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MG TD TF 1500 - Muffler; Buying one; Tourist Trophy or Bell?

I need a new muffler on my early TD. Abingdon Spares has a sale going on for their Bell muffler. Moss sells its Tourist Trophy muffler. I've read the archives on these two brands.
I'd like to find out if one is better than the other?
Thanks
Milt
Milton Babirak

Engel Imports does them also, you might need to Google it.

Peter
P G Gilvarry

I have the Stainless Steel Tourist Trophy exhaust on my TD. It looks great, but I would not recommend the muffler. Seems the packing that is internal, left the building a couple years ago and the car is now much noisier that it was when originally installed. I have used The Bell product on my other MG's and have been very pleased with their fit and performance.

Soon I will have to replace the old "Walker" exhaust on my MGA and it will be a Bell system.

Hope that helps.
C.R. Tyrell

Tourist trophy mufflers are crap. I get about 300-500 miles out of them before the packing blows out of them. Once the packing is lost all it becomes is an expansion chamber similar to a two stroke dirt bike. I like The TT polished SS finish but I won’t be buying another system from Moss after they get tired of replacing them. Moss knows they have a quality issue with them though they won’t openly admit to it. It has left me with ringing ears after a short drive. I can’t imagine what it does to my service dogs. I honestly believe if I were to drive with my open extractor it wouldn’t be any louder.

I have a Bell system in my dads TD/c but have only run the engine briefly. It is rather throaty straight out of the box. Have no idea on its service life

Falcon also had a system but I don’t know who is selling that unit.

W A Chasser

Have to agree with Bill Chasser the tourist trophy from moss is crap and they know it.They do not stand behind their guarantee. The bell muffler is exactly as Bill describes it throaty and I used a decibal to check the sound and it is a couple of decibals higher than the tourist trophy and like Bill I've hadn't had it long enough to know if it will last.Bought my bell complete system from Abingdon Spares. Michael ohalloran.
Michael O'Halloran

I have the Falcon system in both my MGB and the TF and also installed one on the TD I had. When I bought the system for the MGB ( mid 90's) it carried a lifetime warranty without exclusions and to this point I have no complaints. The TF on the other hand became louder and louder over time to the point of being quite unpleasant for any long period. The warranty when purchased from Moss ( around 2005 or so) was now for rust through only. Moss USA no longer carried the system when I decided to do something with it a few years ago and neither the Bell or Tourist Trophy muffler was a direct replacement. Moss UK however does carry the same system and I bought a replacement from them. Out of curiosity I cut open the defective muffler to find that all of the packing was gone. I have doubts that this one will last any longer.
L E D LaVerne

I have been happy with the bell systems. I bought a Falcon system from Moss for the TF. Out of the box the baffles in the muffler were loose. At higher RPMs (think brisk acceleration in 3rd) the baffles in the muffler vibrate very loudly. A most unpleasant sound.
Be well,
David
D. Sander

Had that issue as well with mine David. The baffle is nothing more than a perforated mild steel pipe that runs directly through the housing with fiberglass matting packed between it and the shell. I tacked the baffle back in place with a mig as the factory weld had broken causing the vibration. Not surprising considering the dissimilar metals involved. I gave some thought to repacking the muffler after reading Barney Gaylords account of his Falcon losing the packing and his solution but in as much as the MGA muffler is behind the cockpit and any small leakage would might dissipate behind the car I didn't feel comfortable about using his method on a T car where it sits directly underneath the cockpit.
L E D LaVerne

Not disagreeing with anything said above except - I had a Moss Tourist Trophy muffler on my 51 TD go bad. I thought it was out of warranty since I purchased it a year or so before I put it on the TD. I posted the issue on the MG Experience. One of the Moss employees saw my post and contacted me to tell me they would send me a new muffler. They did. I appreciated the outreach by Moss since I wasn't even going to contact them due to my warranty assumption. Win one for Moss.

Tim
Timothy Burchfield

To be fair to Moss, they have replaced every failed muffler at no charge thus far. But, I’m tired of replacing them every 600 mi or less when the noise becomes deafening to my ears. No body on club driving events want to follow me and I don’t like hanging back because they hinder how I need to operated my “not stock” XPAG for best performance.

Moss seems to be quite happy replacing the TT mufflers rather than having the manufacturer make corrective changes. But at some point it’s going to require me to have a performance/race muffler custom built to control the exhaust noise.
W A Chasser

Lukey mufflers were mentioned on another current thread and as I have one on my TD which is still like new, even though I purchased it in 1969, because the car was stored for the best part of 50 years. I looked up Lukey on the web and sadly they aint what they used to be. I spoke to a rep who asked not to be named and he said they barely last a year or two now. The manufacturing is outsourced so the days of a Lukey muffler lasting for years are long gone. So if you have an original then treasure it. Cheers
Peter TD 5801
P Hehir

In the old motorcycle world what we do if we have a noisy silencer is cut a window in the silencer, where it doesn't show, and pack it with stainless steel pot scrubbers that you buy at the grocery store and re weld up the window. The pot scrubbers work really well and last forever.
Charlie
c mac quarrie

Thank you all for your helpful comments. I am troubled that there is no well regarded product out there to use. The Moss Trophy Tourist sounds unsatisfactory; the Bell muffler received more favorable comments.
My existing muffler looks awful but it works and sounds great. Perhaps it makes sense to keep it as long as I can.
Is there some option to buy a custom made muffler of good quality? Would this be prohibitively expensive? Where would you get a custom muffler?
Appreciatively
Milton
Milton Babirak

Milton,

The straight through Burgess type muffler can be made. I think I published the dimensions etc around last year on bbs td tf.

The first one I manufactured sixteen (16) years ago for our current TF 1250 and I expect it will last 50 years ! The sound is TF typical. The number of holes and their diameter for the central through pipe is important.

I had heard so many stories of new T type mufflers causing a fair deal of trouble one way or the other.

Perhaps seek out a person with the necessary skills who may have 'retired' from an exhaust systems business in order to have the muffler manufactured. Their knowledge is the key.

Cheers
Rob Grantham
TF3719("Aramis"),TF9177("Athos").
Rob Grantham

We have a custom muffler manufacturer in our region. Performance systems for race cars, hot rods etc. I have not talked with him yet but he will be my next option to consider. I’m about ready to by a SuperTrapp muffler. At least it is back pressure tunable and when the packing blows out it can be easily serviced.
W A Chasser

This thread was discussed between 27/01/2020 and 31/01/2020

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