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MG TD TF 1500 - Transmission leak

I had lunch with a friend of mine today. He said his transmission was leaking at the spedo cable. We looked in the moss catalog but could not find a seal. Is there a seal there? How does one go about stoping a leak here?
Thanks,
-David
D. Sander

Fairly common David. No seal originally. Doug Pelton is selling a fix an his site--From The Frame Up. Did my own before I saw his cure - cut 2 grooves in the output pinion shaft and set an O ring in each of them. Working well so far. Now if I could just get the stupid drain plug to seal. Dan
Dan Craig

David, I have the same problem. However, I cannot get the speedo pinion housing off of the gear box and have given up on it for now. I was going to send it off to Doug Pelton to get it fixed. I had a thread in Aug on this - search for 'pinion housing removal' and you will see some comments on this subject. Good luck to your friend if he attempts to get it off. If he does let me know how he did it... John
J Ostergren

i gently??? drove a box cutter blade around the perimeter and tapped lightly on the flanges to rotate the housing. regards, tom
tom peterson

Damn! For almost 40 years I had no oil leaks from TF6288 - then we decided to "get her going". After much expense and skinned knuckles we have ourselves a great looking and performing car that dumps oil from every orifice! My once immaculate garage floor is now flawed! Cleaning the drip trays is part of the weekly clean up. The joys of owning a British car I am told.

Kev S. TF6288 (the oil slick)
K Simonsen

Kev

Others may disagree, but while a few drips now and then are expected, there is no reason a TD or TF should be loosing a lot of oil.

My recommendations? assure all mating surfaces are flat. This means you may need to have the pan and the timing chain cover machined or sanded until flat. Do the same for the transmission top cover.

Then be very meticulous with fitting your gaskets. I seal the gasket to the block using a silicon sealer and then just a light coating of oil on the other side of the gasket. Torque all pan and timing cover bolts so they are the same (I don't have the torque figure available right now).

I use a new seal on the timing chain cover with a small groove cut on the inside lip to allow oil to drain back into the engine.

I run a standard rear seal, but again, made sure the mating surface is perfectly flat.

I have had two different engines in my TD and neither leaks more than a drip or two using the above method.
Bruce Cunha

This thread was discussed between 12/10/2011 and 14/10/2011

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