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MG TD TF 1500 - Distributor Year

I know things like the starter, generator and coil normally have date stamps of around 0 to 3 months prior to the car's manufacturer date.

What about the distributor?

I have TD 4136 (Nov 1, 1950). The distributor is dated 9/48. This would put it as a TC.

The distributor number is DKY4A 40048. According to the article I found in the Archive by Bob Grunau, the DKY4A was used in the TC and the early TD.

Was this another of the infamous use what was in the bin thing? Since it did not change from the TC, I am just wondering if there was just a lot of the distributors and the date did not necessarily go with the car.

It obviously could be that the distributor was changed prior to my getting it also.
Bruce Cunha

Left off a letter. DYK4A 40048D
Bruce Cunha

Bruce, this is from the Lucas Electrical parts catalog.

Tim

Timothy Burchfield

I'd guess that it's unlikely that distributor was put into your car from the factory. Not impossible, but not likely.
Steve Simmons

I agree with Steve for the following reason:

Back in the day, equivalent (or seemingly so) parts were swapped all the time. Remember until BMC there really were no MG dealers per se but just a bunch of shops and organizations that were recognized by MG to sell/repair the cars. And then add to this the thousands of regular mechanics that also worked on the cars and of course hobbyists.

The reason I am saying this is that the modest operandi was to get the cars back on the road ASAP and if it worked, it worked. Little time was spent trying to fix what was broken and replacing it with a like part got the customer on the road faster, and at potentially less cost.

This was not only true for something like a distributor but carried all the way up to engines and transmissions. My own car has an engine from a slightly later car because it was quicker to use a rebuilt block that was waiting on the shelf vs taking the week or more to rebuild my original one. Since my car is registered to the engine number they pried the tag off of it and put it on the replacement block.
Christopher Couper

I tend to agree. I got the TD in 73, so it was 20 years old then. All the engine was original but it could have been swapped out well prior.

If it were really early, I might see having that old a distributor in it, but two years is probably way to long for that distributor to be sitting around the factory.

So, if anyone has a later 1950 Distributor body or whole unit they want to sell or trade. I would be interested.
Bruce Cunha

Bruce I think a September or October 1950 dist would be most appropriate. Note that TD-4834 Build date is 12-7-1950 and has its original dist dated 11-50. The factory did not have a high production capability nor did it likely have great areas to warehouse huge quantities of outside vender parts. Parts were likely sufficient to carry the production floor maybe 3-4 weeks in advance. Likewise the outside venders own production would only be sufficient for the production line needs as well with maybe a slightly higher percentage in reserve as replacement spares. That’s my best guess anyway. The factory would not likely be purchasing more stock than absolutely needed to support their operations. As Timothy notes on the Lucas page the # 40162 is what your looking for. The A/E I believe relates to the internal advance curve.

Bill Chasser
TD-4834
W A Chasser

This thread was discussed on 26/02/2019

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