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MG MGA - Speedo cable attachment

Trying to attach new moss speedo cable to the tranny (old cable had inner cable snap in two.) Have tried to reach under and hand fit it to tranny speedo nib for several hours using only one hand and and many powerful oaths.

After that failed, jacked up the car and gotten under it to sight it (rather than just feel by hand). It just appears that speed cable attachment does just not want to engage the threads of nib. (threads on nib appear ok, threads on speedo cable attachment point do not seem mangled.)

Any suggestions?

Thanks.
J Long

It's a very fine thread - make sure they are both clean and don't force it!
Art Pearse

Are you sure you are inserting the inner cable far enough to engage? If not, it will hold the threads apart and they won't "bite". Try twisting the inner around a bit and see if it goes in deeper.

Malcolm
Malcolm Eades

If all else fails try screwing the old speedo cable onto the nub. If it goes on OK you might consider using the old cable housing and new drive cable. As I recall I had a devil of a time getting a new Moss cable screwed on to the tranny.
Good luck,
GTF
G T Foster

I feel your pain. The cap on the cable ends are made from aluminum and if you cross thread it by accident the threads are toast. I found out the hard way. You have to get under the car and make sure you are squared up before twisting. I went counterclockwise to get a feel for the threads. If you already messed up the threads on the new cable do as the previous post mentioned and use your old cable housing with new drive cable.
Good luck.

ps. The tach cable is the same animal.
Lmazoway

Avoid using the old outer if possible. They are often kinked, and run the inner under some stress at that point, causing excessive flexing and a further failure.
Give it a light lube only before fitting -- excessive grease or oil will work its way up to the instrument and drip over your knees.
You really must get under the car to line it up correctly -- jack it up!
Good luck, Barry
Barry Gannon

I will have to do this soon enough, but the transmission is out of the car now and the body is off. Are there any problems with attaching the speedo and tach cables (need new for both) while the body is off and the transmission is easily accessible?

George
G Goeppner

That's what I wish I had done. Especially the tach.
Lmazoway

It's really easy enough if you can get the car off the floor and lie underneath it - the speedo take-off is easily visible.

My tip is to rotate the aluminium cap in the wrong directioin for a turn to make sure you have everything centred, and then if the threads are undamaged, it should screw on fairly easily. A drop of oil helps tremendously too.

It's one of those jobs when a good trolley jack with lots of height comes in very handy.
dominic clancy

Thanks all for the advice.

Unlike spouses, the neat thing about the MG is that when you get really pissed off at it you turn off the light and slam the garage door shut on them. And they are still there when you open the door several days later.

Anyhow have cooled off enough to address the situation.

Yes. Attach the tranny end of cable to the tranny so you can see the connection (jack up the car and get under there or do it with the tranny out.) The ole "reach-the-hand-under-the-car-and-do-it-by-feel" method is probably how I screwed up the cable tranny attachment cap for the speedo (real soft aluminum.) Tried to get on the old cable tranny as well, it does not want to go on either. Rat$%^&*!

Cheapest and best solution is to order another cable from Moss/VB/etc and be more careful.

But we can't do that, that's WAY TOO EASY. No, this is MG Land. Can’t have a brand new mangled ended speedo cable lying about, too cheap to throw it out either.

No, we going to fix the speedo cable by going online to order the tap (19M 19MM x 1M Pitch-per Barney Gaylord on a earlier thread for repairing the speedo end cap) to chase the cap threads. (See victornet.com for wide selection of taps/dies.) Of course the tap by itself, $23.00 is not enough for the sale to go through, so you have to buy some other $4.90 item as well. Yes, for the resulting price you can probably get two new speedo cables.

Look at this way, you get the epitome of MG Tools, a specialized metric thread tap for threading the tranny end cap of the speedo cable.

By the time, I am through with this part of the project, I should have a bunch of odd taps, a pile of mangled speedo cables and a website showing how fix/avoid mangled end MGA speedo cables ahowing that I have become the speedo mangle end repair/avoidance expert.

Good thing the wife never reads the BBS or even knows it exists.
J Long

Don't kid yourself honey, I know exactly what you get up to when you think you're safe.
Mrs J Long

Whops! That’s blown it.
R A Evans

Yeah right!

It was begging for that response though!

From the posting time it looks like "Mrs J Long" might be here in UK?
Neil McGurk

Could this be a case of Big Mother is watching you?
dominic clancy

This thread was discussed between 14/11/2010 and 17/11/2010

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