MG Car Club of South Australia
MGC NEWS
MGC conversations by Richard Mixture, September 2017
sonable. Have a look at Holmes Rac-
ing, http://www.holmesracing.co/.
Two Heads are better?
H
ello, it’s Richard here again. Two
heads are better than one but not
when one is full of cracks. A head full of
cracks was the dilemma facing Restora-
tion Ron up there in them Hills, yes the
Adelaide Hills.
Once the head arrived Ron had it recon-
ditioned, painted and fitted it on the old
girl. He says “It is now installed & run-
ning like a clock, well that's a slight ex-
aggeration.” I would hope so Ron, tick-
tock, tick-tock. Even Laurie’s V8 runs
better that a clock, although I have seen
a cuckoo in there somewhere.
A couple of MGC Runs ago, Ron invited
us up to have a look at his latest restora-
tion project, a lovely British sports car
from the 1960s. I will not mention the
make here in this respectable MG publi-
cation but I’ll give it a nom de plume of
‘Tr6’. Well the ‘Tr6’ is working wonder-
fully well but on the other side of the
shed the poor old MGC was fluffing a bit
with a leaky head. After an investigation
Ron found the head had more welds
than a Collins-Class submarine and
more cracks than one too!
Now getting back to that alloy head,
Holmes Racing reports; “The MGC al-
loy head updated casting has now been
heat treated and is on its way to the ma-
chine shop. Plan is to machine it on the
new CNC unit and this should be the
final form for all following heads.
The main problem was wall thickness
around the plug; the walls are thin even
on the cast Iron head so for the first test
head I used a 10mm plug. We have in-
creased the wall thickness to the maxi-
mum without spoiling cooling round the
plug.
Now that nice young Register Co-
ordinator received one of those electric
letters from Ron, you know, letters over
the inner-net, asking him if he “may
know of someone with a good spare
MGC head hidden in their shed.” He
told that young fella Ron that he knew a
few people with sheds but not any with
MGC heads lying about. He made a few
enquires and past them on but in the
mean time Ron had found a price less
MGC head in the UK plus a very nice
option of an aluminium head “but” says
Ron “the price scared me, around 3,000
pounds + shipping + duty + GST.” So
he decided to wait for a price on the so
far price less head from Steve Curtis in
the mother land. When he was given a
price he grabbed it as it was quite rea-
We intend to continue to use the 10mm
plug which comes in all heat ranges as
required for longevity of the casting this
is the way to go. I am sure that at some
stage someone will over torque a plug
and will need to repair the head; the ex-
tra meat around the plug will allow this.
A new set of valves has been made for
us to use which will be a nice improve-
ment in flow.
The amount of effort involved in bringing
an alloy head to the C community has
been huge by all parties from Steve and
I, to our caster, machinist and finisher. In
taking our time to get it right we will en-
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