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MG TD TF 1500 - Original Carpet Fasteners

This may be impossible to discover at this point unless someone has a mint, unrestored car.

I am trying to discover what fastener type was used to hold down the carpet just in front of the seats. Was it snaps or lift the dots or perhaps it was just tacked down and you could not remove it?

On Moss Motors kits they include Veltex carpet rings (hidden snaps)(2 for the driver and 2 for the passenger). I have seen restored cars that use all lift the dots.

Also shouldn't the passenger side have 4 hold points? The drivers side has the two lift the dots on the firewall as its front hold points but if there is only the two on the passenger side, it would bunch up every time you moved your feet.
Chris Couper

Chris, I'm waiting for a reply to your question as I also would like to know.
I'm probably wrong, but I don't think the snap rings were used on the T series and I would assume Lift A Dots. Some early cars even had twist locks that went through an elongated hole in the material. PJ
Paul sr

Chris,
I will be able to find out what was on an original TF at the upcomming GOF,, A TF that will be there has less than 5,000 original miles !!!!!!!!!!!

SPW
STEVE WINCZE

Paul: I may use the Veltex snaps to start because they are benign. They show nothing on the surface as the snap is below. There is a small black ring on the surface but its hard to see and does not damage the carpet. This would look the same as tacking the carpet down. Later if/when we see evidence of using lift the dots then I can remove the Veltex rings and snaps and then install the lift the dots.

Steve: Be sure to take tons of pictures. You can never take enough pictures. If you like I will create a unrestored page on the TF site and give you credit for the pictures.

This is the one I did for a 1951 TD in the 70's
http://www.mg-cars.org.uk/mgtd/Pictures/UnRstr51/Thumbnails/mgtd_gallery_unrstrd51.htm

Chris Couper

Steve: You got me thinking and I decided to look at my own sources :-)

It looks like the carpet was just tacked down. On the following two images I cannot find evidence of any snaps.

Chris Couper

A real good picture of the front passenger carpet.

Chris Couper

Chris, my TD (10855) has L-T-D's on the kickpanel that secure the front edge of the carpets. The driver's side is just below the steering column and the passenger side is above the foot ramp, toward the gearbox hump. I think it still had the original carpets when I found it. Bud
Bud Krueger

Bud: Yes that is correct but I am wondering about the area just in front of the seats.
Chris Couper

Chris, my 53 TD was set up the same as Bud's car.
Jim Merz

The LTD studs were still in the floorboard in front of the seats. Bud
Bud Krueger

Here is a pic of my factory TF carpet showing the LTD's. You can just make out their position by the little rust holes in the lower carpet next to the seat bolt holes.

Matthew.

M Magilton

Matthew: Very interesting. I appears that the carpet was cut out to go around the hinges or did it cover the hinges and go a bit around the runner. From the holes it looks like the latter.

So basically you would not see much of the hardware except the adjustment handle even when the seat was back all the way?
Chris Couper

The front carpet covered the bolts and stopped at the hinges so it would not interfere with the seat tilt.
Here is a pic showing my new carpet.

Matthew.

M Magilton

Thanks Matthew for those two photos, which I downloaded, they clear up a question I also had on how they were originally fastened. PJ
Paul sr

Matthew, is there a way you could give the measurements of the post from the center of the seat bolt hole forward and to the side for placement of a new post. I'm assuming the post has a wood screw base? PJ
Paul sr

My TF 1500 has the same LTD's as Matthew's. It also had two LTD's in the passengers front carpet just before the foot rest.
The foot rest was carpeted separately and the front carpet ended at the foot rest so it was removable without removing the foot rest.
Don Harmer

OK. We need to here from you TD people with original carpet. Do you have pictures?

You will notice the 1951 picture above does not have LTD studs at the front of the passenger carpet. It looks like the foot rest was screwed down on top of it but that does not go along with the 'take the carpet out easily' model of the LTD's.

I am wondering if somewhere in the production of the TD/TF there was a switch over from tacking the carpet down to using LTD's.

Bud its interesting that both yours and the unrestored TD above are both 1951 cars. I don't have a picture that I can see the carpet right at the hinges though. Its just out of range :-(
Chris Couper

Chris, have you seen the shots from this batch?

George Butz

more

George Butz

another

George Butz

detail

George Butz

grain pattern. These were from shots Gordon Lawson (I think) posted a few years back from an unrestored TD. George

George Butz

George: I have some of those posted at

http://www.mg-cars.org.uk/mgtd/Pictures/UnRestored/Thumbnails/mgtd_gallery_unrestored.htm

You have more.

Where can I get the rest that I don't have?
Chris Couper

See www.ttalk.info/Butz53/ for more images from George Butz. Bud
Bud Krueger

Paul, the post has a screw base, it is I & 1/2 inch from the seat bolt centre and slightly rearward as per the carpet pic.

Matthew.
M Magilton

Chris, I have a hundred or so of other shots of what is original on that TD. Unfortunately, the engine/tranny had been pulled along with the foorboards, and all of the carpet was gone. There are a number of close-up detail shots of brackets, screws, nuts/bolts, upholstery (except the seats) etc. If you want the set, shoot an email to me. May be easier to burn on a disk and snail mail to you. George
George Butz

M Magilton, Victoria, Australia

Paul, the post has a screw base, it is I & 1/2 inch from the seat bolt centre and slightly rearward as per the carpet pic.

Thanks Matthew, Much appreciated, I'll make note of that in my book. PJ



Paul sr

Matthew, Sorry about bugging you so much, but your car has so much originality to it, how was the passenger side carpet secured in the front originally? Does the foot rest secure it? Do you think a LHD would be fastened the same as yours? PJ
Paul sr

As some of you know, we have TF6688 whch is pretty original and has never been "tinkered" with.
I have load of pictures for your site if you want.

I can try to send them directly if you have ability to receive.
colin stafford

Colin: Please send them but you might have to batch them at less than 50 mb a bunch. Even better if you can zip them into batches as compressed zip file.
Chris Couper

Your input would be great Colin, from what I have seen of your photos, your car is exceptional.

Matthew.
M Magilton

Colin, I also would be interested in the photos of your car. Like Chris said, send them in bulk/batch or however it's easiest for you! My email account should except them. PJ
Paul sr

Paul, the front-passenger carpet went one or two inches under the edge of the foot rest and three screws went through the three holes in the foot rest and passed through the edge of the carpet then into the floor. My screws have gone but they would have been dome head wood screws in black. The holes are still there in the factory carpet. I see no reason why LHD TF's would have been different.

Book?

Matthew.
M Magilton

Thanks Matthew for that info!
Book?
I save everything on MGs, every piece of information in the computer, then once a month or so, I put it on an external hard drive. For a quick reference on a particular item, I hard copy on paper and put it in a note book that is on the work bench in my shop, with illustrations if available. I still like things on paper. A little old fashioned I guess, but it's handier and the note book will take more abuse! Grin. PJ
Paul sr

Matthew: I have a conundrum with regard to the footrest but I agree on your assessment.

It appears that they put these screws through the footrest that sat on top of the front passenger carpet. But then put lift the dot fasteners down by the seat. So the only way you could take the front passenger carpet out was to unscrew the bottom of the footrest. Seems odd.

But maybe they only intended you to lift the carpet up to sweep or vacuum under it? But on the driver side it had snaps at both ends so it could be removed.
Chris Couper

re' the footrest and carpet. I stil have the original carpet in my car and it held (right side) by the foot rest and screws which hold the footrest in place. Screws are creoss head wood screws
All of the other fasteners are the dot and lift type.

see pictures

colin stafford

Floor fastner for carpet

colin stafford

Great photos George and Colin. Interesting to see the same underlay used. It would be good to get a photo of a set of the underlays all laid out if anyone is taking out their original carpets (mine are incomplete and in tatters).

Chris, the screws were just a case of killing two birds with one stone; securing both the carpet and footrest. The LTD's would not have done the job.

Matthew.
M Magilton

The owner of the 1951 TD I took pictures of back in 1977 was gracious enough to take a few pictures of the carpeting. One of those shows the LTD studs by the seat. I am hopeful I can get one more picture of what the carpet at the hinge looks like so we can put this thread to bed.

I have added the three images to the gallery and next week I am going to covert the physical slides to high resolution digital pictures which will improve the other 24 pictures.

http://www.mg-cars.org.uk/mgtd/Pictures/UnRstr51/Thumbnails/mgtd_gallery_unrstrd51.htm

Chris Couper

I dug up another picture of a TD seats. The seats are pushed all the way back exposing the seat runner. Note in the back how deep the carpet seems to go. I know on Matthews TF his carpet was just slightly notched around the hinge.

You can just make out the LTD button on the lower portion of the picture.

What I would like from Bud K and/or Jim M is if they can measure the location of the LTD studs for the inside and outside runners. It would be good to take the measurement from the center of the hinge bolts.

Chris Couper

After getting pictures and measurements from all sorts of sources I determined there was not one true answer.

TFs seemed to have just a small cutout for the channels while some TD's may not have had any, but we could only tell from the measurements of reported stud holes as those reporting did not have carpet.

I had at least three TD pictures that had a considerable amount of cutout for the tracks. Up to three or more inches. Since my seat is always all the way back I decided to go for the most amount of carpet extending as far back as I could find evidence for.

In the end I made my cutouts so the carpet extended as far back as the first square hole on the runner. The front carpet was cut out just back from the hinge so when you lift the seat track up it does not bind.

I placed the LTD at 1 1/2 inches from the outside edges of the carpet and 1" from the back. Same on the passenger side.

I purposefully made one change from original. On the original passenger carpet the front end was under the footrest which was screwed to the floor. I did not like the look of the raw and wanted to remove the carpet for cleaning if need be. So I deviated by having the passenger carpet overlay and terminate at the bottom of the footrest. Just prior to the footrest I used the Veltex hidden snaps to secure the front. I think it looks good and extremely close to original and its a bit more functional.

I will update the carpet page on the MGTD site later with more details.

Thanks for all that contributed to this thread.

Chris Couper

Passenger carpet

Chris Couper

Chris, given that all the LTD's shown are slightly rearward of the hinges, all the carpets must have had cut-outs no?
The factory would have had no raw edge showing at the footrest because the footrest carpet was folded under, where the three screws go.

Matthew.
M Magilton

Well a few people reported holes forward but without carpet pictures I could not really justify them, so I am with you. Maybe they just stated it backwards.

As far as the footrest and raw edges check the picture from George B above. I have a number of others like it.

Same with the trans dipstick. Everyone likes to fold it under but it appears to have been cut flush with raw edges too.
Chris Couper

It is interesting and different from my late TF 1500 in which the carpets had been replaced when I got it. But the passenger carpet had the LTDs at the hinges with notches as shown in several above. The footrest carpet is not folded over and is screwed down as mentioned BUT the front of the passenger car side ends at the footrest and is held down by two LTDs.

This has always made a lot of sense to me since the front carpet can easily be removed being held in place by 4 LTDs
Have no Idea if this was done originally, but was on the replacement interior when I got the TF in 1964. It always seemed to me to be an excellent arrangement and more practical that that described above.

Could it have been done on Late TF's by the factory????
Don Harmer

Don: All the pictures I could find showed it like Matthew described. My car was done the way you described by a very meticulous upholsterer and I thought it was original too until I started collecting images of un-restored carpets.

So I did a compromise by using the Veltex hidden fasteners. It does what you want but without showing LTD fasteners at the front.
Chris Couper

Chris & Matthew

Well the originally police may get me then, but I sure like the carpet not under the footrest and easily removable.

A few years ago, I bought a replacement set from Heritage. their set had no provision for the foot rest. The carpet just extended up the footplate like the drivers side. They insisted that this was original.

It also had no notches for the seat runners/hinges and was an inch too wide.
Don Harmer

Don: Nobody does the notch thing. In fact they don't even mention it. Not sure why Heritage did not treat the footrest as separate as that has always been clear.

I agree on not having the footrest sitting on top of the carpet. I chose to deviate from that too. If you look at my picture above you cannot even tell there are fasteners at the front because they are under the carpet and a little tiny ring is all that is on the top, buried in the carpet pile.

I suspect that the factory did not really expect you to take the carpets out completely but instead lift them up from the seat and sweep or vacuum under them. Even the driver side with all LTD could not be taken out unless you removed the pedals first.
Chris Couper

Here is a pic showing the factory footrest carpet from TF9097 with the folded floor edge.

M Magilton

And here is a pic with the passenger floor mat where we can see the LTDS's (although one has gone). This carpet stopped just under the footrest (the factory not spending the extra sixpence for carpet that could not be seen beyond the footrest). When the floor edge of the footrest carpet is folded it shows some of the hessian/burlap base which is why some of the other photos 'appear' to show a cut edge.
(I have no issue with folks doing their own thing, I'm just being pedantic and following the subject title).

Cheers,
Matthew.

M Magilton

I agree Mathew that most likely the footrest bottom carpet was folded under on all cars but a few pictures hint at otherwise. It could be as you said over time the carpet gave way and just showed the backing at the fold. And that would mean you had to put the footrest in place over the top of the passenger carpet without the carpet glued to the footrest.

Then after you secured the three screws and the top two bolts you would glue down the carpet and fold it under the sides (if you could). That would not work out very well and probably made a big mess in doing so.

It would have been a lot easier to just leave the bottom trimmed to the size and pre-covered and after fastening just glue the last bit of carpet onto the lip.
Chris Couper

The footrest carpet seems to have been fully glued beforehand and then screwed down right through (with the screws showing, as the holes prove). There was as little concern for showing the black wood screws as there was for the LTD's. This was all pre assembly work so that there was less fiddling about on the production lines both at Abingdon and Morris Bodies.

Matthew.
M Magilton

Matthew. Thanks for pointing that out to me. I completely missed that aspect and I could not figure out why they would glue it after installation :-)
Chris Couper

This thread was discussed between 28/08/2013 and 14/09/2013

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