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1500 midget jack points

BobS76

Senior Member
Offline
What are the best points for lifting the car using a floor jack? I am wanting to go over the brakes and found that the one of the four points used for inserting the factory supplied jack is rotting out and deforms under pressure.

Does any one know if the factory jack points can be rebuilt, for a price less that of the total cost of the car?

One other thought. I had just recently received this car from my son, rebuilt the cylinder head and took it for a drive. Great, performs even better than my old MGB (which my son got - guess who got the best of that deal). But the gears grind a little when I shift, especially down. Could that be clutch hydraulics and/or adjustment? Clutch itself? gear box? Note that the idle was running a bit high - I found that the throttle return spring was quite loose.

Thatnks,
Bob
 
If the jack points are rotten, then the car very likely needs new rocker panels. It may be time to start poking around with a screw driver and see how rusty the car is.

I'll let the guys familiar with the spitfire bits answer your gearbox questions.
 
no idea about the tranny - however, I do know many people will not use their OEM jacks as they can wreck the paint. I tend to simply use the the axle or front suspension or the front "frame" pieces.
 
Bob, my car also has a bum jacking point, but in my case it looks more like it was a bad weld than rust. When I have to lift mine, I usually get my floor jack under the rear axle. For the front, I put a block of wood on the jack to keep the "teeth" from denting, and put it under one of the rails where the A-arms attach, next to the cross brace.

As for your grinding gears, I've noticed the synchros aren't particularly great on my car, and having driven one other I think maybe the 1500 gearbox just isn't the smoothest shifting thing. I think if your clutch needed bleeding, you would have a hard time putting it in any gear, even stopped. There's no adjustment for the clutch, but bleeding it is a pain. I've found one of the tricks to bleeding the 1500 clutch is to bleed it once to get most of the air out, then stomp quickly on the clutch several times to get the air out of the arch in the hose. Since the hose makes an arch that goes higher than the master or the slave, bleeding it the slow way will never get the air bubble out of that hose. Stomping it and releasing it quickly will force the air to either burp out the master cylinder or relocate to the slave, which is why you might need to bleed it a second time.
 
Thanks.

I wasn't sure that the axel tube had the strength to support the car weight. And there were some good thoughts you had on the clutch.
 
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