Driving into the forum for the first time

[John Cadwell]

Greetings,  I received a 52 mgtd replica as a birthday present from my wife last June.  (thanks honey) Built on 73 VW chassis.  Had a bit of work to get generator and brakes working, and replaced carb and then added electronic ignition to get it running decently.

I also put wide white walls on it which are awesome, and ordered a faux british front license that reads ‘1952 MGTD’.  Back license is Washington State Collectors plate.

Pretty car, I get to tinker a bit.  Plan to replace the wood dashboard, which is a faded plywood veneer, add heat (not sure quite how because the shrouding doesn’t match vw heater system), and add a soft top.  I have the two bars that hold the top, but the fabric, windows, etc were gone.

John

[Mark]

Congratulations on your fine birthday gift.  Sounds like a fun project to work on.  I’d like to replace my dash panel, as there are holes from a previously installed manual choke, now gone.

[edward ericson]

Welcome, John. You can run heat into the center tunnel or duct it under the seats, or both. Check the assembly manual downloads for notes and diagrams about how the various kit mfgs suggested it be done.

Here’s a primer on VW heat, with tips on how to make the stock heater boxes work their best.

My car has heat in the tunnel, with 2-inch holes cur under the heater control levers to vent it into the passenger compartment. It works pretty good, but there’s no defrost function and you can easily see the holes even from outside the car.

I had a brainwave that it might be great fun to plate-over those holes,  duct the heat forward to the front of the tunnel, and there install a box with adjustable vents to aim the heat at the people’s feet (and maybe duct sume op to the dash).

Turns out the aftermarket MG TD add-on heaters (Arnolt, Eureka, etc.) were mounted up there.

Something to think about if you’re truly insane like me.

edsnova40824.3790277778

[Paul Mossberg]

Welcome aboard!

I nominate your lovely lady as wife of the year, if not decade or better!

You definitely found the right place here! Just curious, how did you find us?

Heat/Defrost

The passenger compartment is about half the size of a Beetle, so the stock VW heat exchangers and forced hot air work great in our little cars. You would need the heater boxes and the proper shroud with the outlet tubes. If you don’t have that, then an aftermarket heater as Ed suggests may be the way to go. Some of our friends guys on a Porsche Speedster/Spyder replica forum are experimenting with ceramic heaters. We’ll report their results.

As far as defrost, I have a simple, one speed blower mounted high up under the dash with four 1 inch flexible ducts going to four outlets along the windshield. All it does is circulate the warm air in the car. But it works great. It will not de-ice a windshield. But it will clear the worst fog.

I don’t l disagree with Ed’s ideas…and he is a great tinkerer and solution guy! But I will say this….the further away from the heater boxes your outlets are, the more heat will dissipate. There is not a lot of room to run insulated tubing to save that heat. I know most Speedsters do it, and as Ed pointed out, some TD replicas do it, but I frankly never understood running your hot air through a cold, six inch steel tube and hoping for hot air to come out the other end. Coming through the standard outlets at the rear of the floor pan…I can bake the passenger compartment on the coldest of nights. I rarely open the heat exchangers all the way.

Tires

One of our members is currently considering blackwalls vs whitewall. We’d love to see pictures of your car. And they might help his decision!

Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica Roadster

If you own a TDr and are not in the Registry, please go to https://tdreplica.com/forums/topic/mg-td-replica-registry/ and register (you need to copy and paste the link)

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