Front wing stays

[prowland]

I am attempting to fit brand new front wings to my MG TB. The tub is a 20 yr old Hutson and the stays are the original. The stays just do not seem to fit into the profile of the wings. Has anyone ever had to modify the shape of the stays to suit their wings? Or is it generally a given that the stays are the correct profile/shape?

[Ray White]

The stays are handed. Have you got them on the wrong sides?

[prowland]

Yes, i do have then the right way around. If fact, i have tried them both ways

[Ray White]

Yes, i do have then the right way around. If fact, i have tried them both ways

I don't know then.

(What I can say is that when I bought a new pair of rear wings they had the wrong profile and were a very poor fit. The supplier refused to have them back so at present they are with our local panel beater who is probably still scratching his head. )

[antijam]

When you refer to the 'stays' do you mean the braces mounted off the chassis or the headlamp mounting brackets tying the wing to the radiator tie bracket? When fitting new wings to my TC the profile of the foot of the headlamp bracket was a very poor fit against the wing profile. By swapping the right and left hand brackets side to side I did get an acceptable fit of the foot without distorting the wing. This did mean that the chrome bolt attaching the headlamp bracket to the tie bracket had to be inserted from the rear rather than from the front.

[prowland]

yes, i did read your post about the issue. i have tried swapping the 2 headlamp ties but they are fairly identical. the dimensions for the TC WINGS above axle given on the drawings (20 13/16" above front axle centreline) dont seem to be possible for my wings either

[Ray White]

It would be easier to modify the stays rather than the wings. I would, but I am not saying it is the right thing to do.

[prowland]

yes, I think I am going to end up modifying the profile of the stays. The wings need to be fairly unstressed I would think

[Steve Simmons]

Are these the original wings to the car? I wonder if they could be in the wrong position and therefore the arc doesn't line up. Maybe try fitting them to the bare wing, off the chassis?

[Simon Sadubin]

I certainly had a hard time getting my wing stays, headlamp brackets and front wings to all line up nicely. My car TC2575 had lost it's swept front wings sometime in the late 1950's and had run cycle guards on the front. Assembling the front end without the wings I could not get the wing struts to line up with the headlamp brackets - they were all misaligned. The headlamp brackets are definitely handed. Eventually I realised the radiator mount bracket had been messed around with and modified and so the radiator was positioned too far back on the chassis as the stud location had been changed. I got a new mounting cradle for the radiator with the studs in the correct location and this sorted the fore and aft alignment. Unfortunately this meant the bonnet was too short all the way around as it had been trimmed to fit the modified radiator position...!

The next issue was the overall height of the wingstays off the chassis frame. I found that the wings didn't fit so well until the teardrop shaped metal backing pads for the sidelights and the rubber isolating pads were fitted underneath the wing on top of the wing stay. Once all all this went in it slightly flexed the wing tip up and everything seemed to line up much better. I also found that having the beaded rubber isolating pads on the ends of the headlamp brackets where they bear against the wings helped the geometry too.

regards,

Simon TC2575

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