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MG TD TF 1500 - headlights

g'day fellas
I am going to repair the dents from hood hitting the headlights and remove the pitted chrome paint them body colour as they should be.It is a December 51 TD.Would any of you learned gentlemen know if the "King of the road" medallion should be painted or left chrome.Any assistance would be deeply appreciated.
Cheers Nigel.
np martin

They would be chromed, Nigel.
Bud Krueger

Nigel

Why are you assuning the headlights should not be chrome? Early 51 TD's could have been supplied with chrome headlights. I just love driving down the road and looking at the reflection from the headligh shell on my 50 TD.

Paint is a lot cheaper than rechroming, and it is a bit easier getting the dings out if you are going to paint VS chrome, but I still like the looks of the chrome headlight shells.

Bruce Cunha

Bruce, I think Nigel is only referring to the King.. medallion. He's right about the painted headlight buckets.
Bud Krueger

Bud. I am in agreement that the KOTR Medallion should be chrome, but his headligh shells could also have been chrome,not painted

http://www.mgbbs.com/mgtd/mgtd_mistakes.htm
Bruce Cunha

Bruce,
Slightly off subject but today when I was at the NAPA parts store buying my coil as reccommended by Bud the old (I'm 67) gent waiting on me asked what MG I was going to use it on and when I told him a TD he said that last week his nextdoor neighbor just had a TD shipped in from Wisconsin, and he said it is absolutly mint. Seeing as your in WI I just thought I would pass that on. Hopfully the car will show up at the Battle of the Brits Sep 12. Greg & Grimm
G.J. Cenzer

Nigel,

Be very careful when you tap the dents out. The rear of the lamp buckets are quite thin and are susceptible to what's known as seasonal cracking. If you silver solder these the area around the the solder is annealed and unless you are very very careful when dressing back the solder you will simply push the softened section down and end up with a ring crater. If you are going to paint the buckets I would use soft solder. You can also use this under chromium plating providing a thick coat of copper is applied first. The problem though is with polishing. Again its easy to remove the softer solder and finish up with a flat. I've also seen heavy handed polishers actually melt softsolder with their buffing wheel.


Jan T
J Targosz

I have an early 51 TD and the headlamps that were original are chromed. Another car in the club is also a 51 and it's headlights are painted. They can go either way
Tom

Someone during the '67 rebuild put chrome shells on my '53... sort of like them (a lot).
gordon.b.lawson '53TD

This thread was discussed between 26/08/2004 and 28/08/2004

MG TD TF 1500 index

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