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MG MGA - Covering cockpit trim

Got my new cockpit rails all made up and ready to cover.
I could do it with the tan leather from the seats or with tan vinyl I will use for the trim panels and backs of the seats. Which would be best?
And then, how to attach the covering? Contact adhesive?
Also not sure how to do the ends without clumsy folds.
Art Pearse

The factory covered the aluminium corners of the cockpit trim with thin matching vynil. The ends were neatly folded over. the corners were stuck to the aluminium and the straight part was tacked to the wood (from memory, it was a long time ago!)
Barry Bahnisch

Australian CKD cars were trimmed all in vinyl. Abingdon cars had leather on the door rails and rear corner rails, vinyl on the front and rear rails. Make sandwich wrapper folds at the ends, then tap it down gently with a flat faced hammer to keep the folds thin. Attach on the undersides with staples. The aluminum pieces have a strip of leather screwed on the back to accept the staples. See here:
http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/interior/int104.htm
http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/interior/int105.htm
http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/interior/int105a.htm
http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/interior/int106.htm
http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/interior/int107.htm
Barney Gaylord

Barney, You are quite correct (as usual), Ozzie cars have different (Ozzie) trim. What great little cars MGA's were! I have a roadster and a coupe. The latter is an Abingdon car, coupes are a bit thin on the ground in this part of Oz (no 1600 coupes were sold in the State of South Australia)!
Barry Bahnisch

Where can you get the small staples, that can only be about 3/16 deep, based on the leather thickness. I did mine with 3/16 cork, which is what I had, planning to glue instead of staple.
Art Pearse

I bought two packs of JT-21 staples for my Arrow (made in USA!) gun. The majority I used were 1/4" depth and I used 5/16" where there were several thicknesses of material to get through. I couldn't find the original narrow width (around 1/4") staples they had used at the factory fifty years ago but today's common width (around 1/2") staples were not too problematic.

For the backs of the aluminium corner pieces I glued on (with araldite) 1/8" hardboard ( do you call this Masonite over there?). But first I soaked the hardboard in warm water for half an hour or so to make it flexible and clamped it with elastic bands to the corner pieces and left to dry out.

I really enjoyed this job especially fixing on the leather covering which went on like a dream!.....................Mike
m.j. moore

This thread was discussed between 26/08/2013 and 28/08/2013

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