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MG MGB Technical - Mystery Spring

Help!! I am in the midst of doing a lot of things at the same time on my 74 1/2 "B" Roadster. Night before last I was installing new universal joints on the driveshaft, and was working on the front (Sliding Yoke), and dropped the yoke to the floor. When I bent down to pick it up, I found beside it a small, tapered spring. The spring is 1 1/8 inch long, and tapers from about 3/32" at the top to 1/8" at the bottom. It seemed to be covered with the same heavy grease that was inside the yoke spline, which could be coincidence,,,But?????? I thought that it may have had something to do with the grease zerk for the yoke spline, which I had removed. Looking at any drawing I can find of the yoke Assy, I have not seen a spring of any kind.
Any ideas as to where this spring may belong would be appreciated. As I said, The car is somewhat disassembled. The engine/transmission is out,but assembled (by a professional) and ready to re-install. Over the past several months I have done work on the brakes, shocks, & fuel pump. The carbs are removed from the manifold and are on the work bench. I did take the covers off & clean the pistons, etc, but don't recollect seeing a spring like the one I found. Any good detectives out there??
Douglas Keene

Douglas,
If I recall correctly I had a replaced a u-joint once that had a grease fitting on it that stuck out approx. 3/4" to 1". Could it be a spring from inside it? It seems I had one break off once leaving the spring sticking out of the hole on the u-joint. I found out later there is a correct way to install the nipple on those type u-joints. Its been 20 years ago I may be thinking of another situation. Someone else may correct me (there may not even be a spring like that in the nipple) or have other ideas. Paul
Paul S Canup

Paul, you may be on the right track. Earlier on I had actually broken off a long grease fitting that goes into the "U" joint. It's possible that it was inside that fitting to hold the little ball in place.
Douglas Keene

This thread was discussed on 13/03/2002

MG MGB Technical index

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