The 1292cc Morris 10
engine of 1935/36 was a
very basic design, with
only a single carburettor
and a direct-action
gearchange ....http://www.mgenthusiast.com MGE AUGUST 2019^25
MG sports car model, as opposed
to a saloon car like the concurrent
SA and VA types, to use this
particular engine. It was just one
of the cataclysmic events which
followed Leonard Lord’s cull of the
Abingdon design and development
facility in 1935. From that moment
on, he decreed, all new MG design
would be done in the Nuffield (i.e.
Morris) drawing offices at Cowley
and the new MG models would
have to use simple, if modified,
Morris/Wolseley running gear.
From interviews and opinions
granted in later life we know,
from people like Cecil Kimber and
Jack Daniels, that this was not a
popular proclamation. If they had
complained too much they would
have been thrown out of their jobs
summarily. The result was that,
when the TA was conceived, the only
engine suitable for its two-seater
chassis was a modified version
of the existing Nuffield overhead-
valve 1292cc unit, which was being
built in Coventry and had already
been specified for use in Morris
Ten and Wolseley 10/40 saloons.
Even so, at the time, the lineage
of this power unit was already
extensive, for it was one of the
last survivors of what this author
has always called the ‘102mm’
family. When a new family of side-
valve Morris engines, originally
for the famous ’Bullnose’, was
introduced as the 1920s opened,
they were produced on state-of-
the-art machine tooling at Morris
Engines, either in four-cylinder or
six-cylinder form, always with the
same 102mm stroke dimension.The smallest bore size offered
1292cc and the largest (six-cylinder)
2561cc. Although many detail
changes were made in the next 10
years and more, it was not until
1935 that the design was modified
to have overhead-valve, instead of
side-valve, cylinder heads, yet the
102mm stroke dimension remained.
When the Morris-type 1292cc
engine (Coded MPJM) was modified
for MG TA use, it became Type MPJG,
because it had twin SU HV3 1^1 / 8 ”
carburettors and produced 50bhp
at 4,500rpm, which compared with
only 37bhp at 4,500rpm for the
Morris 10 power unit. It retained the
white metal engine bearings, and
no synchromesh in the gearbox.Although synchromesh gears
were introduced soon after the TA
was launched, the change to shell
bearings was not made until 1938 –
actually after the engine in my own
particular TA was manufactured.
The real point of this story is
to emphasise what a short-term
‘interim’ car the TA actually was,
for in 1939 it would be replaced by
the identical-looking TB, though
that car was blessed with the new
generation 1250cc XPAG, which not
only had a much shorter stroke, of
90mm (3.5433”), but could therefore
be revved faster, and was eminently
tuneable for motorsport purposes.
And from 1939, what then for the
old MPJG engine of the TA? It was
immediately killed off, though the
basic Morris/Wolseley types would
carry on until 1955, with the last of
all (in 1802cc size) being found
in Morris Taxicabs! GR.... so, for the MG TA, it
was given twin SU
carburettors, a more
efficient exhaust
manifold and a remote-
control gear change
atop the unchanged
gearbox casing.IN THE RAIN IT
LEAKED FROM BOTH
THE FLOORBOARDS
AND FROM RATHER
ILL-FITTING SIDE
SCREENS...