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MG MGB Technical - Shift Boot,Gaiter Retaining Screws

have 80 B LE and it is fitted with rubber and leatherette shift column gaiters. Has anyone ever removed the chrome-plated phillips head screws for the gaiter retaining ring? The screws appear to go through boot, ring and into the console. The simple stuff can be the most frustrating!

For a relatively new and in-car environment these screws are frozen tighter than any I have ever run across anywhere. I will probably damage all of them before I wind up drilling them out. - Do they screw into anything significant such as transmission housing parts?

Thanks, Jerry
Jerry White

Those should just be #10 sheet metal screws. The heads, however are Posi-drive heads rather than phillips, which may be why you are having trouble getting them loose before the screwdriver bit cams out of the head. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

They are 1/4-28 Countersunk #3 Pozi head, and they screw into welded on nuts on the trans/DS tunnel, except for the front one which has a similar nut on a removable plate that covers the extended hole forward of the shift tower. They are unaccountably long and of two lengths usually, and stick down into the tunnel, where the lower end rusts. The length (and pointed ends on OE ones) is apparently so that you can get all the various layers aligned on assembly, but it is not uncommon for people to cross thread them. Spray penetrant up from underneath, and wait. The short one(s) go where the long ones would hit the trans. Use antiseize when reinstalling!!
FRM
FR Millmore

And new ones are easily obtained from Moss Motors in Europe and the US.

Paul
Paul Barrow

Pozi head!! THANK YOU, THANK YOU! Should have known (probably even did once.) More dumb questions to follow!

Jerry
Jerry White

Fletcher - Good to see your post (somebody need to keep me straight), it's been awhile since you have been on the board. I understand that an old classmate of yours contacted you after seeing your name in one of the articles on my web site. Hope that we get more of your posts on this board. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

Fletcher-
Glad to see that you finally got your computer up and running again. We're all looking forward to more of your sage advice. I knew that the screws were Posidrive items, but who else on this BBS would remember "1/4-28 Countersunk #3 Pozi head" right off the top of his head? Great memory for detail, there.
Steve S.

Dave-
Indeed, and Paul was just here on a visit in his nice driver TD. Guess you get a thanks for the hookup - after 45 years!
Last year was awful: my wife (43 years), my oldest friend (46 years) and my oldest local friend (30 years) all died of cancer. And my computers all died from being left out in my now unheated shop.
So, I am now a single mother/father, getting the kid into college, learning to cook for real, and dealing with all the paperwork in the world. Gave up and got a reasonably new computer, which I have to figure out too!
I'll be around, more if I can figure out how to cut all this damned grass.
FRM
FR Millmore

Fletcher - Please accept my condolences for you terrible losses. That is a frightening thing to hear at our age (and my having to serve as sou chef for my wife because she is recovering from shoulder surgery and I don't have any idea how to cook). Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

This thread was discussed between 23/05/2009 and 27/05/2009

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