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MG TD TF 1500 - Side curtain clips

At speed the side curtains billow out. I know there have been various solutions to this but I thought of one when I decided to remove my wind wings for the winter. Instead of loosening the set screws and removing the wind wing assembly as one unit I unscrewed the knurled knobs and left the mounting bracket in place. This made a perfect recepticle for a hitch pin clip. I bent a strip of .050" x 1/2" aluminum that I cut off a piece of angle, drilled a few holes and fitted as shown. A little weather stripping also helps.
I had to make my own side curtain screws as the standards were too short.
Mort

Mort Resnicoff (50 TD-Mobius)

Second photo.

Tested on a cold drive last night. Didn't even have to turn the heater on.

:))))))

Mort Resnicoff (50 TD-Mobius)

Excellent idea. I've had those mounting brackets fall off recently. Will this survive 50 mph? And where do you get those clips? Are they a standard hardware store item? And how do you get the alum. piece into the bracket while closing the door? Not sure how this works from the picture.
Ed
efh Haskell

There are a few types of pins available,,,all from your local hardware store,,, I think a "linchpin" would also work fine,, it can be had in a larger dia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linchpin

SPW
STEVE WINCZE

Ed,
First let me say that although the hitch pins are common I have replaced them with 5/32" Allen wrenches. Much easier to get on and off. We don't need the extra security of the hitch pins.
As to the wind wing set screws. There are many types of set screws with different ends. Some are pointed, some are knurled etc. Try a new set and find the ones that work best.
So far my set up holds up with absolutely no problems at 70 mph.
I'm not sure on your other question. The aluminum bracket I made is permanently mounted on the side curtain, between the frame and the canvas. I located it to be just above the wind wing bracket when the door closes. Then I pushed the side screen in an appropriate amount and marked the location for the top hole in the aluminum bracket.
It was 30 degrees this morning and we went for a one hour drive to meet the car club and then went for another drive and to lunch. I had to open the side screen flap to let out some heat on my side.

;))

Mort
Mort Resnicoff (50 TD-Mobius)

Möbius has been rebuilt, from the inside out with many improvements! from a five speed, supercharger, sway bars and wire wheels to safety improvements like seat belts and positive door latches to creature comforts like head rests, gps, heat and side curtains that fit. It is TD 2.0.
Well done,
-David
D. Sander

Mort - There is a better way to fix the problem with the side curtains, although much more involved that your fix. You (or somebody who put the side curtains on the frames made the same mistake that I did when I did the side curtains for our car. The result is that the curtains open up at speed and if it raining you get rain in your face - quite common in our part of the country). The problem you are having is that the curtains do not fit behind the square pillar on the side of the wind shield - this is very obvious in one of your picture and the result is that the curtains don't fit correctly to the windshield. I have a number of pictures (albeit not great ones) that show what I did to correct the problem. The first picture shows how the curtains should fit to the windshield. Cheers - Dave

Oops - didn't get the picture attached, will try again

David DuBois

First picture, showing the side curtain fit to the wind screen.


David DuBois

Second picture, showing the fit from inside the car.

David DuBois

Third picture shows where I had to cut the side curtain to make it fit. After fitting and cutting, I took the modified curtains to a boat top shop and had them sew on new trim.

David DuBois

Picture four shows how I bent the side curtain frame to angle it such that the top of the makes contact with the windshield first, causing it to stay in place with the car at speed.

David DuBois

Picture five shows how the top of the curtain touches the windshield frame (black arrow) before the door is fully closed (yellow arrow), forcing to screen to be held tightly against the windshield frame.

David DuBois

Picture six shows the fit of the side curtain against the windshield frame, behind the square support of the windshield frame (black arrow).

It was quite a bit of work to get the side curtains to fit tight against the windshield and behind the square supports on the ends of the windshield, but once done, the curtains no longer pull out when the car is at speed and for me, the best part is no more rain in the face. Cheers - Dave

David DuBois

Wow!! Great work, Dave. Very tempting. Bud
Bud Krueger

Dave,
Thank you for posting that and kudos for a job well done. The side screens I got with the car were very poorly fit, like almost everything else on the car.

I had thought about doing what you did but wasn't sure if the curtains were billowing out due to vacuum or wind getting in behind them. Your success seems to prove that it is not the vacuum.
Since I was not sure of the cause I chose a positive mechanical solution. It is not as elegant as yours but it does work for now.

I'm putting your solution on my bucket list.
Mort



Mort Resnicoff (50 TD-Mobius)

"This TD is just too slow, it is not agile enough, it is a victom of 60 year old technology. But wait...Mort can rebuild it, he can make it faster, better, more reliable more powerful. He has the technology! Intorducing the Möbius TD!
But seriously, Job well done.
D. Sander

Mort - Your method works and gets around having to cut already installed curtains. I went the route that I did because my curtains are nearly 40 years old and will have to be replaced sometime in the not to distant future, so I decided to try a proof of concept because I didn't have a whole lot to loose. I hope that when I do replace the curtains, I will be able to position them, without having to cut anything, to make them fit the same. When I get the time, I will compile the pictures (maybe even get some that are better) into an article that I can send to Bud for inclusion on his TTalk site and on the MG Experience site.

I also had a pretty compelling reason to do the modification I did. My wife and I drive our car pretty much all year around and since we live in the Puget Sound region of Washington State, if we drive the car, we get rained on a lot of the time. We both got tired of getting rain in the face and since our children are grown and on their own, we no longer have diapers to stuff in the gap between the side curtains and the windshield frame, so I decided to experiment and it worked :-) By the way, in the statement above "my wife and I drive our car ..." My wife drives the TD more than I do, starting when we first got the car in 1974 - it is her car and and it hasn't changed much since then. In fact, on the rare times when it snows and and the roads are salted, She feels very put upon because I won't let her drive the car until we have a good rain to wash the salt off the roads. Cheers - Dave
David DuBois

I've been looking at Alan Atkins' polycarbonate side screens in TTT2. I have a set of rough 3-bow side curtains left from the53 project. I'm now thinking of combining Dave's system with a set of flexiglass ( or Lexan) curtains.
Dave, I'd be happy to set up a Ttalk page just from the text and images that you have here. It would be best if I had a direct set to avoid any copyright issues with the UKBBS. Bud
Bud Krueger

This thread was discussed between 07/11/2013 and 10/11/2013

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