MGB Starter Bolt Field Report
MG Built Half a Million of the Best Little Roadsters Ever Made. Then They Left No Room to Turn the Bottom Starter Bolt.
June 2026 · 8 min read
Nineteen years with this car. I do my own work, because the last good British-car man around here is closer to closing up than I am.
There is a job on these old MGs that the book calls an hour, and that has cost more good Saturdays than any other. It is getting the bottom bolt off the starter. The bolt costs nothing. The reason men give up is not the bolt. It is that you can see it, you can lay two fingers on it, and you cannot get a wrench square on it long enough to turn it.
I am not a mechanic and I am not selling anything. I am a retired civil engineer, and for the last nineteen years I have kept a 1972 MGB in my garage outside Richmond. I do my own work, partly because I like it, and mostly because the men who still know these cars are retiring one by one. The few who are left run better than a hundred dollars an hour and book you out for weeks. Half of them will not take a car this old at all.
I am writing this for every owner who has leaned over that little engine, looked down at a starter bolt he could touch and could not turn, and felt the quiet anger of a capable man beaten by half an inch of room. Because a retired British-car man named Reg put the answer in my hand at a show, and told me to pass it on.
The part of the brochure they never wrote
Everyone tells you the same two things about the B. That it is the best-selling British sports car ever built, near half a million of them, which is true. And that they are simple cars to work on, which is mostly true, right up until you hit the one spot that is not. The starter sits low on the side of the block, and the day the old Lucas finally packs up, you find it.
Most of us fit a gear-reduction starter when the original dies. It spins the engine like it never did when the car was new, and it is the right thing to do. But the body of it crowds the block, and the bottom bolt ends up in a gap so tight a normal wrench will not fit over the head of it. Men on the MG forums grind a wrench thinner on the bench grinder just for that one bolt, and even then they turn it a few degrees at a time. One fellow wrote that he spent a day finding the right angle and tore his hands to shreds. That is not a man who cannot turn a bolt. That is a bolt with no room around it.
Everything in my toolbox had a go. Here is how each one did.
- Standard socket and ratchet. The socket would not seat square, the housing and the block were too close, and the ratchet had nowhere to swing.
- A combination wrench. It would not even fit in the gap over the head of the bolt. Too thick by a hair, and a hair is all it takes.
- A thin-wall socket on a wobbly extension, coming in from the front. Closest yet, then it walked off under load and I lost the few degrees I had.
- A wrench I ground thinner on the grinder, the way the forums tell you. A few degrees at a time, and I tore up my hands earning every one of them.
- The specialist. Better than a hundred an hour, booked out for weeks, and most of them will not take a car this old at all.
What the access actually costs a man
Put the real cost on the table, the honest way. The bolt is not seized. A specialist would not need penetrant or heat or a single new part. He would charge you for access, and nothing else. The independent men who still know these cars run better than a hundred an hour, their waiting lists run to weeks, and the dealer is long gone, no franchise has touched a new MG on these shores since the seventies.
So the belief settles in, the one you hear at every British car show. You only keep a little British car if you can pay another man to reach the parts you cannot. I nearly swallowed that myself, sat on the creeper near dark with raw knuckles, looking at one bolt I could touch and could not turn, weighing what the car was costing me against what it is worth now. My wife came out, looked at the car, looked at me, and just left a glass of tea on the bench. After all these years she knows when to say nothing.
You can get two fingers on it. You cannot get a tool square on it. That half inch is the whole story.
Then an old British-car man put a bar in my hand
Reg is seventy two. He ran an MG, Triumph and Healey shop for thirty four years, the old kind, the kind that closed when the trade dried up and the young ones all went to computers. Now he turns up at the meets with a clean MGA and a folding chair. I met him at a Brits-on-the-lawn show, told him about the bottom starter bolt, the ground-down wrench, the torn hands. He did not laugh. He just nodded the way a man nods at a problem he made peace with a long time ago, went to a drawer in his truck, past his own bent wrenches worn smooth, and handed me something else.
It looked like a flat steel bar, a square drive at each end, with a slight offset built into it. He had me press the drive end with my thumb. Something gave, very slightly, inside the steel. A roller chain, sealed the length of the bar. "The chain carries the offset for you, so you keep square torque the whole way," he said. "You come in flat from the side, where the room is, and the turn lands dead square at the far end where your hand fits. It does not fold like a wobble. It does not walk off the flats like a crowfoot. Thirty four years I ground my own wrenches thin for these cars. Somebody finally built the thing right. Buy the real one, leave the copies alone, and do the job once."
"The chain carries the offset for you."
A slim, dead straight bar, about half an inch thick, that slides flat into the gap by the starter where nothing else fits. The sealed roller chain inside carries your pull round the offset and lands it square on the head, with a ratchet out in clear air where your hand has room. It is called the Savary offset wrench.
The sealed chain is the trick
A roller chain inside the steel body carries torque round the offset, so it never folds like a flex-head or walks like a universal joint.
It moves the ratchet out of the gap
A slim half inch thick bar slips flat into the gap by the starter, and your ratchet swings in open air instead of fouling on the housing.
Takes your own sockets
Square drive at both ends fits the sockets already in your box. Holds real torque, up to seventy newton meters, a hair past fifty foot pounds.
It reaches. It is honest.
This solves access to a bolt that will turn but you cannot get a tool on. It is the right shape for a tight bay, not a miracle for a stud already rusted to nothing.
It only comes from one place
You will not find it at the parts store and you will not find it at the show. The maker sells direct from their own site only. Eighty nine dollars, shipped to your door. That is half of one hour of any specialist who will still take the car, for the one tool that turns the bolt everybody dreads into a quiet Saturday morning with the radio on.
What happened next
Other owners who stopped paying for access
"Fitted a gear-reduction starter and the bottom bolt stopped me cold, same as it had years before. Came in flat from the side with this bar and it turned square on the second pull. No ground-down wrench, no torn knuckles."
"I once grovelled under the TR most of an afternoon on the bottom starter bolt. This bar reaches it flat from the side and my hand never has to fit where it does not. It works the carbs and the manifold nuts just as well."
"Bought a cheap chain bar off Amazon first. It folded on the first real pull, just like the article warned. The real one from the maker does not give at all. Reaches the back carb nut I always dreaded. Night and day."
Reg, thirty four years an MG, Triumph and Healey man. The one who put the real bar in my hand and told me to pass it on.
Get yours before the driving season runs out
If you keep a little British car running, an MGB, a Triumph, a Healey, and you have ever sat there staring at a bolt you could touch and could not turn, you already know exactly what this is worth. And if you have been telling yourself you are getting too old for that engine bay, it was never your hands. It was the room Abingdon left you, fifty years ago, building a car to fit the body and never your hand.
British Iron Field Notes is a reader-supported publication. This is a first-person account from a private owner and reflects his personal experience. The Savary offset extension wrench is a hand tool designed to reach fasteners in tight, blind locations. It improves access; it is not represented as a remedy for fasteners that are corroded or seized beyond normal service. Always follow proper service procedures and torque specifications. Results vary by vehicle and condition. This publication is not affiliated with MG, Triumph, Austin-Healey or British Motor Heritage.
