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MG TD TF 1500 - Painting a TD
| Of course. when you buy a TD today, you can not decide the color. It is what it is. Mine was Old English White,, not an original color for the car. It has green grill,seats and dash. The roof and sides are black. I am not very happy with these colors. But to do a repaint here in expensive Norway will cost me 9.000 British pounds, not an amount I haver to use on this. Does anybody know how much it would cost in Britain? I know Poland and the Baltic states are cheaper, but I don1t have any contacts there. I have been looking at different colors these days. I am liking green more and more. If I was to keep the grill, seats and dash green, I think the roof and the sides should be of natural/sand color. Any thoughts about this?  |
| Raymond Wardenaer |
| Raymond Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think your car looks great. Is the paintwork in need of restoration or have you just decided you would like another colour? I don’t think that you will get a professional job done in the UK for much less than your £9,000 if you take in to consideration the cost of bringing it over. I would suggest you phone Alastair Naylor (+44 1274 585161) of Naylor Brothers Restorations. They do first class paint jobs and Alastair will be able to give you a good idea of the cost. Remember, to do the job properly means removing the wings so it is not going to be cheap. It will probably be cheaper to put your car up for sale and buy one the colour you want! Mike |
| Mike Sutton |
| I'm astounded that a respray on an MGTD in Norway costs 9,000 British pounds. What factors drive this cost? Might it be possible for you to remove the fenders, bonnet, windscreen, front and rear aprons yourself and save some of the dis-assembly-re-assembly labor? |
| John Quilter (TD8986) |
| Ray Like John Q, I live in Oregon, in the US. 9k pounds sounds like an excessively high price for a respray to me also. I plan to have my TF resprayed in the next year or two, and I have figured that for $4000 I should get a very good job, with me doing some of the disassembly and reassembly. What drives up the cost in Norway and the UK?? Here, it seems, every town had a few fellows with the equipment and a barn outfitted as a spray booth who like to paint cars. I suppose if your car needs much metal work, that would change things. Ray, your car looks very nice! Tom '54 TF Ashland, OR P.S. John, where are you? |
| Tom Norby |
| Skilled labour costs in the UK are high. Typically a good paint shop will charge £50 plus tax (20%) an hour ($75 US). To change the colour on a T type necessitates a lot of disassembly (just think of the engine bay alone). All this work costs £50 an hour unless of course you do it yourself. Allowing £1,000 to get the car from Norway to the UK and back again leaves £8,000 which equates to a 133 hours work. That is a lot of hours so it should be possible to do it for less. How many hours work do you guys think it would take to do the job? Tom has hit the nail on the head why it is cheaper in the USA “Here, it seems, every town had a few fellows with the equipment and a barn outfitted as a spray booth who like to paint cars.” Not the case in the UK or I suppose in Norway. Raymond I will phone Alastair tommorow and post his answer here for everyone to see. |
| Mike Sutton |
| Hello everybody, the costs of any job in a cars workshop follow the other high costs in Norway. I think Oslo is among the three most expensive cities in the world. Visiting USA is a very nice thing to do, with all the low prices. A friend of mine had a Mercedes 600 he wanted to respray. This is a car with a lot of electrical equipment that needs to be dismounted before painting. He had the job done in Poland, and a very nice job they did. That only cost $ 3.500 (five years ago). I guess I am stuck with the white colour. I also have to have some things done to the engine and doors, and since I am not good at this myself, I guess my money will go there. I am planning to go to the south of Germany with the car this summer, and it better run well. |
| Raymond Wardenaer |
| The car looks nice |
| Tom Maine (TD8105) |
| Raymond, the charge to paint a TD, not counting the take-it-apart-put-it-back-together part, is about $6000 to $7000US. Red paints are among the most expensive. I'm in the stages of reassembling a 53TD that I saved from being parted out. It was originally Silver Streak Gray but was painted black before its demise. The various sheetmetal pieces are in a variety of colors, light gray primer, dark gray primer, white primer, powder coat gray primer and black. I'm decided to sell the car just that way. The cost of painting it would not recovered in the selling price. Bud |
| Bud Krueger |
| Very, very expensive to do well. The whole car needs to be mostly disassembled, including remove the dash, door/trim panels, chrome, etc. Problem is with cars as old as ours is that there are likely many layers of paint of all different types, body filler, rust and mystery mattter present. To avoid solvent issues, cracking, shrinkage, bubbling of the new primer/paint, you really need to strip it to bare metal. A lot of body work may be required at great expense Painting a much newer car requires vastly less work, as you can just sand/prime/spray, etc. |
| George Butz |
| Raymond! Old English white for an old English car should not be a problem! I have seen your car live and I like it. Most importantly it is a driver. Regards, Jan |
| Jan Kristoffersen |
| Hello. Raymond. You've posed quite a fundamental question, which made me think of all the reasons WHY I get so much enjoyment from owning a 53 TD. One of the answers I've come up with is: "because it has a history and that's made it subtly different". I suppose, put another way, it has something of a personality. My father-in-law has a big 1939 Buick (RHD, made for the Canadian market), which he completely resprayed last year. IIRC, correctly it cost him £5k but I'll check that - although he's coy in admitting costs in case his wife finds out! The modern paint has produced a lovely job, in the original two-tone cream and grey finish, but to my liking it doesn't look quite right. On both aesthetic and economic grounds, I'd strongly advised him to leave the original 1939 finish, which wasn't in bad condition at all, but he insisted on going ahead. I think it now looks "wrong". He's lost the patina and the odd touched-up scrape which made it look its age, feel like it had been used (and cherished) and gave it that bit of history. He also replaced the leather seats (which again were perfectly OK) with new ones that have a perfect finish. Those now feel even worse, without the wrinkles and creases of age. They're just *too* perfect. I suppose it's something to do with having something that is quite rare (i.e. a well cared-for classic car, with an obvious history of use) or one which looks as if it came out of the factory yesterday - which anyone with enough cash can emulate. After all, the quality of finish on one trailer-queen is intended to look just like any other one, isn't it? That's just a personal view but it leads me to suggest that there's a big difference between having to totally restore a wreck, and chosing to over-restore (IMHO) by completely renewing a satisfactory finish. That's just my view, Ray, not a criticism of your plans to respray your car, but my advice would be to hold off for a while and see if you learn to love the TD as it is. If you can't, I quite like Mike's more economical suggestion of selling it in favour of one of the colour you prefer. Oddly enough, my car, which is now OE white, started out green. But the restoration was nearly 40 years ago and now has a great patina of its own. Just my two-penneth. - Tom. PS Went out today, for my first run since Xmas Eve. It was pretty cold but absolutely marvellous, in wall-to-wall sunshine. They're forecasting low-60s here before next weekend. Bring it on ...... |
| Tom Bennett - 53TD 24232 |
| What a very intersting discussion! Ray, I will learn to appreciate all the "low prices" I enjoy here in the US. And Tom B., I like your comments on patina. My TF is still in its original color of autumn green. It was resprayed in the early 70's and has plenty of specks, scratches and cracks in the paint. But, from 6 feet away, she looks marvelous. And...I drive her, without too much fear of getting a scratch or ding. With an expensive new paint job, I fear I won't enjoy driving her as much. She and I are about the same age, and both have weathered complexions! Tom '54 TF  |
| Tom Norby |
| Raymond, That is one of the best pictures of an owner and his car that I have ever seen (and I expect I have a few years on you.) I very much understand the feeling of wanting to paint what you have, especially if a color change is involved. However, if that car drives, I would be delighted to drive one just like it down the road any day if the week! Regards, Bobby Loughridge |
| B. F. Loughridge |
| Tom x 2: It is a lot of sense in what you are saying. I needed this confirmation to keep the car as it is, with the patina and all. My car also looks great from 6 feet away, and as Jan says, it is a driving car. And since it is my only car, I use it all summer and I am not afraid to add some marks on it. Just a small but to Tom B, I think mine also looks wrong, since OEW never was an original colour. Had they only kept it in Ivory... Here are many images of this car taken by Terry Bone, who sold me the car: http://www.terrybone.co.uk/car2_sold.php?CAR=277 |
| Raymond Wardenaer |
| Tom. There's a coincidence! My TD and I both came off the production line in 1953, which was part of the reason I bought it - totally on impulse I might add. The similarlities end there: My complexion is far more weathered, my frame has expanded with age (or the seats have shrunk) and I certainly wouldn't start first time after being laid-up for a couple of months (as the TD did this afternoon). It'll also outlast me, hopefully by far. - Tom.  |
| Tom Bennett - 53TD 24232 |
| Thanks for the link to your photos, Ray. It's a good-looking, well cared-for car and one to be proud of. If I might suggest, one outlet my urge to "improve" the TD took, and the thing I've most enjoyed doing in the 3 years since I acquired the car, is quietly sourcing original parts, as and when they became available and my budget allowed, in order to replace the non-standard ones that various POs had fitted over the years. I would add that some of the parts were due for replacement anyway and it wasn't all down to whimsy. Leastways, that what I told SWMBO. So far, I've swapped the pancake air filters for the OS assembly, replaced the carbs (the ones which came with the car were a later version), distributor (ditto, but it also fell to pieces one day), tappet [valve] cover (the one it came with was chromed and IMHO was ugh), and steering wheel boss. I repainted the instrument panel (after all sorts of research into what now matches the original colour), rewired in cotton-covered cabling, and got a contemporary starting handle and jack. I've had fun-and-games finding some decent Lucas 1130 sidelights, with the milky coloured lenses and "red dots", but got a pair that really look the age of the car. I've only managed so far to source one unmolested original Lucas headlight, with the King of the Road medallion, but I'm enjoying looking for the second one. My headlights were later ones, without the medallion and they looked "new". Some members of this Board have helped me out (my thanks once again) but it's still great fun ferreting around on e-Bay and going to the local autojumbles to see what might turn up. I managed to get two Brookland Aeroscreens late last year, for not a lot of money, and they came in two brown cloth bags faintly marked in pencil with "Left" and "Right". Those bags just reeked of age - unfortunately the fixings for the screens were obviously never taken off the original car, so I'll have to add those to the search list, now. Finally, as you rightly point out, the TD was not originally offered in OE white but I'm very happy with its adopted colour. To me, the finish is sufficiently old to look old enough. Regards, - Tom. |
| Tom Bennett - 53TD 24232 |
| Tom B: I have done a lot of changes to the car since the images were taken in England. I now have electric ignition, new dynamo, replaced the pistons, new distributor, side mirrors, and several other items. I have to fix leaks from the back axle and from the engine, the right door is sagging and some other minor things. And someone told me my signallamps in the back are from Honda. They are plastic, but look ok. |
| Raymond Wardenaer |
| I've went thru this process on my TF at the end of last year. I took the car, wings, doors, etc. off and I rubbed them all down to bear metal myself. It wasn't that difficult with a grinder and those nylon discs, the paint came right off. The wings required quite a lot of restoring/welding as the headlights were misaligned, the sills and running boards didn't fit correctly and there was some dents that required filling all of which was included in the price of £4000. Add to that VAT at 20% in the UK. I started the process before I realised how much it was going to cost to paint it again!! I've included some before and after shots so you can see the amount of work I had done for the money. AJ  |
| A R Jones |
| After. AJ  |
| A R Jones |
| Raymond Did you buy your TD from Terry in August 2010? It looks like the one I phoned him to make an offer on and he had just sold it. So he sold me my TF as he said they were better long distance cars! This may be so but I have yet to undertake a trip the length of Norway to southern Germany. I wish you the best of luck with that. I hope you will let us all know how you get on. How did you get your car from England to Norway? Did Terry deliver it or did you drive it over? I am glad you have decided to live with the Old English White as I think you can get hung up on authenticity. It may not be a colour that was offered by Abingdon but it looks good and the colour does not affect they way they drive! And that, surely, is the reason for owning a T type; the driving. Mike |
| Mike Sutton |
| Mike, I bought it from Terry in August 2009. He took it to a port near London (Islington?) and sent it to Gothenburg in Sweden, where I picked it up. I drove the car from Oslo to Bodø and the island of Røst, north of the Polar Circle in 2010. The car worked perfect all the way (except the window wiper, and it rained most of the way). If you want to read about and see images from this trip, I put it out on the internet. You will find it here: http://osloray.wordpress.com/category/reisertravel-story/page/5/ |
| Raymond Wardenaer |
| Raymond What a fantastic trip and all that way with only a windscreen wiper problem. I hope your run to Germany goes as well. The mention of Bodo reminded me of a trip I did to the radar station there back in 1970 when I was in the RAF. Don't remember too much about the trip as I foolishly tried to keep up with the RNAF guys in the bar in the evening; boy can you Norwegians hold your liquor! |
| Mike Sutton |
| Mike, this was interesting. I was also in the air force, had some training in Bodø before I was stationed in Narvik as a radio link mechanic. |
| Raymond Wardenaer |
| I agree with the first response -beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Your car look great. I'd leave the colour and enjoy it :-) One day when it is rusty/ chrashed/ suffered some other major mechanical failure that requires it to be taken apart change the colour :-) Dave |
| Dave Moore |
| And I was a leutenant in the army medical corps. Special and favourable NATO prices in the officers only bar did not improve on our inclination towards sobriety . My personal officers weapon was a German Luger, with eagle and swastika on all parts of it. The Norwegian armed forces were experts in recycling to put it that way. PS: watched "the battle of Britain " on the telly the other day. Seemed like Christopher Plummer was out and about in a TC? Regards, Jan |
| Jan Kristoffersen |
This thread was discussed between 18/02/2012 and 20/02/2012
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