Paul,
YES. There is a difference in the Midget racks. I know, I bought the wrong
one! I think the upper cut off year was 1971, but please confirm that with
someone else as I don't recall exactly. The latter rack has much thinner
arms and it seems a wider mounting area.. If you were making your own
adapters that might not be a problem. I was even able to use the latter
Midget clamps (four of the upper pieces) and four thick walled spacers under
the bottom mounts to connect it to the Tiger crossmember. In that regard I
think that the adaptation of the latter rack is easier than the older rack
because you do not need the special machined blocks to hold the rack.
However, in the end I opted to stick with my Tiger rack. The lack of a
lathe to fabricate arm/tie rod end adapters, concerns about the thin arms
(though they were about the size on my much heavier Turbo Coupe) so....???)
and the fact that the Tiger rack was more conducive to the smaller steering
wheel I was using ratio wise were all factors. If you are interested email
me, I think I have pictures buried on my comuputer here somewhere when
another lister and I discussed this a few years ago. I don't think there is
any difference in the MGB steering arms that I have ever noticed.
I find both the arms and racks at Pick A Part every few trips or so. The
wrong rack (and likely the right one too) was about $35 and the steering
arms were $3 each. There is also a set of MGB arms that seems to constantly
be on Ebay (or the guy has a lot of them) for $40.
Finally FYI the arm mounting holes need to be filed (the bolt spacing is
just a tad short or long I forget which). It probably doesn't matter much
but the hole is usually elongated to move the arm slightly forward.
Tom Witt
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