Does that thing have overdrive? If it does, you might consider draining the tranny and then taking the plate off the the overdrive unit and cleaning the unit out as well. I had a problem with my OD going all gushy on me and malfunctioning. Cleaned it out and haven't had a problem since.It's not a bad thing to do, just to be on the safe side. My car had been sitting for maybe two years when I bought it.

Great news, Gary & Carla!

...as Tony says, we may have gone a different way after reading the last post info first. No harm, the task is accomplished! Congrats on gettin' it lit off!


Now, as Holmes said to Watson: "The game's afoot!"




V-12 Jag we have in the shop currently (long history, old client, couldn't say no). Rebuilt the carbs, now on to the brakes. I'll likely be the Guinea Pig and drive it a couple days before we turn it back over to the client.

No OD on this one. We do plan to drain the tranny and rear end today or tomorrow and refill. Draining is no problem but how/where do you add the fluids to these? Thanks again to everyone.

To fill the tranny, there is a fill port behind the radio console on the passenger side (behind in this instance meaning towards the front of the car). Reach behind the radio and you should find a couple of snaps that keep the carpet in place. Unsnap them and pull the carpet back to reveal a rubber plug atop the tranny tunnel. Remove the plug and there should be a dipstick handle. This pull straight up to remove the fill plug from the top of the tranny. It will be jammed in there tightly and has "O" ring seals. Spin it around a couple of times to loosen it up and then find a proper length screwdriver to pry it up out of its hole. Fill the tranny through a length of clear plastic tubing via that hole, while trying not to spill oil on the seats or carpet.

The rear end has a drain plug on the bottom and a fill plug on the back. As I recall, these two (and perhaps the tranny drain plug too) have an odd size of square tapered hole in them that won't fit anything in your tool kit (though it is tantalizingly close to 1/2" socket extension size. I found a piece of appropriately sized bar stock at the hardware store, filed it into a bit of a taper, and attached large vice grips to it to use as a wrench.

The tranny takes regular 4.5 pints of engine oil (typically 20w/50), while the rear axle takes 2.25 pints of Hypoy 90 or 80w/90 gear oil.

Davester...thank you soooo much! I'l follow your instructions. Why do engineers make things like that? Probably because they never WORK ON THEM!!!

I had that happen to me once and I found two hoses crossed. For the life of me I can't remeber which ones. Make sure every thing is connected to the right port on the carb. I think it was the fuel port and the evap port. They are about the same size.

I slightly ground down a 1/2" socket extension and it worked great in the rear end. Thanks for mentioning that.

As you start making tools that will be pecularily for the MG - find a drawer in your tool box to put them all......my lid area is pretty much filled up with things I've made to work on MG's only.

I'm actually doing that and even making a list of what size wrench, etc. fits what. May be sorta "anal" (as they say nowadays ) but it may ease frustration in the future.

You'll get to a point where just lookin' at the fastener you know what wrench to grab.

I've had rebuilt carbs dump fuel out of the cannister....I didn't set one of the floats properly & it was allowing too much fuel to go through the system & into the cannister....readjusting that float solved my problem.

But, now you see why I don't think about starting a car until somewhere way down on my checklist.

I DO understand. We just felt like we needed to know that we had a runnable engine, etc. before we put a lot of money (that we have very little of right now)into the car. Everything is going well so far and we're learning every day. Our intent is to make this as safe and serviceable as possible without trying to "restore" it. Thanks for all of the help.