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MG MG Y Type - Hello to all

Alan Chick (Jnr) reporting in.
Nice to read all the kind remarks about my Uncle Alan. He was a real gentleman with a wicked sense of humour and will be greatly missed. HKG 16, the MG Y type Register and its members were a huge part of his life. I am very lucky to now be the new keeper of HKG 16 and look forward to taking part in future events.....once I have made some repairs! The most critical being replacing/repairing the fuel gauge sender unit.


Alan Chick

Biggest problems you will encounter Alan are:
a) getting the screws out without stripping the heads off them,
b) ensuring the mating surfaces of the tank and new sender are completely flat, and
c) the arm for the new sender unit is bent at the same angle and has the same length as the old one.

Any problems drop me a line or post here.

Please can you complete a new registration of the car for us at www.mg-cars.org.uk/imgytr/registeryoury.shtml so we can get your new details into our system please?

Thanks

Paul
Paul Barrow

Welcome Alan,
Lovely to see 3 Ys at Alan's funeral and meet the family. He had a great send off with plenty of appreciation of his love of his Y type. Look forward to meeting up again at Llanerchindda in July. Paul's covered the sender unit but give it a good soaking of WD40 for a few days before you attack the screws.
Peter
Peter Vielvoye

Welcome Alan,
This will sound like stating the blooming obvious, but make sure you have no fuel in the tank before applying penetrating fluid. I do not recommend WD-40 as penetrating fluid - get a specialist product (like Plus Gas) or make your own. There is a recipe on the IMGYTR Website that has worked for me for 40+ years of messing with rusty cars.

You might also try tightening the screws a fraction of a turn before trying to undo - this will clear the first part of the thread & allow the fluid to penetrate further. If you get a slight turn by tightening, apply more fluid and continue the tighten then un-tighten pattern.

If you feel any resistance to un-screwing - STOP - apply more fluid and wait an hour or so, tighten then un-tighten....etc.....

I have spent a half day removing a sender this way, just to make sure none of the screws snap off.

The original screws are long enough to extend about 1/4" inside the tank - the exposed end of the screws suffer a little corrosion and it's this corrosion that needs to be slowly removed to save the screws and a lot of trouble later.

When it comes to re-fitting the sender, don't forget to calibrate it. Put exactly 1/4 tank of fuel in, then trial fit the sender and see where the gauge reads. Adjust the float arm position until you get a 1/4 full reading.

If the car is standing level, 1/4 tank of fuel is below the lowest screw hole in the sender unit mounting.

Good Luck

Tony
A L SLATTERY

Welcome Alan,

Good to see that the next generation is continuing the hobby.

Willem
Willem van der Veer

thank you everyone for the welcome..luckily the fuel Tank is a new stainless steel and the screws offered no resistance. Of course you don't discover a leak in the sender unit until the tank is full!
The problem was the void with the resistor was full of petrol and the terminal post was loose. Combination of a rotten gasket on the inspection cover and the loose post allowed petrol to escape, but should that void containing the resistor and float arm contact be flooded with fuel?

Alan Chick

Yuk!
Paul Barrow

Before I became the owner of this car I drove it for my Uncle. I would never have risked repairing anything unless he asked as he was very particular and I knew if I touched ANYTHING it would be sure to go wrong. Turns out I was very wise....everything seems to be a time bomb waiting for me to show it some care and consideration. Removal of the "sender" was easy despite the amount of liquid gasket that had been used. I decided to refurbish the existing sender and replace. With a new gasket and some petrol resistant liquid gasket (Hylomar blue) I replaced the six screws and found one of them has no thread in the hole! This would have been like it when I removed the screw and explains why there was so much 'gunk' involved. I've left it as a temporary repair as I research the possibility of changing to a better sender unit. I have a new "series" Landrover fuel sender unit. Instead of resistor wire in a coil (and sparse randomly spaced wire at that) this sender has a printed circuit board mounted on a plastic moulding. It will give a more accurate reading. Two problems...big problem, its for a negative earth vehicle, slightly less problem is it should be installed from top of the tank not the side. It's the same size with same six screw fixing. Given that it is a resistor I am thinking the reverse polarity will just give a reverse reading on the fuel gauge. I think I can get around both the reverse reading and side fixing issue by changing the shape of the float arm.
Anybody have any views?
Alan Chick

Hi Alan

Sounds like you have already made the decision to go down the Land Rover route. Accuracy will be only as accurate as the gauge and personally I wouldnt ever worry too much about that especially in a small country like the UK where you would never be too far from a petrol station but each to their own. I would personally have opted for a straight replacement and avoided the hassle but then I prefer my cars to be as original as possible. Sadly therefore I cannot help you with that query.

Good luck and hopefully someone else can help

Paul
Paul Barrow

This thread was discussed between 14/05/2016 and 20/05/2016

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