New or used parts

When it comes to parts MGB owners are some of the luckiest car owners in the world. Until recently there have been some very large companies offering nearly every part you could ever possibly need, at very reasonable prices to rebuild your MGB. Now, think about that. You can buy nearly every part you need for a niche, reasonably low production (compared to normal cars) 50+ year old car. That's crazy. There are 15-year-old mass production cars that you can't buy parts for and in some cases, you can buy, but they are prohibitively expensive for the cars value. I say until recently because unfortunately, rampant capitalism has now reached the small classic car parts market, and these companies have been taken over and merged by private equity firms which can only mean the end of days for these suppliers. But ...

The advantage we have is not only were lots of MGBs made, but those parts have been made for 50+ years so there's LOTS (and lots) of parts out there. The disadvantage we have is that more recently some of these parts have been of questionable quality and may need modifying to fit their intended place, mainly due to financial and cross pollination issues. But the advantage is there are LOTS of parts out there. 

I personally prefer to buy OEM (Original equipment manufacturer) parts where possible, even if they need to be rebuilt, refurnished or just generally cleaned up. I scour places like Gumtree, eBay etc. where there are often lots of OEM parts for sale. The reason for lots of these parts being available is because we have had these big companies making nearly every part you need for so many years and people buy their MGBs and rebuild/restore them using all new parts. They then get rid of their old parts which is great for people like me. If you're patient and happy to wait around, you will find everything you need to keep your MGB going with second hand and probably very cheap parts. I've been given boxes (and even a pallet load) of parts that people were going to throw away. I buy "collections" of parts even if I don't need all the parts now. It took me over 2 years to collect the parts to make my stage 2 engine, but it was very cheap and I was happy to wait. I have a lot of spare parts for my MG, but I still buy old parts when they come up for sale because if I don't need them, there may be someone at a car meet or drive day that does. 

I have bought stuff off the big companies in the past when I haven't been able to find bits I wanted when I was ready to do the job or it was new replacement parts that would be silly to buy 2nd hand. A full set of polyurethane suspension bushes is a good example. I also bought lower, stiffer front springs new when I lowered my MG as I wasn't comfortable buying 2nd hand springs and these items are cheap new. 

Remember, BMC and then BL used as many parts across as many cars as they could so often you can use a part from say, an Austin 1800 or even a Triumph or Mini on your MG and NOS (New old stock) parts still come up surprisingly often if you're prepared to look further afield. Basically, what I'm trying to say is parts are incredibly plentiful and ridiculously cheap for a car like an MGB, especially compared to other old and not so old cars. It's another reason why I think they're a truly great car to own and drive.