An Investment in Time

My dad had a Navy friend stationed in Germany who he talked into not only picking up the new MG from the dealer there, but also getting it shipped to the states for free on a Navy ship. It was an export model made around August of 1953, and it was the 12th or 13th from the last MG-TD produced. My Dad picked it up in Connecticut early in 1954, and the rest is history. It’s been in the family ever since, and hardly ever sat off the road for any length of time. It’s not restored, but over the years parts and some touch up has been done. Most of the paint is original and is aged to perfection to my eyes. The soft patina could never be replicated.

Photo from 1966. Brown haired daughter, Heidi Engel, and neighborhood friends make the TD appear surprisingly roomy.

Moss Motors has been the primary supplier over the years for parts—like new Armstrong dampers when they were available, carb parts, and a rear bumper face bar and over-riders. Years ago I replaced the front bumper face bar. The original got chewed up a bit when a well-intentioned neighbor used his tractor and a chain to pull the MG out of a snow bank. My next project will be to try my hand at removing the fenders and running boards to fix up some rust that took it’s hold after many upstate New York salty road winters. For many of its early years the MG was my parents’ only car and, living on a farm near Albany, was used to bring home bales of hay and bags of cow feed wedged between the fenders and hood. Probably not a wise operation as far as cooling the engine was concerned, but it never boiled over.

Pete’s “other British wheels”—a Raleigh bicycle he received new for Christmas in 1951. “I ride it every week,” he said, “and put twelve miles on it Sunday.”

In 1984 I had the MG shipped to my present home in Florida, and the top—now off for replacement—hasn’t been up since. I worked for NASA at the Kennedy Space Center for 27 years and only more recently upon retirement have found the time to give the old MG some well deserved TLC.

Laying the Groundwork

I bought new carpet from Moss awhile back but decided to hold off putting it in until I had decided what to do with the seats. Taking Moss’ advice, I referred to Horst Schach’s MG-TD Restoration Manual, as well as the Moss instructions provided with the carpet. The only major difference between the book and the Moss instruction was that Schach glued the carpet underpads to the interior while Moss suggests gluing them to the carpet first before installation. I did a bit of both.

Unless you’re small and bendable, crawling into the interior of the MG to place carpet on the toe boards and firewall is a bit of a challenge, but this is a project that should not be rushed. I lucked out and did not have to install any Lift-the-Dot posts as they were all intact from the old carpet. All I needed was to align the fasteners on the carpet pieces. This was also true when installing the new full tonneau; the Lift-the-Dot posts were already in place.

All in all the installation went very well. The results were very satisfactory, and anyone, I’m sure, could do the job if working carefully and deliberately. The material and cut of the many carpet pieces are excellent and required very little trimming. As the weather warms up and the carpet sits in place for a while, it should form a bit to the floor and interior of the MG, so some additional trimming may be done then.

Superior Seats

I deliberated over what to do with the seats for some time, and I’m very happy with my decision. The new Moss seats are superb, and I’m glad I opted to buy them fully made rather than try my hand at covering the old seats. Reference to Horst Schach’s book and his covering experience might well convince one to “let Moss do it!”  The expense was well worth the savings in time, and the expertise it took to make the seats is evident. About the only salvageable original parts were the hardware that one uses from the old seats. I removed, cleaned, and repainted them. The installation of the seats and back is super simple. It is exactly as Moss suggested: “just bolt them in!”

For me, the bottom line for these projects was the superior quality of the items from Moss Motors, and the relative ease in which they were installed. I’ve been asked what I plan to do with the original seats. I may offer the old seats for sale in the Sacred Octagon magazine … but I’m pretty attached to them for nostalgic reasons. Maybe I’ll make a very unique settee sofa for the porch.

By Pete Engel