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MG MGA - Tie rod ends

I just tried to order a set of tie rod ends from Cecelia at SF and she refused to sell them to me saying that the quality from her supplier was not acceptable and that she is trying to source another supplier. In the meantime can anyone suggest a supplier that has good quality ones. I remember a recent thread saying that the ones from Moss were too long.

Thanks

Andy 60 Coupe
Andrew Preston

Andy,

The ones from Moss are too long, but not by much and they are easy to cut down with a standard hacksaw with the tie rod clamped in a vice.

I have had them on my MGA for almost 2 years now and they are still fine. However, I was just taking some suspension pics of the current condition of the new rubber and the boot on those tie rods is already showing some cracking. Nothing to worry about yet, but I would not have expected that from a brand new part.

So, if you need some soon these can be made to fit fine with little effort.

Thanks,
Christopher

Christopher Wilson

Christopher

Why are the split pins missing from the castellated nuts?

Has that car seen any use at all since it was restored - looks far too pristine to me :-)
dominic clancy

Dominic,

The picture was taken during restoration before the body was even back on the car.

Here is a picture of the car today.

It has seen quite a bit of road use since the restoration including some pretty bad storms. Just over 4500 miles now.

You see I have the pins in place in this current pic;)

Cheers,
Christopher



Christopher Wilson

Christopher,It took me 4 years to complete my car over 20 years ago.Some of the Moss rubber parts were bad even before the car was on the road.Good to see their consistent.
gary starr

Ah, a soap box opportunity! (but I will avoid the bad rubber issue for now).

First an observation about the "too-long" tie rod ends. Apparently many parts vendors currently supply similar "too-long" parts, and many suppliers don't bother to mention the discrepancy. They tend to let it "bite you in the ass" while hoping the customer may not notice or may not complain. Moss Motors at least includes an information sheet warning of the problem and indicating how to fix it before installation.

And now my pet peeve about the same situation. As every one of these parts has to be modified before use, why should the vendor expect each individual customer to struggle with modifying one or two pieces prior to use? That is a very inefficient process. It would be much more efficient for the vendor to modify the parts en-mass before selling them to the public, in which case the information sheet would not be needed and lots of customers would be very much more happy. Moss Motors, are you listening? Do you have practical response for this? Does competition and market pricing (customer pressure) prohibit this fix before sale?

On the flip side, find it just as easy to run a threading die down the tie rod an equal distance, after which the "too-long" replacement parts can be readily interchanged in the future without needing repeated modification. This leads to another bit of personal philosophy. Never modify a perfectly good part to accommodate a non-standard part. It is indeed appropriate to "fix" the the incorrect ball end rather than "bastardizing" the tie rod thread.

Some other similar issues are more blatant and bite-you-in-the-ass type. Moss Motors has recently done nice job of reproducing the MGA grill in correct form so I could put the nose of my car back to the correct original shape. My next request would be to "fix" the ill fitting rocker panels that have been bugging everyone since at least the mid 70's.
Barney Gaylord

Talking of the nice new grille, how about the MG badge that fits to it? The profile of the repro. badges is far from the original, leaving gaps at best and destroying the chromed plinth at worst (ask me how I now!)

Neil McGurk

This thread was discussed between 29/11/2010 and 02/12/2010

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