MG Sports Cars

As far as I am aware the MGC rear axle is of the same design as the later MGB rear axle. (Sailsbury tube). So I expect that MGC flanges can be put on a B so as to enable it to take 5 stud wheels such as the ones on a Jaguar.

I know that the front suspension of an MGC is of a very different design to that on an MGB but are the stub axle assemblies or wheel flanges of a similar design?

Alternativly, does any one know where one might find 5 stud flanges that could be fitted to the front of an MGB.

I am interested in running the Jaguar "kent" style alloys.

David, if you already have the MGC components then go for it, but if not be aware that most of the MGCs sold in NA came with wire wheels and the bolt on hubs and axles are very hard to find. As I recall the Jaguar wheels share the same lug pattern as the standard Chevrolet pattern. There are a couple of ways to go for the rear, either redrill the existing hubs and brake drums for the correct pattern or install a narrowed Chevy rear axle. The axle from the S10 pickup is popular for this as it is the cleanest housing already designed for leaf springs. With that swap you also get access to many many gear ratios to pick from as well. For the front there are a couple of options. There is a Chevy front hub that can be adapted to the B spindle as we are using on the Roadmaster project or you can go with a custom hub from someone like Classic Conversion Engineering.

Bill's advice pretty much mirrors what I was thinking...

However, when I'm logged-on here as "moderator" I have an advantage in that I can usually tell where people are posting from. (ISP addresses appear on my screen, next to where "UserID" is displayed.) Bill mentioned that North American MGC's almost always have wire-wheel axles and that a Chevy S10 axle might be a sensible upgrade, but I'm pretty sure David is in England. I don't know what axle options might make economical sense in that case.

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Curtis, I have now updated.

Bill, over here a Chevy is a rebadged Dawoo and they are all front wheel drive shopping baskets. A reasonable number of MGCs came with bolt on wheels. I have not tried to get any flanges and drums though. Redrilling is something I had not thought about. It could be used both front and back I guess. It was seeing the Jaguar Kent alloys on the roadmaster that made be think of fitting them on my B. Plenty of scrap Jaguars here. So I had thought about a narrowed Jaguar IRS back end but that would be a much bigger job.

David, I'm fighting the same exact fight. I did re-drill one of the stock rear hubs but am not happy with the way it came out. I am going to do them differently and buy a second one to replace the first one I did, unless of course I can find a set of hubs that somebody else makes. I'm looking at a 5 x 4-1/2 pattern.

My original 1980 hubs are forged with thicker areas around the 4 original bolts on the back side. I'm confident that the thinner areas where 4 of the new 5 bolt pattern go is strong enough for a street car as it's about .375 when spot faced on the back to make a flat stud seat, (the fifth shares an original hole on a 4-1/2" bolt circle). The problem I ran into is that the MGB studs are a tapered seat-type and after cutting the taper then the thickness goes down to about .25". That's fine to roll it around on, and there's lot's of OEM axle flanges that are about the same thickness, but I'm not feeling groovy about it for my V8 car.
I think the answer is to use a flat-seated stud and only spot-face the back flat and to the minimum amount.

Bill, do you have more info on the Chevy front hub conversion? Which application is this from?

Front MGC hubs are a direct bolt on to the MGB front suspension. You will also need MGC rotors and MGBV8 calipers. The MGC rotor (11" diameter) is machined down to the MGB diameter of 10.75". It's easy to do on a standard brake lathe. MGC rotors are 1/2" thick, same as a MGBV8, which is why V8 calipers are used. This also makes a nice brake upgrade to your MGB! The MGC bolt pattern is 5 4 3/4", which very common and wheel selection easy.
Bad news is MGC bolt on hubs are REALLY hard to find.

Bill

"...over here a Chevy is a rebadged Dawoo and they are all front wheel drive shopping baskets"

Such sacrilege!

Porsche rotors from a 944 is a direct fit to the front axle but then you get stuck with the Porsche bolt pattern. I am working on a solution to have the rear ones fit also to the MGB hub. Front rotors from the 944 are ventilated so very good braking and no fading. I'll try to send a pic in another message.

Carl,
Why would you call it a shopping basket. It must be a fast one because it has a 2.2 L 4 cyl engine DOHC made by GMC. My father in law had one and I did all the maintenance on it. Loved to take it out for a quick around the bloc.
Too bad they don't make such a cheap good car anymore.
Werner

I was quoting David from the UK, above my post, Werner. I do not have any experience with a Daewoo FWD.

Before I got bolt on hubs for my MGC, I had some unusable spline drive hubs with clapped out splines.

For the rear, I had the splines and the taper machined off, and installed longer wheel studs to use bolt on wheels

Similarly in the front, I had the splines and taper machined off, then added a 1" spacer to the hub. This spacer allowed me to use a 1/2" countersunk screw on the hub side tapped into the hub to retain the wheel, and a 3/8" (IIRC) countersunk screwfron the wheel side of the spacer through the hub and rotor to retain the rotor.

An option if you have some used up hubs, the machine work and all cost less than the bolt on hubs did. Always good to have options.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/17/2019 07:51PM by twentyover.