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MG TD TF 1500 - TF Front Apron Assembly

Hello gents,
I'm putting together the front sheet metal and radiator shell parts on a TF. The front apron (the triangular piece about 2 feet wide) that goes behind the bumper and below the radiator shell has a couple rubber grommets in it and they mate up with two square holes in the Bottom plate, radiator (Part 40 in Moss picture of chassis). So it looks like I would drop a couple 1/4 or 5/16 BSF carriage bolts in them. The radiator shell also has two holes down there but they are round, so I am guessing that the shell sits on top of these carriage bolt heads, or this might be a special fastener that I am missing from this basket case. If the bolt goes through all three pieces, (Shell, bottom plate, and apron)...that is what I need to know. It will be a stinker to get a wrench inside the radiator shell.

By the way, is there a body assembly diagram/picture somewhere for all this? I have been running back and forth to look at other TF's and that seems to be effective, although each one seems to be assembled differently! Thank you, Mike D.
MW Davis

My two TF's are fasten by 4 ea 1/4 IN BSF bolts thru the 4 outer holes in the triangle to the front fenders. There are no connections to the radiator shell. The Fender piping continues down and across this connection.
The two inner holes are for clearence only. Mine have no rubber grommets.
See page 31 of the Moss catalog.
Don Harmer TF8986

As some of you may know, I am the sole and original owner of my TF, so absolutely nobody other than myself, has ever tinkered with the car.

So I went out to my garage and checked.

The ‘Splash Apron’ is secured to the ‘bottom plate’ (Moss 452-720, OEM ARG 550) by two screws, passing through a grommet and into a welded fastener on the inside of the radiator cavity - see attached image.

Outside each of these screws is a small bolt and nut that fastens the outside of the apron to the front edge of the wing (fender) and at the same time, pinches the end of the piping (that starts at the running board). My piping is also original, and it can be seen in the corner of the pic.

I have 2 domestic and 3 foreign mg td/TF parts manuals, and I couldn‘t find any of the above screws, grommets or bolt/nut sets, mentioned in any of them.

Gord Clark
Rockburn, Qué.

Gordon A Clark

Mike, the bolt does indeed go through all three pieces, but you do not need to get a wrench inside because the base plate has (should have) two captive nuts to recieve the two Philips head bolts from below. These two bolts have rubber grommets exactly as Gordon has described (the holes are not for 'clearance').

The panels and grommets are listed in the "Illustrated List of Service Parts" (1954) and "Service Parts List" (1958)on page L3. Unfortunately the front fairing assembly is not illustrated.

Cheers,
Matthew.
Matthew Magilton

Hi Fellows,
Thank you for the invaluable information! My car is missing the captive welded-in nuts, so I will come up with a couple Tinnerman nuts. Gordon's picture is totally valuable, as I though the radiator shell sat on top of the front plate. I see that it goes below it, so I will have to bend the plate up a bit to get everything to line up on all the fasteners that go down the side of the radiator shell. The Service Parts books are something I don't have. I also saw from the archive that the rubber bumper string that weaves through the radiator shell needs to be about 0.050 thick. I will make one out of an old inner tube, as the Moss part I have is way too thick. My old bumper string seems to be leather, believe it or not.

As usual, you BBS folks are extremely helpful to one who is restoring one of these LBC's! Mine has a lot of detials that were horsed up over the years by someone! Mike D.
MW Davis

This thread was discussed on 09/09/2010

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