TF Sidelight cover (for nerds)

[Deepfat]

Hello fellow nerds have you ever wondered why your sidelight cover (4 screw) has a bit of moulding on it that appears to do nothing, my early TF has 2 different sidelight covers 1 x 3 screw and 1 x 4 screw, I suspect the 3 screw is OE and the 4 a later replacement. Looking at the picture below you can see on the 3 screw the circled moulding lines up with the headlight moulding, nice touch. It seems that when they went to 4 screw somebody thought "well I don't know what it does so I'll just move it out of the way"

[mgtfnut]

Not wishing to appear nurdy, I rushed outside to look at my covers

[mgtfnut]

Not wishing to appear nurdy, I rushed outside to look at my covers
I also have an early 02 TF, and both my covers have 4 black passivated screws with the little moulding not lining up. I have a rubbish set of Chinese lights which are the same.

I think the onus is on you now to find out what happened - you could be the one to find one of the many strange unanswered facts about the TF. Your car could be very special

Very strange, if they had to modify to make 4 lugs, why not remove the little bit of moulding - presumably it was cheaper. A bit like the subframes still have echos of redundant Metro bits still welded on. Even stranger, they moved the moulding further round to make space for the extra lug rather than remove it.

Looking forward to the next chapter on your investigation!

[Deepfat]

My cars vin ends 260 which makes it the 106th production car and trying to find other cars around this time is proving elusive, I know from the register that there is 1 older on here but data protection blah blah. If anyone has a car built early Jan 02 or even pre production contact me and we could put our "Heads" together to try and see what happened. Like you the orphan moulding intrigues me, I suspect as often happens someone is given a task that they believe is well below their station and pass it on to an underling with no precise instruction, said underling is too scared to question God and muddles through.
Another problem I may have is early TF's have a slightly different wiring circuit, what's different I've no idea (Nerd alert) this only came to light when reading the Tech Bulletins on RAVE. TOB0103 says RAVE only has current (2003) wiring diagrams and RDC002 should be used for earlier models, I presume this is a disc that predates RAVE but googling only gave me a heavy metal band, has anyone got a copy? (not the band). The only thing I know so far is my cigar lighter is ignition controlled not permanently live, which maybe a pointer for others with early cars to be wary of RAVE circuit diagrams.

[mgtfnut]

Wow, that is early, mine is 03/2002 ----3048, so some way down the line.
My lighter socket is ignition fed as well, and I can remember some wiring variations at the time - I might have to investigate my pile of junk (vital historical information).

[Deepfat]

Jerry if you find a copy of RDC002 in your archived material please let me know

[Rob Bell]

I believe that the early TF will share the wiring architecture with the late Mk2 (MY2000) MGF, with Lucas based electrics (Lucas BCU and 5AS SCU).

Don't get me started on the number of variations of the engine loom found on the later cars - only ever really a problem if you are building an engine and loom from second hand parts!

[Roverlike]

I believe that the early TF will share the wiring architecture with the late Mk2 (MY2000) MGF, with Lucas based electrics (Lucas BCU and 5AS SCU).

MG TF MK1 share some similarities in wiring architecture with MG F MK2 but they are not the same.