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MG TD TF 1500 - Glove Box Door and Lamp Grounds


GLOVE BOX DOOR.

It appears that my glove box door was fabricated by a PO. It does not mate with my dash skins well. I want to to make another one.

The one I have is 1/2" pine. The dash 1/2" is plywood.
I would think the door should be Plywood.
Yes/No?

A GROUNDING QUESTION.

Both the front running light/Turn signals and the head lamps have a ground terminal.
There are no ground wires in my new harness.
I dont see any on Daves site either.
I have looked at all the pictures I can find of the under side of the fenders and I dont see side lamp grounds.

Dave uses the headlamp ground terminal for the ground on the headlamp pigtail. You then rely on picking up 12V ground by going through the swivel and the internal star washer, Which in turn, on the fender has a rubber where the bracket meets the fender. On the other end ground would meander through the radiator which is also rubber mounted, except for the stays.

I dont see what the ground terminal on the side lamps are used for.

The side lamps also seem to rely on the bolts holding them to the fenders and any shakeproof washers under them. The side lamps are also rubber mounted. These are not secure grounds.

I am planning on adding ground wires in. Has anyone done this and what did you use for (a) chaise ground(s).

Thanks

Jim B.
JA Benjamin

Glove box door is plywood. Edge view below: Bud


Bud Krueger

Jim - You are correct, the front and rear lights rely on the bolts holding them to the fender and the bolts holding the fender to the body - not a real reliable way to ground things. While I have not done it yet, I intend to run dedicated ground wires to all the light sockets. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

Jim; The glove box door on my early TD was made of solid 1/2" wood, not plywood. I looked through my pictures but I didn't have any of the end grain. The end grains on the door were "footed" which means they had a dado cut through the end grain and a piece of wood was glued in the dado to reinforce the end grain from splitting and stabilizes the piece.
You sometimes see the same thing done on better canoe paddles. I would have thought it would have been made of plywood but it isn't.

Thought I would add that just to cloud the issue. And my glove box door is original to the car.
C.R. Tyrell

Don't forget the radiator stays are also connected to the chassis and radiator. The parking lamps have lock washers on the underside that contact bare metal. There are a lot of attachments bolts and sheet metal screws for the front wings too. If you want scrape a little paint off one of your fender bolts under the washer. It will provide an excellent ground. And then there is the hood latches.

Even with the paint ground has never been a serious issue for the headlamps. There just seems to be too many paths it can take to be an issue.
Chris Couper

I think David DuBois(?) has an article somewhere on how to do proper grounds in general, and also with bolts. It includes removing paint to bare metal, using a copper conductive paste, etc. George
George Butz

Thanks C R.
I dont have a thickness planer but I do have a 6" planer/jointer. The glove box is 5" so tomorrow I will make some 1/2" stock with the grain hidden.

Was the wood special or just pine?

While I think of it, how is the inside of the glove box door finished?
Clear? Black Paint? Body Paint? Flocked?

George:
I did read Daves Note on grounding. Perhaps its the EE in me but I will run some grounds anyway.

Jim B.
JA Benjamin

C.R. was your fascia plywood? Or solid? Bud
Bud Krueger

Jim, the wood is just pine, but remember in the '50's the pine available was of tighter grain. You may try some poplar for the door if good pine is not available.

I finished the inside of the door with the red vinyl dash covering.

Bud, the facia is plywood, which makes sense for strength with all the large cut-outs.
C.R. Tyrell

Actually the dashboard is not plane old pine but in fact rotary cut marine grade mahagony plywood. It is a much tighter grain. This is the same for the floorboards and the panels behind the seat. And for that matter the seats too.

Today the factory probably would use cheap pine or fiberboard but luckily they had ethics and pride of workmanship then, even for cheap little cars like the MG.

Like every other behind the scene item it was painted in satin black paint.

The glovebox door had your interior Rexine on both sides.
Chris Couper

Jim B.

I believe the dash wood was 7 ply (I believe, it may even have been 9 ply) birch plywood very close to 1/2 inch thick. Modern 1/2 inch plywood has at most 5 ply in a 1/2 thickness. I was able to order what is called Baltic Birch plywood for my dash. The stuff is hard as a rock and stiff as steel. (Expensive too.) It only came in a 3'x4' sheet, if I remember correctly.

The original glovebox door on my '52 TD was a lighter weight wood, possibly redwood or maybe pine. There was some type of hardwood inserts on the end to better hold the nails. I believe they used the lighter wood for the door to help keep the door weight down so it would not be as prone to popping open. I made my new glove box door out of the same Baltic Birch plywood and I am a little worried that its weight will be a problem later. Unfortunately, later for me will be years from now.

I have good pictures on the home computer that I would gladly attach if I can figure out why I can't get internet conectivity lately.

Good luck,

Patrick
Patrick Earles

Jim B: It may not be worth the postage but I can plane down your planks to 1/2" (or even down to 3/16" but I don't know why one would want to do that)provided that the starting blanks are at least 12" long and not more than 12" wide.

Jud
J K Chapin

Thank you PatricK and Jud.
I have an assortment of relatively old wood I have taken out of the house.
I used a piece of 6" (5-1/2") wide door trim that I had.
I, 45'd the edger and glued in cross grain pieces.
I planed it down on the jointer/planer and I am within 0.010" of being flat.

Right now there is a coat of black drying on the edges an back. The front already had several coats of varnish.

there will be a skin glued to the front and 2 yards of material is in the mail from Moss.
I will use that for the back, the beading and the side curtain box.

thanks again.

Jim B.
JA Benjamin

Sounds good. After posting I started thing - wonder if building up a board from two sheets of 1/4" masonite would give a truly flat board with a nice surface that could be accurately cut to fit using a router and a pattern bit and the old dashboard as a pattern. I'll keep noodling on it.

Jud
J K Chapin

re: light grounding, IIRC I ran separate ground wires at least from the headlights, maybe also the running lights, to Dave DuBois style grounding lug(s) "somewhere". After 3+ yrs the old brain cells are a bit rusty. I did that because of reading that some folks on the forum had problems. This was done when a complete new wiring harness was installed in Emma.
Al
53TF Emma
http://www.boatanchors.org/mgtf.htm
A W Parker

Finally got my home computer to work. Here is an end veiw of the original dash glove box door.

Patrick


Patrick Earles

Right Chaps:

Basically this is a trial to see if I have learned the art of sending photographs.

It should depict the rather bastardly action taken, by the writer, to ensure that his TD glove box lid did not flop all the way down. It does make a great tea cup platform, as long as you remain stationary.

The slide/stop was secured from a Jaguar glove box, I believe.

However; if the photo does not get through then all of the above scribbling becomes a mute exercise.

So here goes !


kernow

Nice picture!

worked great!
Dean E

You did it!! Good show. Bud
Bud Krueger

Yes the brackets do look like the ones I had in the back seat of my 1961 Jaguar Mark IX.
It had a pair of fold down tables held by just such brackets.

Jim B.
JA Benjamin

Patrick, that is exactly how my glove box door was. Great picture.
C.R. Tyrell

This thread was discussed between 08/09/2013 and 14/09/2013

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