MG T-ABC

I've been struggling for too long with the tub on my TC and only making slow progress. Over the last couple of days I've been fitting the rear quarter panel. It seemed to be going ok, but when I did a trial fit of the wing (fender), it was way out. After a lot of messing about, I realised that the previous owner had attempted to repair it and made a total mess of the curves. One of the front wings is the same. On top of that, it appears that some of my wood must have been cut as a 'Friday afternoon job' by my supplier and is taking significant modification to get right (e.g. the door frames).

As I've already restored the rolling chassis, I'm thinking of aborting the tub and bodywork build and getting a Q-type body kit from Steve Baker here in the UK.

Any thoughts or experiences of Q-type conversions would be appreciated. If such contemplation means that I'm regarded as a heretic, then you have my apologies.

Steve

How about having Steve Gilbert make you a TC tub? Pretty good work, one of the more accurate, and reasonable in price.
If you don’t have his contact info (he is in Egham TW20 8HD) let me know

I just finished my Steve Baker Q. It isn't a "kit" as we kind of know the word. The body comes as an empty shell. Many important parts are included, some are extra. Everything else is on you. Floor brackets, seat belt mounts, floors, scuttle supports.... There is a lot of fabrication to be done. I spent 1,200 hours on it, as much time as on a recent hot rod build with A/C, P/S, P/B, SatNav, Full upholstery...

Sourcing all the parts was hard on the wrong side of the pond, but possible. There are some terrific suppliers in the UK. There are other body makers and Steve likely jobs out to one of them, but he also gave a lot of help with the small bits. You will have to be able to weld aluminum or find someone who can. Small changes and adjustments are inevitable.

Steve,
I am sorry to hear of the problems you are having getting your TC body up to snuff, this is a difficult task even when you have much experience with such matters. I built my body tub replacing individual timbers from one of the popular sources, things fit reasonably well, but all require a bit of fitting, a bit of adjusting, maybe a bit of grinding. They just don't fall into place and throw the d-mn measuring stick away! The idea is to get the doors to fit and not worry about a quarter inch descrepency here or there no matter what people tell you. My car came with glass fiber rear wings, they fit well and looked good, but TC's did not come that way, so I came up with a set of well used steel wings that needed plenty of repair, probably don't fit as nicely but are indeed proper, along with that, the front wings needed plenty of rust repair. My point is that these cars weren't perfect to begin with and became less perfect when weather and time took over. If you can't get your wings to fit up surely someone could help you out or perhaps there is a better set around. While the Q body is interesting, it is costly I am sure and time consuming to fit and in my mind nothing looks better than a TC, not a bad line anywhere. Following the photos of what you have done, things looked to be well done, don't give up the shop now that you have done so much. Just a bit of encouragement for you.

Steve, if it will help I can bring mine to you for comparison. Having said that I can't do next week but the Tues-Fri the following week is OK. Weekends are now fully booked until mid September.

Ok, I've had my moment of throwing my rattle out of my pram (as they say in the UK, not sure what the US translation is). I've been convinced by a couple of people that what I've done so far isn't that far off being acceptable (you know who you are and there will be retribution for making be carry on! ) and that with a bit more work, it can be knocked into shape.

I'm going to persevere and in fact I've already now made the front quarter panel on the other side. I'm now working on the rear quarter on that side before going back to try to finish off the side where I got stuck, so no Q-type for now. If anyone else is also building a tub for the first time, I'm building up a lot of tips on how to, and how not to, do it.

Maybe when I've finished this one and been through sufficient therapy I'll do a Q-type for my next project as I do quite like them.

Thanks for the encouragement and support guys.

Steve