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MG MGA - Trim question

Just found my front cockpit trim. The wood bit is made from 1/4 ply. Is this kosher? The door trim bits are solid wood.
Also, no rubber pad. What is its function?
Art Pearse

The front piece is correct with the 1/4" plywood (and metal end caps), but it also needs a molded rubber pad to fill out the full section height and profile. Moss sells the rubber strip separate.
Barney Gaylord

Gday Art,the one that came off my car was timber, thin width of foam,vinyl. Don't know if this is original design. Bob
Bob Walker

Barney must type faster than me
Bob Walker

So the rubber is on top of the wood? (cabin side). Mine seems to have vaporized to black dust!
Art Pearse

I believe that two things that set off a roadster more than any others are the quality of the dashboard(inc. gauges) finish and the complete cockpit surround trim. Although I’ve seen lots of cars with nigh on perfect dashboards I don’t think I’ve ever seen one with a completely satisfactory cockpit surround. I think many are spoilt by the front trim piece and in my view this is mainly because the reproduction foam that is available does not have the correct section. I think it’s possible to guess at what the original foam section was by looking at the original metal end pieces which have approximately semi circular ends with a 1.125” base and 0.50” height. Allowing for the foam to be squashed a bit during covering with vinyl I think the correct sponge section should be semi circular with no more that 1.25” base and 9/16” height.

Reproduction foam sections appear to be rectangular of the correct width 1.25” but Ύ” height.

I started to do my front trim last year with foam bought from Scarborough Faire (with the rectangular section) glued to the 1.125” wide , Ό” thick ply base (in actual fact you can’t get imperial ply over here now so I had to make do with nominal 6mm finishing up barely more than 5mm which is not really thick enough).
Anyway I wrapped the vinyl around the foam as carefully as I could and tacked it to the backing but I wasn’t happy with the end result. Not only did it not match up with the door trim (in section) but the amount of side to side vinyl stretch varied along the length so that the overall effect was uneven.
In the end I ditched the whole lot and cut a solid wood trim piece from a piece of 4 or 5” x Ύ” shaping it using a spokeshave to a profile similar to the original door trim. I covered it with vinyl without using any foam padding and I think it looks far better than the first one I made. One bonus from all this is that the uppermost slope of the trim is exactly the same as the front scuttle top and the continuation of line is very pleasing.

With the repro. rectangular trim there is an obvious change of line from the scuttle top because the trim is fixed to a sloping base.

Having a solid front trim piece might be more painful for the head in the event of a very sudden stop but as I have fitted seat belts I’m not worried about this…………………………………………………………Mike
m.j. moore

Think I might do as you did Mike. Nice bit of pine or poplar.
Art Pearse

Hi,
I Did the same as Mike,made my own trim piece in solid wood.Much, much better result then trying to cover the sponge with the vinyl and stretch it even.To mount the trim piece to the dash I drilled blind holes in the wood and screwed copper pieces in the holes.On the outside they have a rough thread to screw them in the wood and on the inside they have a M6 thread.
Herman,
H. Jorens

Art, I removed the vinyal trim from the rear cockpit to find sponge type material glued to it this to me looks cheap and tacky. I saw an A with a beautiful stained and polished wood trim that really finished it off. I don't think you will regret the extra effort. I intend to do the same when I get to that point. Clive..
c allen

This thread was discussed between 23/03/2013 and 24/03/2013

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