The MGA has a knob attached to its shift lever again. The process was not
as straightforward as one would hope but that just added to the adventure.
After getting feedback on how to proceed, the plan was to pull the lever,
grind or turn the stub down, and rethread it to the original size. Well
this plan was changed after a Saturday trip to the all British swamp meet
(yes I mean swamp- it was too wet for waterfowl). While there friend,
neighbor, and fellow MGA musher Mike H. found a complete 4 synchro trans
just laying around and, according to knowledgeable sources, the shift lever
would fit an A but the knob thread was larger. For the princely sum of ten
somolians, I was the proud owner of a B tranny of dubious ancestory but
sprouting a shift lever that I could use with minimal problems. When
moving the tranny the lever came off so my first problem- lever removal-
was already solved.
Later that morning I was sorting through a box of parts looking at a
distributor (mine has been over tightened at one time and the mounting
flange is damaged) when I uncovered what appeared to be a genuine MGA shift
lever! After strenuous negotiation driven at least in part because neither
of us had change for a twenty, I had secured the distributor (loose bushing
but whole) and the highly desired shift lever in exchange for the
transmission purchased earlier in the day- less shift lever of course just
to hedge my bets. All in all a successful day in the swamp.
Later that day I found out that, in MGA 1600's at least, the shift lever
does not just pop out. The two dowels that prevent lever rotation were
blocking upward progress. One of the reasons that I posted the initial
question about lever removal is that I remembered this being a problem. On
both "new" levers the grooves for these dowels when all of the way to the
bottom. I went over to Mike's house because he is rebuilding his tranny at
the moment and took a look at his shift tower. Sure enough, these grooves
stop part way down the ball on the 1600 shift lever so the only way to get
the lever out is to pull the dowels or grind the grooves longer. Both
approaches would require removal of the shifter tower.
Grapes of Wrath time! We measured the diameter of Mike's shift lever and
it was .425 on the top- just under 7/16. I pulled the aluminum bushing of
my Moss wood shift knob and found the OD to be .620. Plenty of room to
drill out and tap 7/16-20. The knob was modified and I attacked the shift
lever in the A with the appropriate die. It wouldn't go so I measured the
broken shift lever and it came out to .450- .025 bigger than Mike's and too
big for a 7/16 thread! (These cars are both '61 MGA's and both levers look
original. I guess they didn't control that dimensions too closely since it
did not mate to anything.) After much thought we tried chasing a 1/2-20
(only a short distance as a test) thread on the lever but the threads were
not deep enough. We then tried 1/2-13 threads and they looked great.
Since the shift knob is just soft aluminum, I rammed a 1/2 -13 tap right
through the 7/16-20 threads that we had just put in there. Viola! Glue
the bushing back into the knob and thread it on. I don't think I will be
breaking it off again in the near future and it looks good. I now have two
extra shift levers but them's the breaks.
Regards,
Bill Eastman
61 MGA no sporting a fashionably shortened shift lever
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