• Hi Guest!
    You can help ensure that British Car Forum (BCF) continues to provide a great place to engage in the British car hobby! If you find BCF a beneficial community, please consider supporting our efforts with a subscription.
    There are some perks with a member upgrade!
    **Upgrade Now**
    (PS: Subscribers don't see this gawd-aweful banner
Tips
Tips

Engine question

Share this page

Michael Oritt

Michael Oritt

Yoda
Silver
Country flag
Offline
I have a 1500 MGA engine in my Elva and today for the first time I noticed a fitting:

It is a short hex bolt (I think it removed with either a 11/16" or 3/4" socket) located on the right side of the block below and to the rear of the distributor aperture and below and ahead of the OP sender hole.

The hole goes into the block on a horizontal plane. When I removed it there was a bit of oil on the end of the threaded portion--it looks like it goes into the crankcase.

What is its purpose?
 
Well, I'll take a stab since no one else has, I'm pretty sure nothing like this exist on the 1800 blocks, but it could be a drain for the oil galley on that side, a 1275 has something simular on the opposite side of the motor.
 
Knowing nothing, that's what I would expect as well. Or even a way for the manufacture to clean out the galley during the build process.
 
The 1800 B-series has that hole just aft & below the dizzy for a coolant drain petcock. Oil evidence would tend to rule out water jacket drain plug tho.
 
I found this on the MGA Guru site:

https://mgaguru.com/mgtech/care/csm/mg291.pdf

That's definitely the hole that I was talking about and the tap has obviously been replaced with a plug.

When I took out the plug I had already drained the water from the engine via the bottom of the radiator preparatory to pulling the cylinder head so perhaps what I thought was oil was simply a drop or two of sooty coolant.

In any case thanks for the help.
 
/bcforum/images/%%GRAEMLIN_URL%%/thumbsup.gif
 
Yep, that's what that is, a coolant block drain, alot of people use a bolt over the old brass petcock. I've got a brass petcock in good working order, if you want one, but the bolt is easier.
 
Why they made it backward I will never understand. It is different from all others and I always forget and have mine the wrong way the first time on an engine.
 
Back
Top