of the grill frame was kept proud of the shroud probably by the thickness of the the proud part of the grommet (see first schematic). I may be able to get round this by bending the brackets, but their geometry does not make this look easy. Need to put thinking cap on or give it a hard stare. Perhaps the best chance of success is to glue rubber strips to the inside of the shroud holes (second schematic) instead of the grommets.

Perishing cold out out there in the garage for standing around thinking about it.

Steve

Steve Gyles

Hi

A trick I have used on my Porsches which have the same sort of problem. Drill a small hole in the inner wing on the LHS opposite and in line with the lock, attach a bowden or solid wire firmly to one of the extra holes in the latch and pass the other end through the hole in the inner wing. Make a loop on the end in the inner wing and leave to dangle for future use. I usually put a blanking grommet in the hole and pass the wire through just in case of water ingress. When you have to open the bonnet in an emergency pull the cable. The same can be don with the boot catch.

Barry
B Bridgens

The actual technique that my friend used was to use slightly longer screws( bolts) at the top and fix them with a nut onto the grille. Then put a sleeve of plastic pipe over the exposed length of thread. This then went straight into the original hole where it is anchored firmly by the plastic covering.
Cam Cunningham

Cam

Great idea, thanks. I have captive nuts on my grill (photo). I just turned down 3 bolts in my lathe as an experiment and screwed them into the nuts. I tapered them so as to allow progressive penetration into the grommets. I guess with your friends method it may not be necessary to taper them. Now to find some suitable rubber/plastic tubing.

Steve

Steve Gyles

Steve

How did you get on with the 'Grill Release' system??
I have waited to see the outcome as I did have the problem a couple of years ago and it is a mind blowing job to lever the bonnet with a screw driver !!!!
Cheers Rex
Rex Thompson

Rex

I am on holiday at the moment. I will be working on it next weekend. Before I left I had sourced the correct size rubber (fuel) piping for the top attachment studs and I had glued new grill piping on. If it all works I will fully document the process.

Steve
Steve Gyles

It's worked. I adopted Cam's method of attaching piping to the top three bolts (heads cut off to make them into studs). I had previously glued the piping to the grill. It made a surprisingly good fit after a bit of minor tweaking of the six grill brackets. Because none of the tops studs were absolutely centre in the 1/2" diameter locating holes I found that slightly undersize plastic tube made the best interference fit. The fitted grill is very tight in place and pulls out very easily after removing the bottom 3 bolts. Quite chuffed with the finished result.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Steve-

Can you do a write-up and post photos so those like myself can see what you did rather than try and visualize it?

Thanks,
Gene

Gene Gillam

Given even minor maintenance, an MGA is not a likely candidate for being unable to open the bonnet, because it uses rod actuation. The cars that do give trouble all have cable release and when the cable breaks you have to get creative. I have done many, many miles in MGAs and have never had a bonnet fail to open once properly adjusted, as long as you give it a bit of oil or grease every decade or so.
Bill Spohn

Will do Gene. I will write it up in the next few days and put it on my website with a summary here.

It is a very straight forward modification that can be reverted to original in a matter of minutes - just 3 bolts and washers required.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Bill

I don't disagree with you one bit. Mine has never failed either in 15 years. Now that I have run this experiment I am going to retain it primarily because the fit I have achieved is every bit as good as the original and it is now so easy to remove the grill when ever needed, whatever the reason.

Steve
Steve Gyles

"I will write it up in the next few days and put it on my website with a summary here."

Thanks Steve...while I don't expect my latch to fail either I do think that cleaning the area in front of the radiator will be much easier to do with this mod...as well as providing easy access to the A/C dryer and hoses in the event I need to work on them.
Gene Gillam

I took a few photos of the modification, but actually there is very little to it.

In the attached photos you can see that I cut the heads off the top securing bolts and screwed the resultant studs into the grill captive nuts. I then pushed slightly longer plastic tubing over each stud. The longer length was purely to ease initial location into the three holes in the shroud. I actually shortened the tube lengths than shown in the photo through trial and error. They ended up 15mm long. I then simply pushed the grill into place. The tubing is 3/8" OD. The holes in the shroud are 1/2" diameter. Because none of the grill locating studs were exactly central in the holes there was good interference with all three, creating an overall tight fit. I then then secured the bottom three bolts as normal.

I chose to glue the grill piping to the grill, but this is entirely optional. It is something I also did when I secured the grill in the conventional way. The tightness between the grill and the car shroud was just as tight with this modification as before.

The best part about it of course is that it only requires three new bolts to return the assembly to original specification.

Steve

Steve Gyles

Steve, What do you think the chance is of any, or all, of the three locating screws rotating and popping out, when driving perhaps?

I suppose they could always be tightened up with a second (lock) nut on the bottom of each of them?.......................Mike
m.j. moore

Mike

I guess it is possible. I will monitor. I was considering a drop of loctite.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Nice one Steve - now on my "to do" list
Cam Cunningham

Steve, rather than cut the bolts, could you just screw them all the way through from below the captive nut?
Neil McG

Neil

Yes, that would certainly work. Interesting to see the way ideas develop. I will do that next time I have the grill off.

Steve
Steve Gyles

This only works if the lower fixing bar also has captive nuts.... Mine does not, but I agree with Bill Spohn, if it is all assembled correctly then it should never go wrong!
dominic clancy

Dominic

I have just looked in the Moss catalogue and it shows captive nuts. What is the norm?

Totally agree with you and Bill about a correctly set up and maintained lock will not jam. I guess that most guys who post on this BBS spend much time maintaining their vehicles and do not need this mod. However, I was told many years ago that only 10% of forum readers ever post. This mod is therefore dedicated to the vast 90% majority amongst whom there are probably a number of potential jammed bonnets.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Steve

I have no idea what the norm is. The base bar came from an original grille which had bent slats. This was kindly sent to me by someone on this BBS so I could make my mesh grille without butchering a good Moss repro.

So I think the options are

1. That the originals had no captive nuts, or
2. There were aftermarket grills with no captive nuts.

Because the old slats were very blunt on the edges, I don't think the slat assembly was from an aftermarket grille, but maybe others with BMC grilles can provide a definite answer.

dominic clancy

I have two grills both with captive nuts on the fixing brackets. Pretty sure both are original.
John Francis

I have half a dozen or more old grilles all with captive nuts top and bottom.
Neil McG

Thought about this grill conversion, then realised I have a badge bar accross the front...this prevents the grill from swinging out and down...bugger!
Gary Lock

Gary

I have the standard badge bar and it works okay. I agree that the bar restricts movement somewhat and that is why I made the comment about trial and error with the tube length. I found that tube 15mm length gave me enough room to tilt the the grill and push the 3 studs under the shroud lip.

Steve
Steve Gyles

I am rejuvenating this thread because Colyn Firth has just contacted me with the news that he has converted his grill similar to mine. Apparently Colyn found it a very straight forward task and it has worked very well. I will let him add any additional information.

Steve
Steve Gyles

Late home tonight so it was straight into the garage to take some pics.

I had taken the grille off to gain access to the front edge of the duct panel which is starting to show signs of oxidisation (can't use the "R" word on here 😁!)

I had forgotten just how difficult it was to get a spanner onto the top sets crews, especially the centre one. It's even more awkward on my car because of the twin electric fans make it almost impossible to get my arm through the gap to turn the spanner.

So I decided to see how difficult it would be to do the "Quick-Release" modification that Steve describes.
I reversed the top three sets crews as he described and slipped a short length of plastic hydraulic tubing over the threads to make them a snug and rattle free fit into the holes.
I did a quick test fit and was surprised to see that it fitted perfectly with excellent alignment and a tight secure fit.
The best part is that it only took me about 20 minutes to reverse the setscrews, put the tubes on and bolt it back into place.

So thanks Steve, it's a great mod, it's instantly reversible and takes the pain out of fixing the grille.

I have taken some pics to show how it looks.

Also, I have noticed when taking the pictures that the open ends of my fresh-air pipes are well clear of the outside edges of the radiator duct.

I wondered if I would get more air through the rad if I moved them more outboard?
Opinions would be appreciated.

Cheers
Colyn




Colyn Firth

First picture of grille mod.


Colyn Firth

2nd picture of grille mod.

Colyn Firth

Does this work with the later Mk2 grills?
Graeme Williams

Im pretty sure that the fixing points are exactly the same for the MkII grille Graeme.

I forgot to mention that I have never ever used the bottom central setscrew on my grille as the two outer ones seem to do a perfectly adequate job.

Colyn
Colyn Firth

Interestingly the factory put an external bonnet release on the Sebring Deluxe coupes. Seems to work well but wouldn't look that good on a normal car. I'll ask Ian Prior to post a photo of the factory mod.
Mike
Mike Ellsmore

Colyn

Did you have any issue inserting the grill piping with this modification? As you know I have cheated by gluing it in place.

Steve
Steve Gyles

The last time I fitted the grille Steve, I just used some Duck-Tape to attach the piping to it, just a few strips of it to keep the piping in position.
You cant see the Duck-Tape once the grille is installed.

I was thinking of using glue this time like you did.

Colyn
Colyn Firth

Lots of interesting solutions.

I hacksawed screwdriver slots in the ends of the 3 top screws. Screw them in from the top, screw them out from the bottom using a screwdriver.

Really easy to do and easy to unscrew through the grille slats. No problems with locating the beading.

I used stainless screws. Tough on those who have mesh grilles.

Cheers

Dave
Bolney Coupe

For what it's worth this is what I did. I did have an issue with a jammed release mechanism with the grille installed. Obviously not wanting to damage or bend the grille I was reluctant to try any sort of prying or bending. What I did was drill a small 1/2 inch hole in the radiator shelf directly below the latch pin. I was able to insert a long screwdriver through the hole and engage the slot in the end of the pin. A simple twisting motion and the hood popped right open. Afterward I adjusted the pin depth and position and haven't had a problem since. I plugged the hole with a stainless steel spring grommet/plug from the top and could simply push up to pop it out of the way if I ever need to repeat the process in future.
Michael Hosier

That's brilliant.

Paul
Paul Dean

This thread was discussed between 31/03/2013 and 02/02/2017

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