Practically Classics Forum

Hit one snag the next morning. I went out and found a pool of oil in the floor from the n/s/f damper. Its annoying as I inspected both of them before painting and fitting so i've taken a good one off the donor car and will paint and fit it next week.

Not much work done the last few weeks due to time and weather constraints. I also found out the bulkhead where the heater pipes connect to has been cut away on me new shell so i'm having to make a plate along with finishing off centralising the fuel tank before respraying the shell. I also decided on the colour, Dark British Racing Green.

Aside from that I got the heater back together. Using a new seal kit from Brown & Gammons I also perfected my spraying technique and for the first time I did a good job. I painted the inside white to reflect heat and I flushed out the matrix before refitting. Instead of buying new clips i sandblasted the old ones and sprayed them gold, i'm pretty pleased with the results.

Just to let you know I haven't forgotten about the old girl. But i've started a new job lately so the hassle of that (and time, darn jobs) took me away from the MGB. However we have also been finishing off the longly awaited (15yrs) inspection pit and concreted floor my father and brother have mostly done. Its a joy to use as its nice and big and will allow a lot of jobs to be easily done. So after christmas I shall be going home put the car over the pit and help dad finish the welding on the rear quarter, relocating the fuel tank and fitting the heater panel I mentioned earlier. After that it can be primered though we might wait for the worst of the cold to pass before doing the top coat.

Another plus, my min. 6 months contract job gives me lots of money to spend on it and I have a feeling once I get the wiring loom and engine/box, things will progress much quicker.

More piccies soon!

I know what you mean mate, work is a damn inconvenience
I'm in the middle of building this but work keeps getting in the way..............







I paid £100 for it and for what its cost me, I'm chuffed with it

All I can say is the weather is total sh*te in this country, I went home this weekend and was confronted with 2 days of 1.5ºC temperatures, bone cutting winds ands freezing rain. So this pit and garage floor are finally done and boy does it make a difference after 10 years of an earth floor!





I sliced my thumb open doing work on my brothers Alfa so wasn't best impressed, but got the MG over the pit on Saturday.



I have a source for stainless steel bolts now so replaced some of the old bolts and it looks much nicer.



A view from the pit



This shows the final part of welding that needs doing. The rear corner has some rust and at the same time dad is going to re-drill the centralised fuel tank location holes and weld on exhaust mounting brackets for the offside exhaust thats going to be fitted along with moving the filler hole 3 inches

The pit is really nice!

Jim

The car is back in the garage after being removed to make space for other work



View of underneath



As I mentioned before, someone had cut the heater panel out of the car, is should look like this



So dad has been making a repair panel. It has had to be made in 3 pieces to fit it in there, the first part



This was replicated the other side before making a cardboard pattern for the main panel



Before a plate was made up



And fitted into the car



Thats been painted now and screwed/bonded in so all thats left to do now before the painting is centralising the fuel tank. I tried taking the wings off the donor car but the bottom edge thats normally screwed on has been welded, so they will need grinding. Just out of interest as i've been stripping my old MGB (the donor car), i've realised how rusty it was, here are some pics.

I love my dad, he is so awesome. Along with 1. Finding a new car for me to replace my BMW urgently and 2. Working on some cooling system changes and engine maintainence on my superkart, he has found time to finish the welding on the MGB!!!

Rear quarter, seam sealed



Heater bulkhead now fitted. Anyone know where I can get some dumdum sealing compound?



The filler neck for the fuel tank relocated. There was a slight error with this so dad inserted a blank plate with a hole then welded the original fuel filler hole onto that. It gave him some more spexibility with movement along with better strenth.



Underneath



One of the fuel tank tabs had to be cut down to fit too.



All that needs doing now is the welds cleaning up around the light area on that side and it can be painted!

Frost keep DumDum but they don't half know how to charge for the stuff, AV Taylor Autoparts branches all over also sell it, but at a sensible price.

Thanks JPB, will try and get some.