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MG TD TF 1500 - TD made my choice for me

Have had my TD in the garage under a cover for a few years awaiting a place to restore it again (restored in 1974). Mechanically, the car is in excellent condition, but the paint on the fuel tank and rear pan were cracking. I was hoping that these would be the only things I needed to repaint. Well, today, my car made that decision for me. Came out today and found the paint on the drivers rear fender is flaking off in a number of places.

So, looks the the restore is going to be a full paint job. Now I need to determine if I keep it ivory, or put it back to the original sun bronze color. Since there are not all that many sun bronze TD's out there, I am leaning in that direction.
Bruce Cunha

Bruce I'm curious about the paint that's cracking. Was the 1974 paint job in acrylic lacquer? Mine was done in Ivory in 1970 & held up really well in storage except for a number of dings & scratches that meant quite a few panels needed respraying. Chris C advises that acrylic lacquer should be sprayed when the humidity is less than 25%. Today here in Sydney it dropped to 11% at 10 this morning which is easily the lowest I've seen in the 6 years that I've been monitoring! Over that time it rarely ever dropped below 30%. Cheers
Peter TD 5801
P Hehir

Peter,
I doubt if it was acrylic in 1974. USA used, as far as I know, thermoplastic lacquer for about 40 years up to 1983. It was also used by some European car manufacturers eg Ferrari, Jaguar and Rolls Royce. It was a lot cheaper because it was a single component paint and the car did not require polishing. The car body was drawn through a heat tunnel to obtain the glossy finish.
The disadvantage is it crazes and cracks and is not compatible with modern paints. Even the use of barrier coats are not 100% successful.

If that is the case with Bruce's car he may have a problem. In Europe, where we have a lot of re-imports from USA, the general consensus is to remove the thermo paint to bare metal rather than to attempt to spray over it. It will always come through. It might however be still available in USA for repair purposes.
The front wings on my car (Ex Utah) still have this paint and that is the next job on the cards this winter.

Regards

Declan
Declan Burns

Delcan,

That doesn't match with my memory, but it was a long time ago. Around 1969 I painted my Triumph 650 with straight lacquer, and I had to make it very plain to the suppliers that I did not want acrylic lacquer. At the time, I think acrylic lacquer was more common than straight lacquer. In hindsight, I should have gone with the acrylic because of the cracking that followed.

Charley


C R Huff

In 74, we sprayed the car with DuPont Imron, a polyurethane enamel. It has developed crack lines in it (main body, doors, fuel tank, rear pan). The rear fender that is flaking was repaired back in the late 1980's. It was done in a shop, so I don't know what they used.

The front fenders, hood and firewall were repainted in the 90's with Acrylic enamel. They are actually holding up very well.(battery leaked while in storage and the acid did a job on the firewall, hood and fender.)
Bruce Cunha

My internet search results indicate a different history of paints than Declan recalled, but perhaps there is more info out there I am not finding. Regards, tom
tm peterson

Bruce, there is a sun bronze car in our club that I think you have seen. very nice , belongs to Bill Hite, Fig did the restoration on it years ago. still very nice
TRM Maine

Yes, I remember that one. It was at the GOF in 2012 in Minnesota. It is one of the reasons I am thinking of bringing mine back to that color.
Bruce Cunha

I have no idea what sun bronze looks like. If anyone had a picture to post I would be interested to see it.
Thanks Darryl
Darryl Lamb

Correction: The car at the Minnesota GOF belong to Bill Hite is now and always was Silver Streak Gray, not Sun Bronze. I recall only one Sun Bronze car, which belongs to Jim Hendershot.
Lew Palmer

Darryl,

Here's a link to a Sun Bronze TD, courtesy of the Google. It's actually on this mg-cars web site as it turns out.

http://www.mg-cars.org.uk/mgtd/Pictures/Miscellaneous/53MGtd_front_bronze.jpg

BobbyG
Bobby Galvez

Bruce acrylic lacquers were in use at least as early as 1961 and my body trim tags on my Chevrolets say they are painted with that formula. Also check your text mssgs. I have a question re your Y

Bill Chasser
W A Chasser

Thanks BobbyG surely Sun Bronze isn't an original TD colour or is it?
Darryl Lamb

Yup. Sun Bronze was available until early 1953 when it, Autumn Red paint and Beige upholstery disappeared from the lineup. This information is taken from the NEMGTR T Type Restoration Handbook, page 47. Bud
Bud Krueger

Darryl you also have to check out Chris Couper's site 'The Original MG TD midget'. There is an awesome amount of info on originality to be found there & on the sibling MG TF site. It's my 'go to' when I need questions answered. Brilliant layout & content. Cheers
Peter TD 5801
P Hehir

Christopher Couper's page on this side shows Sun Bronze as a 1951 paint color. My TD (4139) was made on November 1 1950. I know from the original restoration that the bottom paint color (it had 3 other colors) was sun bronze. Interior was red.

Not sure if Abbington used Jan 1 as the start of the new production year, but my 1950 came with Sun Bronze.

According to Chris's page, the interior would have been red or green. I find this interesting in that both of those colors would not necessarily have complemented the sun bronze exterior paint.

Of note, the picture Chris has of a sun bronze car has a beige interior.

Guess staying with red keeps it more towards how it came from the factory. Well at least it was not green. Green is a great interior color, but cant see it on a Bronze car.

http://www.mg-cars.org.uk/mgtd/mgtd_finishes.htm
Bruce Cunha

Bruce. Not wanting to be picky, but its my home town - Abingdon.
Dave H
Dave Hill

This thread was discussed between 13/09/2017 and 21/09/2017

MG TD TF 1500 index

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