Well, the heater motor arrived from V.B. today. First thing I noticed is
that it has male spade connectors imbedded in opposite sides of the case,
180 degrees apart, and the old motor had two wire leads with bullet
connectors coming out through a rubber grommet. Are these spade connectors
normal for the MGB? Surely not correct for the MGA. Now I would need to
go make pigtails with bullets on one end and (small) female spade
connectors on the other end, so I don't have to cut the bullet ends off my
correct MGA wiring harness. That should look the bodge.
Then I measure the new motor case to be just 2-1/2" long when the old one
is 3-1/4" long. It appears that the whole 3/4" difference in length is in
the magnetic poles of the armature and the field coils, where those parts
in the new motor are only about 1" long. And the new motor weighs 2 lb 10
oz, where the old one weighs 3 lb 14 oz, about 2:3 weight ratio. Makes me
leery about the performance, and possibly overheating or shorter life for
the new motor.
And to top it all off, the new motor has the small triangular flange around
the waist of the motor case (the correct distance from the working end),
but not the large circular standoff bracket to mate it to the heater box.
So here I would have to drill out the rivets in the old motor flange and
salvage the 40-year-old rubber grommets and metal washers and the large
bracket, and transfer all these parts to the new motor with new _shoulder_
rivets or machine screws and tube spacers to get it all together.
Excepting if I spend even more time I may be able to find new rubber
grommets somewhere.
And of course the picture in the V.B. MGA parts catalog looks exactly like
my original motor, right down to the long length of the motor case, the
long wire connection leads, and the attached mounting flange.
This all sounds a bit much for a $99 motor with nearly $14 S&H added on.
Should I spend the two hours adapting it to mount or send it back? Anybody
have a good used MGA heater motor they'd like to part with?
For the record, the new motor has a "Made In England" tag on it, and
another that says "Kysor Europe Ltd" with their address, part number 1960,
phone and fax numbers, and "12V(-)". It also has two through bolts holding
the housing together (similar to the old motor but shorter).
Any ideas on what I should do with this new motor, other than put it in one
of the more obvious obscene places?
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude (but no forced air)
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