John,
I have no experience in the parts that you ask about, even though I have
owned my TD for 42 years now. I'm sure, though, that the body tub
assembly as it is put together is where the strength comes from.
I don't believe that any explanation is required as to the reason why
you are building a TD hot rod. You own the car and can do what you want
with it. Though it does seem to be a reasonable thing to do to a car in
that circumstance.
I think that you have written of this previously, but I don't recall the
modifications from stock that you are making to this car. And I wonder
if it is a period hot rod as was perhaps written up in the publications
of the day or are you using more modern components that are more readily
available today? I have seen TDs with V8s in them, Volvo engines,
MGA/MGB engines, and one with a fairly modern BMW engine. All are
interesting and some can be done so that it is easy for a later owner to
return the car to stock.
In some cases the upgrade is done so as to make the car more drivable on
today's highways. Sometimes the reason is just to create something
'cool'. Or, as in your case, to save the car from being lost forever.
Either way, they create some more interest in T series cars, which isn't
a bad thing.
There are two TD entries in the British V8 site, both using a much newer
engine, though perhaps vintage nowadays.
http://www.britishv8.org/Photos-MG-Conversions.htm
Good luck with it. Keep us informed of your progress on this project
and the other restorations.
Charlie
On 2/23/2012 10:17 AM, gunnellj tds.net wrote:
> Do the two long rail-like structures that Moss calls The Main Body Frame
> have a lot of strength when new or does their strength come from the
> timbers they are attached to?
>
> The reason I ask is that we are rebuilding a body tub for a "hot rod TD"
> and these parts are not available from Moss. We were able to save the
> originals intact, pur them in our media blaster and clean them up. Both
> have one or two weak spots that can be repaired, but seem fairly solid
> overall. However, they are not super strong either.
>
> I am trying to determine if we need to have new ones fabricated, which is
> probably a complicated and expensive task.
>
> Has anyone else dealt with this and what did you do? Or is there a ready
> source of these rails?
>
> BTW, the car being made into a hot rod was a $500 rust bucket that anyone
> else probably would have broken up for parts. It is a shame as we believe
> it was a 20,000-mile car. The parts on the front of the cart including the
> engine and transmission were all very nice for refurbishing, but the rear
> half of the car was allowed to sit in water or something and was ruined. We
> had to do $1800 of welding just to save the metal frame. So we are not
> destroying a good car to make a hot rod and the whole project involves
> restoring 3 cars as an ongoing series in AUTO RESTORER magazine. The other
> two cars are being restored stock.
[demime 1.01d removed an attachment of type text/x-vcard which had a name of
mgcharlie.vcf]
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