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MG TD TF 1500 - LHD to RHD conversion ?

Hi all,

Has anyone reading this ever converted a LHD TF to RHD.

My friend has recently bought a TF from across the pond and has started to convert the car but is stuck with the steering column on the left hand side as it won't slide out of the aperture between the rad and the wing as per the workshop manual and the steering rack is proving just as difficult to remove as the column shaft is in the way when trying to manouvre the rack out from under the car.
Any help or suggestion as to what items to remove from the engine would be gratefully received.
Thanks for reading

Steve
Stephen Farr

Thor hammer?
mike parker

My only question is why? Have driven RHDs here for 30+ with no problem and our lorries are a hell of a lot bigger. Also nice to step out of the car onto the curb when parking, or see the side of the road when the soup is at ground level. Also would expect it to take a toll on the value.
Safety Fast
Paul
Paul

Hi Stephen, I had to remove the steering rack from my TD once and found it
to be one of the most difficult tasks I had ever done on the car. It would be worse on a TF.

You need to remove the engine steady bar and bracket and disconnect the steering at the rubber joints. Then you need to remove the rack through the
hole provided and this is maddening but just possible.

I would remove both the front guards first if I were to do a TF just to get at the engine steady bracket and the rack mounting bolts.

Good luck,

Paul.

Paul van Gool

Stephen and other contributors,

None of you addressed the most difficult problem.

On the TD/TF, the pedal box is welded to the inside of the chassis side-rail, and on different sides (depending on LHD/RHD).

In Stephen's case, this means a pedal box has to be fabricated and welded to the the inside of the RHS chassis side-rail, introducing all kinds of alignment problems. Not an easy task. Also there's a problem in mounting the m/c as it bolts from only one side, and you would have to find anew pedal shaft (LHD=AAA2241). Although Moss show them (190-500), I understand that they were scarce. I believe Abingdon had a batch (of LHD) run off last year.

Note: The pedal shaft gets all the wet from the road and easily rusts and wears the bushings, despite having a lube nipple. I had to replace mine and in the process, hand-ground a spiral groove around the shaft, and use MOS² exclusively. No problems since.

Why not heed Paul Gaynor's good advice?

On a similar topic; I once saw a TC converted to LHD. The guy spent over $8,000 on the conversion and couldn't understand why nobody wanted to buy his lovely TC, even after he lowered the price to $12,000 for a totally-restored example.

I was surprised to see quite a few LHD TD/TFs at Silverstone this year. Mind you, there were quite a few continental cars, but there were also a lot of UK-registered LHD TD/TFs.

We have learned to live with home-market cars, and I would hope you could live with an export model.

Good luck.

Gord Clark
Rockburn Qué.
Gordon A. Clark

If the owner is unable to live with the driving position, maybe they would consider trading the car for one with the steering wheel on the correct side.

There might be someone in the world in the opposite situation who is willing to trade a right-hand drive car for a left-hand drive car in similar condition. It would take some research, and possibly end up costing quite a bit in shipping, but I don't see this as being any more expensive or difficult than converting the car. If you figure in the lost value caused by the conversion, you might actually come out ahead. You would need to find trusted brokers on both sides of the deal, which could be difficult. Or you spend lots of money and time traveling to inspect. It could end up being a nice holiday, if you could afford it.

Of course, having said that, I ain't giving up my right-hand drive TF-1500. At least, not until I drive it for a while. And the first drive is still at least 6 months away.
Mark B.

This thread was discussed between 12/11/2003 and 23/11/2003

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