Body TC steel sheet thickness

[sebascam]

Hello, new member from France, I have my tc for 48 years, I have to restore the body and I would like to know if there are several thicknesses of the steel sheet. Thank you.

[Steve Simmons]

Welcome! I believe the original thickness was 20 gauge for most areas. Some were thicker, like the scuttle which I've read is 16G. Some of the flanges like the ones around the tool box apparently went up to 14G. It's also been suggested that some body panels were 18G, but after running through the wheel to form them that they were thinned by the shaping process.

Perhaps someone can confirm whether or not this is correct.

[stephen stierman]

Having had to make weld repairs on virtually every panel on TC2911, I believe that for the most part they were somewhere between 22ga. and 20ga. Also it is my understanding that the English gauges do not exactly correspond to U.S gauges.

[sebascam]

Thank you for your answers, I wanted for example the thickness of the quarter panel rear and front, I hesitate between 20 and 18? my TC was restored at the time when the web did not exist and I want it restored as originally. Again thank you for your advice

[stephen stierman]

I made up new front and rear quarters for TC2911 also. At the rear I used a section of the "elbow rail" area that I cut off the old panel and welded into the new panel as this would have been very difficult for me to make up at home. I used 22 ga. for both front and rear panels as it was easier for me to obtain. There was a slight difference in thickness between the saved section and the larger new section, but not enough that it caused a problem in butt welding the two pieces together.

[SteveW]

I think that it's 20 for the quarter panels (or 0.9mm in metric). If you go thicker it's harder to bend it around the curves, if you go thinner, it's harder to weld without blow through.

[Tom Wilson]

Spec. 259 lists all body sheet metal as :
20 SWG Auto Body Normal Bending Silver Finish Steel and 20 SWG CRCA (Cold Rolled Close Annealed).

For those of you that aren't familiar with Specification 259, it is the Morris Motors Limited (aka Nuffield Group, owner of MG at that time) document that lists all the parts that comprise a TC.

Two pages of the pertinent section attached.

[Steve Simmons]

Good call Tom, I didn't think to look there. But I wonder what the actual thickness of the metal was, as apparently British and US gauges o the time weren't quite the same. I'm sure they weren't TOO far off though.

[Mark McCombs]

From what I have found, the actual thickness is about 0.043", which is 19 gage US but I would think that is difficult to find. A good sheet metal supplier would be able to help.

[stephen stierman]

Quite a few years ago I built a new tub for my early Morgan Plus 8 and at that time I had a close by supplier of 20 ga. which I used to make up the panels. This was not available when I did my TC so I used 22 ga. as I had since done on several other Morgan projects. Either thickness worked without problem and I found 22 ga. no harder to butt weld than 20 ga. once one gains a bit of experience with the techniques. I don't really see any problem using one ga. or the other as the strength of the tub is really a combination of the metal wrapping around and being fastened to the timbers.

[Franz]

Hello from Vienna.
48 years, sounds like a love affair.

Franz

[sebascam]

Thank you for all this information and for Tom's document, my TC was 73 years old, leaving the factory on 07/26/47.

[sebascam]

Yes franz, I think everyone who owns an MG TC is having a love affair,

[cdrolshagen]

Hi sebacam
I used to panel the TC Body, 0,88 mm deep drawn sheet metal, a good steel supplier can have that,
not difficult to get.

IMGP1746.JPG (131.4 KiB) Viewed 3362 times

cheers Carl

[stephen stierman]

I think that translates to about 20 ga. U.S. .035" if I'm not mistaken.
What is your plan for making the rear quarter, the elbow rail area behind the driver/passenger? Just curious...….

[sebascam]

In France I find 0.80 mm or 1.00 mm, but not 0.90? I make the wood myself and the frame body / chassis, for the back, I made a wooden model covered in steel and I will lay the sheet to form. The rear woods being in poor condition, I will finish the woods when the steel rear is in place.