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I will be selling my London Roadster soon as I will be moving and will not have a garage. Guess you don’t need a garage in Florida. Need to find a caring home for the LR.
The factory frame looks as good as it did in 1986. LR are fairly rare with a factory chassis. Top and tonneu are in great shape. extra windshield. It does need rear shocks because I never got around to change them. Been traveling a lot and only put 50 miles on the car last year. I have picture’s in the gallery. Also has a built in tow system.
I tried to get to the pictures, and, didn’t have any luck.
can you post a direct link?
also, do you have any paperwork that may have come with it, relating to parts?
mine was titled, originally, in 1978, and, haven’t been able to find out much about these cars.
as i needed parts i kept track of what year and model vw they were originally used on. The LR company did not seem to be real consistant. We have never found a factory Parts Manual. I sent all my sales documentation to this site. I have an addon oil filter on mine. EMPI carb and exhaust. My EMAIL is GBIDICK@AOL.COM. Send me an email with LR in the subject and I will send you picture’s. I have a bunch on document’s that I have accumulated over the year’s. Got a lot of them from aa car club in Detroit where the car’s were built.
Yeah, its a VW. I refer to it as a German in English drag.
I just ordered 200# of lead to put up front. Took it up in the mountains last week, and the wind whipped my front end around pretty good, hope the lead helps, if not I’ll have to find a plus sized girlfriend.BillBad Bill
😆I’ve been thinking lifting weights, but lead would take up less space. I’m almost certain my front end is too light because it skips sideways a little when a big truck goes past me, not just a subtle move.
Bob,I got my lead shot from ZIP Metals in Cleveland Ohio, each 50# bag was $67.98 plus $55 shipping for 4 bags or 200#. Their telephone is 1-800-947-8873 M-F 8-5 EST. They have a web site also that you can order from http://www.zipmetals.com/
Lead Shot Bagged 50Lb-2 Lead Shot Bagged 50 Lb recycled,BillBad Bill
The light front end is the root cause. But there are two schools of thought regarding a solution. Classic Roadstes Ltd. handled it with extra weight over the front end. But the prevailing theory is to soften the front suspension by removing leaves from the torsion tubes. Search for suspension in the forum, and you’ll find the main threads on this topic.Here is the main MG Kit Car Suspension thread: https://tdreplica.com/forums/topic/mgtd-kit-car-suspensin/PMOSSBERG2015-05-08 13:27:10
Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica RoadsterIf 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)
Or you will find a lot more discussion in the post “Need advice on ride height” from a few years back. Search it, I wasn’t able to link.
Royal2015-05-07 17:02:45The synopsis: Your front end will not drift or blow around, even if it is light, if you set up the suspension properly. To do that:
1. Take apart the beam and remove all of the small torsion leaves. Reassemble with adjusters welded in where the grub screws go in the middle. (or buy a ready-made adjustable beam)2. Buy a set of caster shims. Install those between the frame head and the lower beam.3, Make sure all steering knuckles, ball joints and the steering damper are right. Replace as needed.4. Make sure the steering coupler (rag joint) is tight, and all the slop is out of the steering box. If it isn’t, DON’t JUST TURN THE BIG SCREW ON TOP.5. Alignment. Front toe-in should be 1/8 to 3/16. Camber should be 0 or, if you are like me, about a half degree, to .7 degrees negative. That means the tops of front wheels, viewed from the car, will be slightly closer together than the bottoms of the wheels: /====6. Make sure your tires are not more than five or six years old. If they are, replace them. After you get them mounted and balanced, set your air pressure in front to something like 16 lbs. If you have not put hundreds of pounds of weights over the front wheels, they will be carrying about 300 lbs each. Tires should be inflated to carry the weight that is on them, and 14-17 tends to be about right for these cars. Too much pressure and the car understeers and feels squirrely on the highway. When I got new tires the dudes at the shop put 36 pounds in each one and I could’ve died on the way home. Halved it in the front, set the backs around 24, and the car rode and handled much better.This is in huge contrast to when I took delivery, with ancient, over-inflated tires and way too-hard springing in front. At that time she plowed like an ice breaker and squealed around every corner. Now Bridget feels generally stable on the highway at speeds up to 80 mph.edsnova2015-05-07 21:29:06
Sage advice. Just not sure I can do the torsion bars without messing them up but does seem fairly simple from what I’ve read. There’s also the coil spring over shock absorbers, which appear to be adjusted at least possible preload.
My tires are going on 8 years old according to their imprinted date, so those will need replacement sooner than later, and I believe I had already put the pressures down to 18 front and 24 in the back. Was reading about that here before otherwise they’d still be about 32! Need to double check the PSI to be sure what I have them at.I plan to get it aligned someplace, although I could probably check it using a crude method.I think the camber is probably way too far into the negative because it doesn’t look far different from your text description using the / and . Just really seems too much to me. I expected it to be barely noticeable but instead has the look of a tremendous weight pressing the front end down.The suspension is definitely questionable as it is now, likewise the steering, so I want those checked same time I get it aligned. Well, before, in case it needs new parts first.Really appreciate the help you’ve all been with this! Thanks.You should get it aligned. The Muir book has a quick and dirty toe-in check though. Maybe do that procedure first–it’s free– then try my handy home camber adjustment:
Car on a level surface, wheels straight, pull the hubcaps and put a good straight edge on the wheel ridge (not the bumps that hold the hubcap). Put a level on the straight edge. You want to be very close to level, with the bubble drifting ever so slightly toward you.
If it is not, loosen the big nut under the upper ball joint, then turn the even bigger nut just above the upper part of the spindle– it’s above the 19mm nut you just loosened. That is the eccentric that adjusts camber. I turned mine with a big channel lock. A quarter or half turn will change a lot. You’ll see the top of the wheel move in and out as you turn it.
There is a notch on one of the flats on this thing. I like to start with the notches to the front and go from there. Turn it one flat, check with the vertical level (I use the “level” app on my iphone), and so forth. Takes about 10 minutes to dial in each side. Also free.Do both those, put in the $8 caster shims, and drive it to an alignment shop. For $100 or so they’ll compliment your home-brewed job. “It was very close,” they’ll say. It’s worth $100 to me to hear that, just to be sure.Then ditch those coil overs. Unless all your torsion springs were stolen, you don’t need those.
edsnova2015-05-08 07:05:19
Ed, seems you are often extolling the virtues of caster shims. Unless you drop the front of the vehicle isn’t this a relatively fixed amount? As I understand it, if your frame is level, then the factory, no shims, should be correct. Aren’t these shims to correct alignment when using a radical nose down modification?
Wow, the posts here are really all over the place. Luggage rack, wheelies, suspension modification, and alignment. Too late now.
Remove those coil overs.
I always do my own alignment (toe and camber). It’s true to the TDr tradition of DIY.
I’ve got a set of shims on my car and my ride height is close to stock. Maybe an inch low all around. The rap on these is that they do no harm, particularly on cars, such as ours, with extra-light noses. The “harm” suffered with too much positive caster is harder steering action in parking lots and such.
The benefit is a more stable line at highway speed–basically what Bob and Bill say their cars lack. Remember the Bug was developed when a fast car might be able to do the ton, and 80 mph on the highway was fast. The stock Bug couldn’t do 80 unless down a hill. Tracking straight at high speed over long distances was not a concern.Today, 80 is everyone’s normal commute. Combine the light nose and you get, imho, a slam-dunk case for spending the $8 and the hour it takes to put shims in. Supposedly each shim leans the angle back by 3 degrees. Some Speedster guys–short wheel base, high horsepower, low stance–use two sets of shims to get comfortable.If you don’t like them, it’s easily reversible. But I’ve not heard of anyone removing them, once installed.edsnova2015-05-08 07:18:14
A previous discussion on the merits, demerits and methods of the “front end weight” approach happened in this thread.
Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica RoadsterIf 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)
And another discussion on the added weight approach is here.
Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica RoadsterIf 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)
I disagree friend.
The first is to a thread titled “large steel block….”
The second to “Grill Shell Sand Box”
And they are a year apart.
Paul Mossberg
Former Owner of a 1981 Classic Roadsters Ltd. Duchess (VW)
2005 Intermeccanica RoadsterIf 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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