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MG TD TF 1500 - Door Check straight or bent

Hi Everyone,

Restoration of TF progressing well. I have an abundance of windscreen cowl brackets, well 2 pairs!!
The one that was originally bent was kindly straightened by Dave White and Ray Lee (of the North Wales branch of the MG Octagon Car Club. Prior to this I had put my feelers out for replacement brackets and managed to acquire a pair in A1 excellent condition via the enthusiastic efforts of Paul Cheal (Hove UK).
These have been put on the car and the windscreen etc looks great.

I have hit another relatively minor (in comparison with the windscreen cowl brackets) problem re the door checks. I obtained a new pair from Moss. However the doors do not close with them fitted. The door checks foul the hole on the door frame. The door check
as new are straight. Do they have to be bent (if so how much) to work properly? I do not want to bend them and then find I have missed a simple trick to make them work without bending!!

Any help or advice would be most appreciated.

kindest regards

dave
D Williams

I had some similar problems I thought, but when looking closer I noticed the new wood in the door is bored with 1 step from big to to narrow.
After enlarging the first step a bit all was fine .
My door checks also new from Moss are straight.
Hope this is of any help,

Gerard
Gerard Hengeveld

Dave
I found the door checks from NTG were somewhat more robust and closer to the originals than those from Moss.
These do have a slight bend but I also found recessing the checks a bit more into the door post provided the right clearance.
Regards, Tim
Tim Wilkinson

They are bent. Perhaps someone with an original can post a tracing of their shape.
Chris Couper

My originals were straight (1952 TD)
The replacements I got from Abingdon were bent.

Jim B.
JA Benjamin

Dave,

I have often pondered re the bent v straight
door checks.However I do have an untouched TF body tub which had straight checks.The NTG version are very good and hold well.(no financial interest).

Cheers.
Rob Grantham
TF3719("Aramis"),TF9177("Athos").
Rob Grantham

Mine are straight (originals TF 1500).

Matthew.
M Magilton

Maybe they were straight, then if they hit on the door opening at assembly they were "adjusted?". George
George Butz

Interesting about this. I can only remember bent ones.

I wonder if this was one of those factory adjustments that were made during assembly?
Chris Couper

My originals were straight, except where they had clearly seen heavy action.
A possible need for adjustment would be if they were to contact the inner door skin.
Tim
Tim Wilkinson

My car only had one on the right door, the other was missing, but the one that was on the car is straight. Now, the door was replaced with a new door many years ago due to an accident, so I don't know if the door check is original or not. PJ
Paul sr

I suspect that they all started out straight and got bent while checking swinging doors.
JB
J K Barter

I was going to say with the NTG checks (also no financial interest) the bend isn't visible with the door panels in place.
Tim
Tim Wilkinson

Mine are bent to bow to the outside of the car. Always have been and were not bent from use. In fact if they weren't bent they would bind big time. I got tired of them scraping even a little bit so I chrome plated them. I also noticed that mine are mounted at an angle pointing to the outside so when the door closes it can clear the door check base.

I would think its a pretty big deal to bend them. I remember restoring cars where I had to increase the bend a bit or perhaps it was because I got new straight ones and they needed a bend.

Its pretty hard to see the bend unless they are fully exposed (ie no door panels) or they are off the car. Perhaps it depends on the hinges how much bend, or none at all, is needed.

Chris Couper

Hi everyone,

Many thanks for everyone's contribution and the most useful information. Seems that the originals were straight but replacements seem to require bending.

Anyway, once again with the help of Ray Lee (without whom the restoration would not have reached this stage), we have managed to solve the problem. We fitted the Moss replacements without bending them.

Firstly, Ray noticed that the hole in the door was not lined up properly with the hole in the tub door post. So I enlarged the hole in the door and filed away at this hole so that the holes lined up.
Then following Tim's suggestion I drilled out the hole in the tub door post so that the door check is now recessed by about 1/8" into the door post.
Bingo the door closes with no fouling of the door check.

Thanks once again for everyone's help.


Best wishes

Dave
D Williams

Trust me. Plenty of them were bent from the factory.

My guess is they had a box of straight and bent and the person hanging the door tried a straight one and if it did not close exchanged it for a bent one. Maybe somebody bent a bunch of them every day after work for the next shift :-)
Chris Couper

This thread was discussed between 03/09/2013 and 05/09/2013

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