Erratic rev counter

I recently experienced an annoying problem on my ’72’ BGT of the rev counter behaving in a most erratic manner. It was noticed that at various rpm the rev counter needle blipped up towards the 7000 rpm mark which resulted in the engine misfiring and holding back when under load.
My biggest frustration was that at random periods of time (often for approximately one week, the rev counter was steady and the engine would run as sweet as a nut).
After a process of elimination I traced the fault to the flexible earthing lead within the distributor which is housed in a cotton braided sleeve and earths the contact breaker plate to the distributor metal casing via a cross head screw. The lead had corroded at the contact breaker plate yet still appeared to be connected by the cotton sleeve but in fact the copper earthing had corroded away.

With the absence of this earth lead the contact breaker (which requires an earth path when closed) seeks an earth path through the mechanics of the distributor. I replaced the flexible earth lead and eliminated the problem.

Earth lead wire in its cotton sleeve.

Many thanks to Richard Kneller (Technical Tips August 1997) regarding the rubber bowl on the end of the cold air intake drain. I had not heard of this before – result, in the middle of a recent thunderstorm I begin work following a soggy carpet saga, to unblock the said drain. I never imagined that there could some much mud, grit, etc up there. Following much prodding and pushing with a variety of implements a small ‘glug’ was heard whereupon a large-ish quantity of mucky/muddy water came out of the pipe – went down my upstretched arm and halfway down my back and in my hair.
At this precise moment Jeff and Angie some local club members appear on my doorstep on a social visit – only to be met by someone in blue overalls looking very much like James Herriot following the delivery of a particularly messy calf!
Oh the joys of owning an MG. Can anyone think of a decent reason for putting this particularly good mud trap in such a position, another wonderful design feature from MG?

In my letter last month recommending a special replacement rear main bearing oil seal with a bolt on three part carrier which I fitted to my 1098cc Midget. I omitted to mention that I had obtained the seal assembly from British Classic Sportscars of Aberdeen, Scotland telephone 01224 868633 fax 01224 868151.

I wanted to remove the head restraints so that I could recover the seats in my MGB GT but they would not budge. This is because they were designed to be anti-theft and the oval tube that locates the head restraint in the back of the seat has a spring clip at the base which expands and locks it into the shaft inside the seat back. Often a really good tug on the head restraint will free it as the spring catch will retract again under extreme force. However, if this fails the clip can sometimes be released by inserting a very thin steel strip down the side of the locating tube to force the spring clip back. If all else fails the only remaining way to release the spring catch would be the remove the spring clips from the base of the seat cover and unscrew the side panels and pull the seat cover up as far as possible to get access to the inside of the seat frame.