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MG MGB Technical - Salisbury Axle clunk

On the 1970 B, I originally replaced the side gear washers at 130,000 miles and 130,000 later, the clunk is back in force. The fiber washers seem to be the weak point. If there are bronze or otherwise metallic washers available for the side gears, I would like to try these. The clunk is obnoxious and the axle is otherwise a reliable unit.

Would washers from a Dana Model 30 Jeep axle work? The MGB tube axle appears to be a Dana derivative.
Glenn Mallory

Hi Glenn
Not sure if the Dane washers will fit or not.
A lot of modern cars use a hardened steel washer, nearly all the fords here with B/W axles have hardened steel washers for both the sun(side) gears and the planetries. I'm sure you'll be able to find something.
I used the steel plates out of a Toyota ute lsd in one years ago. they were a bit of a tight fit being 1mm(.040") thick-----the std MGB washer is .035" thick.
I'm pretty sure Mga, early mgb banjo diffs had bronze washers but most suppliers supply the fibre ones for them now
You'll find something
I think here's a bloke on one of the brittish v8 forums selling hard stainless steel ones--might be worth chasing up
Cheers
willy
William Revit

Found this---might still be doing them--?

https://www.chicagolandmgclub.com/techtips/mgb/ra_thrust_washers.html
William Revit

We do a lot of these. 90% of them the main wear is in the cupped thrust washers under the planet gears. Some have collapsed completely resulting in wear in the cage. Wear also occurs on the teeth of all four gears themselves.

Yellow metal side thrusts are available in +005 and +013 from Moss and no doubt others. Most we do need the +005 (040 total) to eliminate lash between the 4 gears.

Where the cage is badly worn ideally a replacement item is needed, but if none are available it can be shimmed out by putting a second cup thrust suitable trimmed on OD (to fit in the wear recess) under the new one. For that reason worn cup thrusts are worth keeping.
Paul Walbran

Paul, thank you for suggesting the oversized yellow metal side washers. These are not available in the U.S. so I ordered them from the UK.

I was surprised to find very little wear on the phenolic side washers. They had been replaced about 120,000 miles ago to cure a similar clunking condition. The copper washers on the satellite gears were also in good condition. There was mild wear in the cross pin and I was glad to have ordered a replacement.

I had two sets of replacement copper satellite gear washers. These actually went in slightly undersize of those that I removed. Adding the 0.005 x 2 at the sides took up the slack.

In any case, the CLUNK IS GONE! This is a dirty job because of the stinky 90W oil. I was able to pull the brake backing plate aside without draining the brake fluid and the wheel bearing popped right out using a slide hammer. Other than removing the differential cover, nothing else was otherwise disturbed. To quiet that thing down, it was well worth mucking about under the car.

Glenn Mallory

Nice one Glenn. That move of shifting the brake backplate out just enough to move the halfshaft the minimum amount needed to sneak the gears out is what my team does, and is a worthwhile time saver for sure.
Paul Walbran

This thread was discussed between 09/04/2023 and 28/04/2023

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