TC-8233

This car was bought in 1991 in Surrey UK. It looked reasonably OK and I was wearing rose-coloured glasses. It seemed to just need a couple of small things doing to it to put it back on the road.
I removed those few parts that needed work, and guess what? I needed to remove just a few more [like the engine, and the front and rear axle assemblies]. And then ? You know the rest.
It quickly became obvious that [a] this was not one of my better purchases, and [b] only a complete rebuild would get it right.
It is easy to pull a TC apart, and put the pieces away in boxes but, as you probably know, it requires time and perseverance to put it back together properly. Travel for work did not permit me to apply the necessary effort until 1998, when I got serious again about getting the TC completed.
The rolling chassis photo shows progress at Autumn 1998. Prior to bringing the chassis to this stage, the body had been fitted to the chassis for the "first fit" and doors, wings, bonnet, tank etc all worked on to get them aligned correctly. [Steve Baker of Lincolnshire did the body and panel work for me.] The front wings were poor and I was lucky to get a good original pair to replace them. The new body tub, with original scuttle, also needed work to get it right. With the panels all correct, it was then stripped down for painting, and I could build the rolling chassis to the stage shown.
My chosen paint shop was committed to Du Pont paints, so we had Du Pont make a new formula equivalent to the old ICI 9448 MG Red colour, which is correct for 1949. Du Pont kindly did this using spectroscopic techniques to get an exact match, and allocated a new colour code number. [Refer to my colour chart in Special Files.]
The body and panels were then assembled onto the completed chassis, and the whole moved to my home workshop for me to complete the assembly work, install interior trim, dashboard, instruments, wiring, etc..
TC-8233 was 50 years old on 21 March 1999. I had hoped to have it completed by that date but the work took until early-August. I drove it for the first time on 8 August, and completed the registration process and had it on the road by 2 September 1999. This was 37 years after I bought my first TC as a 19 year-old university student in Melbourne, Australia in September 1962.

Michael Card

for a complete story click: www.mgtc.co.uk