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MG TD TF 1500 - A real resoration

This came off of a corvette site, but I thought it was applicable regardless of what side of the topic your at.

Boy, it really galls my threads when these ignoramuses go off about how
the Corvette crowd is 'over-restoring' cars! I say, restored means
*exactly* as the factory did it, no matter what. I spent 95 weeks last
year doing an accurate and complete ground-up restoration on my '67.
And, let me tell you, some of those rubber and glass pieces are *really*
hard to restore after grinding them up!

For some folks, simply applying a bit of overspray while painting is
'good enough.' I scoff at this. I meticulously copied onto the mufflers,
droplet by droplet, the exact overspray pattern that was there
originally. Even the runs and sags at the bottom of the door panels were
duplicated. Your average 'restorer' will just slap some new paint on,
calling it 'original' if it is the same color. Jeeez. I chemically
removed every vestige of *the original paint*, then broke it down,
reformulated it, and re-applied it. Sure, I had to use substitute
volatile carrier (thinner), but since it evaporates anyway, I claim that
it was not originally 'on the car' when it left the factory gates.

Some folks think using the 'correct' fasteners is good enough. Ha! I
made sure to cross-thread the left rear upper transmission crossmember
bolt, just as the (sometimes inebriated) factory worker was known to. I
removed the third from the right lower grille attachment screw, which a
previous owner had erroneously installed, in spite of the
well-documented fact that none of these were installed at the factory
until after 3:43 pm on October 17th, 1966. I made sure to scratch the
frame in the appropriate places, just as the handling mechanisms at the
factory did. Some previous owner had removed the scratches, in an effort
to make the car 'perfect.' What was he thinking? I even installed the #3
cylinder's exhaust lifter upside down, which was a rare (1 of 3 such
built), but documented occurrence. Sure, it runs like hell, but hey,
it's _original_!

Some folks get a new set of tires that LOOK like the originals, and call
that good enough. Not me. I got THE ORIGINAL tires out of a landfill,
ground them up, and restored them. I was able to find about 91.7% of the
rubber which had worn off, by vacuuming the roadside dust over the roads
the car had travelled, and separating out the correct molecules from the
other debris with a mass-spectrographic double-diathermic
isopropadiaphanometer molecular identifier. NOT cheap, let me tell you.
But, correct is correct. Some folks put on new valve stems and caps, and
away they go. We purists know that it IS important to align the seam
line on the valve cap to the correct angle, just as it left the factory
('indexed' valve caps, Section T-26-B.5 of the Official Sniveler's Guide
to CORRECT Corvette Assembly).

Changing the oil is considered routine by some 'restorers'. They throw
out the old, slap in some new, maybe even 'improved' oil, and a new
filter. Not a real purist. I have the original oil broken down and
re-refined. The old additives are removed, restructured, and re- added.
I even recover as many molecules of the burned or dripped oil as
possible, and add them back in. This means the filter must be
dismantled, which ruins the case, so it has to be remelted and reformed
into a filter. Re-using the original paint, of course.

Some bozos throw in a Sears Die-Hard, and off they go. Some so- called
restorers buy a reproduction 'tar-top' battery, and call THAT good
enough (*scoff*). I found my original battery and remanufactured it. No
wimpy replacing the innards with new, either. I melted down the original
plates, then recast them in the correct factory molds. Saving the
original electrolyte, of course. Now, you might think, gee, that seems
pretty far-fetched, this guy is extreme. Well, you ain't seen nothing
yet. I also was able to procure the original ELECTRONS which had come
with the car, and reinstall them. It seems that over the years, the car
had given and recieved a few jump starts, and some of the original
electrons had thus transferred to other vehicles, and some from other
cars had contaminated my car. Thankfully, there is an electron sorting
and ID accessory for the molecular identifier, which allowed me to
correct this blatant slap to true_ originality.

One thing holds me back from being 100% correct. Some fool of a previous
owner had changed the tires, and did not retain the original air. I
know, hard to believe, but it happened- some folks just don't 'get it.'
Now, I have located about 24.6% of the original air molecules with the
Mass-Spectragraphic double diathermic isopropa diaphanometer, but many
of them have been sucked into other engines, combusted, and turned into
CO, CO2, NOx, etc. If anyone is aware of a device to spot the correct
air molecules after they have been broken up and combined in other
chemicals, please let me know. I guess I COULD settle for some air
molecules from the Bowling Green tire-mounting area vicinity, captured
about 9:47 am on September 5th, 1966. Ah, well, it's only a few points
off at showtime...

Regards

Bruce
BEC Cunha

Bruce, I also own a corvette and to see some of the restored ones that go thru BJ and other auctionsites is unreal. Over restoration is a problem in all the cars nowdays. I loved the thing that you sent however, funny.. Sometimes methinks folks take this restoration stuff a wee far....
TRM Maine

Bruce,

I can't help but be impressed.

Especially collecting the original rubber dust. In a Wisconsin winter, that must have indeed, been a cold job. The restorers in California and Florida wouldn't understand, but I do. But how did you separate the original rubber dust from the snow?

I don't know how you did it but I did it by using a spectral inferometer which rejected the rubber dust of other makes. The remaining dust I dissolved in MEK causing rubber nodules to form. I then did impact and density tests to be sure I was right, and by God ... I was. Really quite simple when you get down to it.

But ... IT IS ORIGINAL ... yknow what I mean, huh?

Gord Clark
Rockburn, Qué.
Gordon A Clark

Gordon.
Methinks you have spent too much liesure time in the imbibing room.Not enough with your neighbors maple grove.You might teach her the true meaning of human relations or the way they should be.
Sandy
SANDY SANDERS

And it was flourescent pink you painted it after all that!

Dave
D Moore

What's a corvette?

Bill McGee
Bill McGee

A corvette was sometimes called a faimile. It was an all wooden ship that was powered by Packard Merlins (3). I believe it was used as a subchaser or minesweeper during WW 2. From a fading memory (second sign of old age) the length was 60 or so feet long.It was moulded plywood. Magnetic underwater mines were not attracted to it.
Sandy
SANDY SANDERS

cor⋅vette  /kɔrˈvɛt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [kawr-vet] –noun 1. a warship of the old sailing class, having a flush deck and usually one tier of guns.
2. a lightly armed, fast ship used mostly for convoy escort and ranging in size between a destroyer and a gunboat.
James Neel

I believe Canada had a huge number of Corvettes.... there was one in the town I grew up in converted to a private yacht.....
gblawson

Sandy, I always thought the boat you are describing was a PT boat, or Patrol Torpedo. I think Corvettes were mostly made of steel.

warmly,
dave
Dave Braun

Bruce,
Thanks for posting this one...I needed a good laugh!
That's what I love about this BBS.
16 hours in airport using airport transfers sevenoakss to get from Ceadar Rapids IA. to Columbus, OH. yesterday....could have driven it in 8...I was ready for a good laugh.
Merry Christmas,
David
David Sheward

The first modern corvettes were the Flower class (Royal Navy corvettes were named after flowers, and ships in Royal Canadian Navy service took the name of smaller Canadian cities and towns). Their chief duty was to protect convoys in the North Atlantic and on the routes from the UK to Murmansk carrying supplies to the Soviet Union.

The Flower-class corvette was originally designed for offshore patrol work, and was not ideal as an anti-submarine escort; they were really too short for open ocean work, too lightly armed for anti-aircraft defence, and little faster than the merchantmen they escorted, a particular problem given the faster German U-boat designs then emerging. They were very seaworthy and maneuverable, but living conditions for ocean voyages were appalling. Because of this the corvette was superseded in the Royal Navy as the escort ship of choice by the frigate, which was larger, faster, better armed and had two shafts. However, many small yards could not produce vessels of frigate size, so an improved corvette design, the Castle class, was introduced later in the war, some remaining in service until the mid-1950s.
gblawson

One corvette remains, that I know of, HMCS Sackville is tied up at the Marine Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax N.S.
J.D. Hine

This thread was discussed between 20/12/2009 and 23/12/2009

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