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MG MGB Technical - Soaking pilot bushing in oil

What is the purpose of soaking a new pilot bushing in oil? Is it just for initial start-up similar to using cam lube during an engine rebuild?

Tom
Tom Custer

The [i;pt bush is made from Oilite which is a porous material abd the reason for soaking is to saturate it to provide sufficient lubrication for its working life
Iain MacKintosh

Tom - Try doing this to speed things up. Put one open end of the bushing on your thumb, fill the bushing with oil until it brims over the open end. place you other thumb over the open end (it helps to be double jointed) and press your two thumbs together. Keep pressing until you see oil oozing out of the wall of the bushing - Viola, a 24 hour soak in about 10 seconds.

Not sure what a [i;pt bushing is :), so it may be made from oilite, but the pilot bushings are made from sintered bronze, which is a porous, but unlike oilite, isn't already filled with oil, thus necessitating the soak. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

Thanks for the info gents. Seems amazing to me that the bushing will retain oil long enough to provide lubrication over the years. But I guess it works!

Tom
Tom Custer

Tom,
I can tell you from personal experience what will happen if the don't soak the bushing long enough. You can have a lovely loud squeal every time you go to engage the clutch. When I changed my B over to an overdrive in the spring of 2007 I damaged the new pilot bushing, the one that had been soaking for two days, when I went to put it in. The second one only soaked a couple of hours. I tried forcing the oil in but was not successful.I ended up pulling the engine to redo it last fall. Not a fun job.
Tony
Tony Shoviak

How long does it need to soak for?
rich osterhout

Using my method, 10 - 15 seconds. I did that on our TD and have experienced no squealing in over 25 years of driving the car since reassembling it. I also have over 10 years of driving our MGB in which the bushing was treated the same way. (in case anyone thinks that our MGs are garage queens, they are the only two vehicle we have other than an old pickup used to haul stuff, so the MGs are driven on a daily basis). Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

Rich,
If your not in a hurry 24 hrs will do.
Tony
Tony Shoviak

One quick thing to do. Make sure the bush fits over the end of the shaft BEFORE you push it into the flywheel. I had one that didn't once leading to much frustration trying to get the gearbox to bolt up!


Simon Jansen

One thing NOT to do when using Oil lite bearings like these ~ DO NOT use Grease!!!
Altho there are plenty of bushings that do call for grease as a lubricant, porous, oil impregnated bearings/bushings used in many areas of our cars absolutely do not!

As David and the others have mentioned, a good forcing (by David's method or a soak) of fresh oil into a porous bushing such as the spigot bush is the correct way of setting it up for long life. Using grease will only clog the pores in these sintered bronze bearings and in the end cause them to run dry and squeal in protest.
Bob Muenchausen

One quick question befoe putting this thread to bed.Any good kind of motor oil?Why i'm asking is because i forgot to change my when i did the engine rebuild and the motor is still out of the car.
rich osterhout

This thread was discussed between 10/11/2008 and 14/11/2008

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