New Member. 1937 TA 1646

[Ian R]

New member.
My father restored his 1937 MG TA (TA 1646) in 1983.
The TA was passed onto me on his passing & it has sat in a garage on blocks since 1992.
I’ve started a “refresh” & this is ongoing.

My father removed & completely dismantled the MPJG engine & put the bits in half a dozen boxes.
They have accompanied me on 2 house moves & spent the last 25 years on the floor of a loft in a barn.
I’ve never even opened some of the boxes to examine the contents !
The cardboard boxes are intact & dry so I assume the contents are ok but probably have some surface rust.
The MPJG has a poor reputation so I don’t consider it worth rebuilding.

A rebuilt “Morris 10” engine was fitted in its place.
This engine looks to be a XPJM/U which were installed in thousands of Morris 10/4 Utility cars, vans & items such as water pumps during WW2.
The casting numbers back this up.
As an MGTA was an old car in the early 1980’s, my father obviously fitted a freshly rebuilt old engine of comparable vintage to keep the TA running.
I found the brass engine disk under some gunge on the LHS of the engine.
It reads XPJMU & 33301.
The XPJM/U looks to be 1140 cc plus a 0.020” rebore as outlined on a plate on the lower RHS of the block..
It has circa 600 miles from the rebuild so is fresh apart from nearly 30 years of being parked on blocks.

I got the engine running the other day & it runs sweetly.
However after about 3 minutes, "Lucas smoke" appeared from behind the dash due to mice having feasted on the wiring.
So a rewire is another job added to the list.

I'm collecting ancillaries such as inlet & exhaust manifolds etc. so that it will look like a XPAG from 10 feet away.
It will be a while before TA 1646 is roadworthy again but the process has started.

[Steve Simmons]

Welcome! Glad you were paying attention when that electrical fire started. I look forward to photos of the project.

[Ian R]

After 18 months of “refreshing”, off to get new antique vehicle license plates tommorrow.

[Ian R]

Well, getting the license plates turned out to be a major issue.
After an application to the Court of Common Pleas in PA & a LOT of supporting documentation,
TA 1646 now has PA Antique plates.

Picture attached of TA 1646 at a local British car club event, the first outing since the “refresh”.

[Ian R]