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MG TD TF 1500 - Philidas Nuts

I was looking over some of the MGTD advertisements on http://www.mg-td.com/mgtdadverts.htm

One of them talked about Philidas self locking nuts.

It shows them on the drive shaft and also used to secure the front wings to the chassis.

I found that the company is still in business.

Anyone know what the nuts they make would have been used on the driveshaft and where would these have been on the front wings?

http://www.philidaslimited.co.uk/products/
Bruce Cunha

HI Bruce,

The best of my knowledge the Philidas nuts were just used on the drive shaft. As for the rest of the car, there is quite a bit of use for Simmonds locking nuts.

Do a search in the archives and there is quite a bit of information and pictures.

search "Simmonds"

Matthew Magilton started a thread "Simmonds (aero) nuts"

There is some information / discussion on Philidas.


Frank
TF1414
Frank Cronin

There is a picture about Philidas near the bottom of the page in the Lesser or Material Suppliers:

http://www.mg-cars.org.uk/mgtd/mgtd_suppliers.htm
Christopher Couper

That's that Ad that I saw chris. Do you have any thoughts on where these would be used for the front fender? I am thinking the front edge bolt that goes through the front dumb iron. About the only ones that have loose nuts on the fender.
Bruce Cunha


You might be chasing a ghost here. I have disassembled six MG TDs (1951 and 1952) over the past 15 years and have not found these nuts in any of them except for the drive shaft. Could be that they were considered for application on the front fender but I doubt they ever made it to actual factory use. There are only a few places on the front and rear fender where they could possibly be used as a separate bolt/nut fixture. On one of my TDs, I found them used on the generator pivot mount, but I don't know if they were factory installed.
Richard Cameron

Bruce,

On my TD I have Philidas nuts on the drive shaft and on also the 4 bolts holding the rear brake backplates to the rear axle.
I have checked with the parts manual and it does specify that they should be Philidas.

Below is the line from the parts manual.

B37 Nut -3/8 B.S.F. (Philidas)............ A.5

John

J Scragg

The crossbar behind the radiator on my TF has them and the drive shafts, I use Lock-Tite on the driveshaft bolts for a little extra safety from coming loose. Lord knows how many times they have been on and off over the years. PJ
PJ Jennings

Thanks for the Archive topic Frank. It was interesting reading. Looks like the TF folks have identified all the various things that used Phillidas nuts.

Just a few for the TD.

I ordered an MGTD in a box fastener kit from the UK. It is supposed to have been put together by some of the TD restorers in the UK, so it will be interesting to see if it included Phillidas nuts.

I know Chris Cooper has a listing of fasteners on his web. Perhaps we can identify what had the Phillidas nuts and have him add it to the list.
Bruce Cunha

Philidas nut.


PJ Jennings

Looking closer on my car, the Philidas nuts have a more rounded top than the one I showed in the last post and appear to be cad plated. PJ
PJ Jennings

That sounds similar to the ones posted on the archived thread. Round head with two vertical slots.

The nut in the advertisement that says they were used on the TD is the exact nut PJ listed.



Bruce Cunha

There seems to be a problem identifying this nut as manufactured by Philidas, it is not on their site of manufactured products, the one I illustrated earlier is. So who manufactured this nut, just like the ones on my cross bar brackets. PJ



PJ Jennings

That looks like a regular all metal lock nut / slotted beam nut / split beam nut, rather than a Philidas nut. Works rather differently to achieve a similar objective.
Dave H
Dave Hill

I posted this question on the other site and got a few responses that they do have Philidas nuts on the rear backing plate to axle and on the drive shaft. These are, so far, the only place where it appears the Philidas nut was used on the TD. TF appears to have a number of them.

Let me know if anyone finds any others. Have not found any on my TD, but then it has a lot of US nuts/bolts so A lot has been changed out.
Bruce Cunha

At one time Moss recommended changing the nuts on steering column that screw on to the shoulder bolts that attach to the flexible joint just ahead of the rack and pinion.

I have them installed there. They were not there originally but it makes good sense.

Back around 1982 my son ordered a bunch of hardware from the (old) AS. I have a bunch of those nuts that came in that order.

I do have them on my driveshaft also.
%@ TD shipped first week in January.

Jim B.

JA Benjamin

Originally they were castellated nuts and split pins. It’s not worth risking any other kind of locknut - Philidas or other - they just aren’t secure enough in that location. Having been there, suffering steering problems and discovering one bolt only just holding it together, I consider myself extremely lucky to have survived. I strongly recommend that you go back to castellated nuts and split pins before driving it.
Dave H
Dave Hill

My steering shaft bolts all have holes in them and castle nuts. (Td4139)
Bruce Cunha

Likewise castle nuts and pins on Lazarus, TD10855. Bud
Bud Krueger

This thread was discussed between 03/03/2018 and 15/03/2018

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