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MG TD TF 1500 - Upholstery tack strip

I'm working on the tub of my '53 TD and am at a loss as to what size the wooden tack strip on the vertical part of the wheel well should be. It looks as if, from the remains of the wood, that they were a piece of plywood held on with some split rivets in a horizontal position. As near as I can tell they appear to have been about 5 inches long, 1/4 inch thick and about 1 inch high. I'm calling it a tack strip because I cannot figure out what else it could be. My TD didn't have much of an interior in it so I was not able to reverse engineer it to figure it out exactly. Any help wold be appreciated. Also, what is now commonly used in place of the rivets or where can these rivets be located. I'm sure that they are sold by some speciality house but I don't need to get 1000 of them.

Thanks,

Mark TD28332
Mark Strang

Mark
I had to make these as well for my TD. Your dimensions sound about right. You are correct that the strips are used to tack the wheel well covering to. Its all hard to see once the seat are in. I made mine from some 3/8 plywood I had. The fender upholstery has a layer of felt or fluffy material under it that you don't cover the tack strip with. Once you cover the whole thing the tack strip blends in and can't be seen. I didn't use rivets to attach mine, I think I used a couple of counter sunk screws and nuts on the inside of the fender.

Joe Hine
53 mg td
J.D. Hine

Mark,

I skipped the tack strips completely because I was using foil covered deadening pad over the interior surfaces, and I glued my upholstery to the foil using a 3M spray adhesive. I did tack the upholstery to the wood in other places... here I'm just speaking of the rear wheel arch covers.

warmly,
dave
Dave Braun

Mark,

I skipped the tack strips completely because I was using foil covered deadening pad over the interior surfaces, and I glued my upholstery to the foil using a 3M spray adhesive.

warmly,
dave
Dave Braun

I made them also. From memory your size is about right, maybe even thinner than 1/4". If you are lucky enough to have an old-school hardware store nearby they will have the split rivets. George
George Butz

Thanks Guys,

One more mystery solved. It seems like they never end but that is part of the fun. I hope that arriving at the destination is as much fun as the journey.

Mark
Mark Strang

I did the same as Dave B, except used Permatex spray adhesive. I love what the "pad" did for the car. It just "feels" so much more solid and quieter. About the same as difference between a Chevy (Camaro) and a Pontiac (Fire bird) back in the late 60's. Those were pretty much the "same car" , but the extra padding sure made a difference. GM stuffed their pockets for years with our money using that little trick!
Cheers,
David 55 TF1500 #7427
David Sheward

I ran across this shot of an original interior (thanks V. Pina), you can sort of see the strip with the hidem tacked to it. George

George Butz

This thread was discussed between 26/07/2009 and 27/07/2009

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