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MG MGA - Is There a 4th MGA Wheel Jack?

If you read Clausager and other authoritative sources you will see that the MGA series was issued with one of 3 types of jack: a Shelley LJ23 (early 1500s); King Dick 'Hour Glass' (bulk of cars); or a Shelley LJ225 (late cars).

I have just been going through my records from 2009 and have correspondence from a US dealer who says that early 1500s came off the transports with a small hour glass jack. If he is correct this could be the Shelley 6 INCH DL that was supplied with MG T-Series cars. It could of course also be the King Dick that was also around at the time, being supplied with some of the later mgtfs. Overspill of car parts from one range to the next was quite common in those days.

I have just been looking through the MGA handbook and on page 22 it has a couple of sketches of a disc wheel car being raised by an 'hour glass' jack. As the handbook was produced right at the beginning of MGA production it seems a good bet that the very early cars were indeed issued with a '4th' jack - a Shelley 6 INCH DL or perhaps a wider spread of the 3 known jacks with an earlier introduction of the King Dick before a changeover to the Shelley LJ23 and then a few years later back to the King Dick.

If you followed my ramblings do you have any thoughts/evidence to support the claims? Perhaps someone has photographs of very early MGAs and has shots of the boot/trunk with the jack sitting there.

Steve
Steve Gyles

The early TF's were more likely to have the Shelley whereas the later TF's had the KD (I still have the original KD for my late TF 1500). So if there was a flow-on of jacks then I would expect the KD.

Cheers,
Matthew.
M Magilton

I tend to agree with Matthew. I have just been reading an Austin Healey tool kit document written by Roger Moment. The King Dick B1007 'Bow Tie' jack was supplied with the Healey from July 1954 until October 1955. The Healey was on a parallel production line to the MGA, so it was entirely possible that MG had access to a significant pool of these jacks from the old MGTF and the Healey to equip some of the very early MGA cars at the back end of 1955.

Steve
Steve Gyles

This thread was discussed between 20/02/2013 and 25/02/2013

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