MG-Cars.info

Welcome to our Site for MG, Triumph and Austin-Healey Car Information.

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGB GT V8 Factory Originals Technical - Rear tyre / wheel arch clearence.

I have just fitted 185/60/15 tyres on centre lock minilites to my 69 roadster and have found that the near side rear tyre is very close to the wheel arch, I think it would touch if it went over a bump. However the off side tyre has plenty of clearence.

After lots of measuring I found that the axle is off set by about 10mm to the near side, looks like the mounting plates have been welded to the axle in the wrong place! I guess when the car was on its original 165 tyres it would not be a problem.

Has anyone else come across this problem?, any ideas as to a solution?, I don't want to have to cut off and re-weld the mounts unless I have to and I don't want to modify the arches as the car has just been sprayed.

Mike

m clemas

this comes up often - 'they are all like that sir'
:-)
David S

Yes - it's par for the course.

After I bought my first B GT V8 new in 1973 I part exchanged it for a newer 1974 car partly because of this problem with the first car.

I still have the second car, and with the benefit of hindsight should have retained the first one as it would have been exempt from Road Fund Tax, which of course the later one isn't.

I have cured the problem, with the later car, by discrete modifications to the "lip" of the near side rear wing.

Good luck.

Nigel
Nigel Steward

It may not be the axle, I read that it's the body, the jig (if there was a jig) was supposed to be a little off and consequently the body is often skewed a little. This might also explain why the ride height is often different on one side, more car over there.
You might try loostening up the U bolts and retightening them after a bit of a push over, might get you a few mm.
I fitted 195by60by 15's and my "axle" had a 6mm offset which dissapeared after this loosening and retightening process, but I can't promise it will work for you as mine may have had a tension bias.

Or you could bend up the inner lip on the arches, leaving the outside alone. I've never done this but I believe you jam a baseball between tire and lip (obviously after jacking up the car a little), then roll the bat along. Mind you it sounds the sort of thing that's easy the fourth time you try it, the first couple of goes are regretable ie.get an expert. There's something in the archive on this, to do with NAZ cars I think.

You might be able to weld just the holes and redrill them 5mm over. That wouldn't be too hard. Just a thought
Peter

Mine has 185s, and used to have 195s, and although it is closer on the LH side it has never rubbed. I've also seen a car with 205s, which were *very* close and in fact rubbed slightly on the *insides*. I had bad rubbing when cornering my roadster with wire-wheel conversion even though I used special hubs. Harder springs prevented most of the rubbing but adversely affected the ride so eventually I swapped the axle for a wire-wheel type, went back to the proper springs, and had no more problems. With the even harder springs of the V8 you should be fine.
Paul Hunt

I had this n/s rear lip rubbing too. So I rolled the lip and also "eased" the arch out by levering a lump of wood against the tyre and the arch. This cured the rubbing problem, however I now have some nastly ripples on the outside skin. So if you roll the lip, be careful you don't ruin your perfectly smooth outer skin !

jim
(ringing round for quotes to get the rear wings smoothed and repainted).

j w mcglynn

The apparent left offset of the axle is very obvious on my '71 roadster, but not on my '69 GT. Like the others I think its poor control of bodywork construction rather than any fault with the axle mountings. I haven't tried to fix it as my 185/70 x 14 tyres don't rub (just).
Mike
Mike Howlett

Thanks for all the replys, its intresting to know that a lot of Bs have the same fault.

I have loosened the axle U bolts and given the axle a shove to the right, which has gained me about 3mm and ground the n/s wheel arch lip back which has also gained a few more precious mm's

will give the a car a run over the weekend and see if the tyre still touches.

mike.
m clemas

This thread was discussed between 20/04/2004 and 21/04/2004

MG MGB GT V8 Factory Originals Technical index

This thread is from the archives. Join the live MG MGB GT V8 Factory Originals Technical BBS now