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MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG TD TF 1500 - OT, Small World for LBC Folks

Just wanted to share this with you folks. I've been part of an email saga for the past couple of months where a fellow lbc enthusiast, Richard McLay has been searching for the proper components for a Denso starter for his TC. I'll skip the long story. Today I received the following email from Richard:

I thought I would tell all of you about the comedy of errors that happened
Wednesday 10th in my attempt to get a matching TC pinion for the Denso
starter. It began with my searching the Internet for a Denso dealer close
to Burlington, VT. One came up in Plattsburgh, NY so I decided to make a
quick trip to talk with them. Oh boy, did I get an education.

I went over on the ferry to Plattsburgh and discovered that the notes I
had on the Denso dealer weren't in the folder on the seat of Suburban. Oh, SPIT!
Reasoning that any local car repair shop in Plattsburgh would be a able to give
me directions, I picked one randomly and went in the one place in all of Upper-
State New York that knew about T-Series MGs and the problems they can produce.

Gene Grafals [1-800-439-3724] runs South Catherine Street Small Car Service
in Plattsburgh. As soon as he saw the Denso starter he went into his storage area
and brought out several midget, Sprite, and B starters. He saw the problem with
the pinion gear and told me NOT to go to the Denso dealer. Instead, he sent me
to a very capable starter specialist in West Chazy: Neil Hanson. (518) 493-5103.

After a short trip through the country I came to a barn with a small sign on
the front: HANSON'S STARTER SHOP. I went into a room filled floor-to-ceiling
with starters. Mr. Hanson looked at the Denso, asked for the TC pinion I got
at Walpole, went into his parts room, and five minutes later came out with a pinion
that matched the TC gear EXACTLY. It was splined for the Denso!

About ten minutes later, Mr. Hanson had the Denso starter apart and the gears
were switched. I paid him and left with the starter and his card.

Can anybody enlighten me about the process that I've just described? This guy
gets on the Lake Champlain ferry, goes across and blunders around, meeting the
only two people in Plattsburgh or vicinity that could help him. He obviously
didn't know spit about what he was supposed to do. He's the luckiest guy that
probably ever went to Upper-State New York. He gets the starter fixed, leaves,
being careful to pull up his high-water pants over his button shoes, and parks
very carefully on the return ferry. You see, he's not so dumb that he didn't
realize the level of luck involved in that little endeavor, and he figured that
with all that good luck he might have watched the Suburban roll off the ferry
between Cumberland Head and North Hero Island, taking the starter with it to the
bottom of 150 feet of water.

I know I'm driving carefully to Middlebury, Sunday, just in case that luck
starts to turn over the weekend.

Richard [High-water pants] McLay (800) 338-6008
As Disney says .. It's a small world after all--Bud
Bud Krueger (TD10855)

Richard is a good fellow. I went to see him a few months ago and looked at his TC. He has (hopefully) successfully fitted a nice little gear reduction Denso starter to his TC. If anyone is interested I asked him to share the story of the part numbers and the procedure to modify the starter for others to follow his lead.
D. Sander

Serendipity is truly a beautiful thing. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

The starter on my Mitsubishi truck was always suspect since purchased, and finally crapped out a few years later. I scored a used commutator from a junk starter, but the brushes & brush holders were shot. These parts are not available through the usual distributors and rebuilt starters run $450.
We were looking to move and went to look at a house with an old barn and a newer shop. The owner worked part time at home on alternators, generators & starters. It was obvious he could never move in time, and we weren't overly impressed with the property.
Before leaving, I asked about brushes & brush holders for the Mitsubishi Fuso diesels. He reached over and picked up 2 new boxes and asked for $5. I gave him $20.
Jim Northrup

The coincidental timing of this story is amazing!

At Stowe this year, my starter packed-up. I bought a spare from the big dealer in the big tent. Parking on a slope (plenty in Stowe) and with help from pushing friends, I was able to get home. A few days later I tackled the starter replacement. However, it turns out that the starter I was sold, is a 25803 - for a Ferguson Tractor, and not the very standard TD/TF 25022. I got out my spare but the Bendix spring was weak. So I drove a few Kms down the road to a friend who has 5 or 6 TDs and a shelf-full of Lucas starters, but none good enough to do the job. So only yesterday I put in some new field coils and my old one works again.

For those of you who don’t know, Rockburn is only 80 kms from Montréal but right next to the NY state border. West Chazy is only 65 kms for Rockburn. I assume this guy’s been there for years and if I had known it, I could have solved my problem in a few hours, not 5 weeks!

Thanks for the invaluable info Bud. Needless to say, I’ll be going over to meet him early next week. Resource people are the life-line of our antiquated cars!

Gord Clark
Rockburn, Qué.
Gordon A Clark

Totally agree with David. I have had this happen to me on a couple of occasions where all the stars were in alignment and things just fell into place.

It makes our world that much more interesting to hear these stories.
Bruce Cunha

A friend of mine was driving his TC this summer home from Watkins Glen... all was well until, on a rural country road he blew his oil line/tube to the oil filter. He had oil spraying out his louvers. He coasted to a stop in front of a farmhouse... A chap came out from the house and helped him push the car down the lane to the barn/shop...where it happened that the guy was a motorcycle racer and had a setup for making high pressure lines...half an hour later he was on the road with a homemade oil line hose.
gblawson(gordon- TD27667)

This thread was discussed on 13/11/2010

MG TD TF 1500 index

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