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72 or 68-69

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Falkon

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After a good week and a half the local machine shop called me and said I could finally come and get my engine. Excited of course I got over their as soon as I could and forked over the $400 buck for my engine. Then we got to talking about what all they had to do and he told me that he had found out something a little interesting about my engine. They had taken the engine number and ran it though the computer and discovered that it wasn't from a 72 MG midget but rather from a 68-69 Mg midget.

Now my question is, if the engine is from a 68 or 69 then how could i find out if the car itself is actually from that same year. The person i got it from said it was a 72 but wasn't completely sure about it (he had to think for a sec before he spoke). So are there any big differences from a 68-69 mg midget to a 72 mg midget that would help me figure this out? :confuse:

:thankyousign:
 
Engine's do get swapped all the time (my '59 Bugeye has the engine from a '74 Midget in it). What's the VIN for your car?
 
I wont be able to get that until tomorrow. My car is at my dads and im at my moms. But ill get the number as soon as i can
 
Falkon said:
They had taken the engine number and ran it though the computer and discovered that it wasn't from a 72 MG midget but rather from a 68-69 Mg midget.
Click to expand...

Falkon,

You should post the engine number and chassis number. If you have concerns about doing that, PM me with the numbers.

For starters, while there are different prefixes for when production changed and for which markets, it doesn't go strictly by year. Secondly, Sprites and Midgets would have the same sequence, so I don't think it's really possible to tell if it was in a Sprite or a Midget by the number alone other than Sprite production ended in 70-71, so a later engine sequence could not have been in a Sprite originally. A BMIHT certificate would tell you for certain however.

As far as the year of the car, a '68-'69 Sprite is distinguishable from a '72 Midget in a couple significant ways.

*'68 Sprite/Midget had 2 windscreen wipers- a '69 would have 3; both would have what is called a square wheel arch in the rear fender. The opening is flat across the top covering some of the tire/wheel.

* A '72 Midget has a round wheel arch over the rear wheels. The tires is fully exposed. Of course, there is always the possibility that the wheel arch may have been modified, but a little examination of the sheet metal should tell you if that is the case or not.

As I recall, a '72 will have the ID plate in the drivers door jamb, while a '68-9 will have the number plate on the diagonal frame rail below the carbs.
 
Since you asked specifically about the engine:

Some early ('67) 1275 engines had the EN40B crankshaft, which was nitrided (and supposed to be better than any subsequent 1275 crank).

At some point ('69?), I'm pretty sure this was changed to Tuftriding, but I'm not sure of the exact date.

Honestly, for a street car I doubt it matters, but some racers might see the early EN40B crank as "better".
 
The EN40B was used only briefly in '67's and was replaced early on, certainly by 1968. They were only in the thin flange (12CC prefix) block as well.
 
It seem that before they dipped my engine they took the number plate off and either misplaced it or put it in a bag and I have yet to find it. But from how its looking I think it might be gone...or cleverly hidden. So I guess ill be putting a hold on the search for my answer, for now.
 
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