A New Winter Coat

Not much activity MG wise. The weather and wifeys constant nagging re D.I.Y list has taken priority. What days off I had was devoted to either a nice long walk in the fine weather or resting. I must admit I wasted several days doing god knows what. The hours flew by and I can't remember anything. Only being annoyed at wasting time on nothing.

The MG has a new winter coat. £15 from Argos. Its fully waterproof, fits like a dream and has elasticated corners. Ever since I took out the rear window to repair the seams and lip its been kind of vulnerable to water ingress. The Blue poly sheets I've been using had eventually become porous, kept coming loose and generally were a real pain to remove/fasten up. Not helped by the fact the giant ( Not an understatement, its about the size of a tennis court) outer blue cover was ripped to shreds, full of holes and becoming snagged on every corner of the MG. The new under cover over the rear window just sagged into the tailgate space due to the weight of rain water collected so I had to be careful how I dragged the cover off. After several times of complaining about some of the water ingress wifey suggested the Argos catalogue ( She has up to date catalogues of every consumer selection on the planet) Well, we have no money so why not dream and spend the imaginary lottery millions. I don't think I'd shop at Argos if i did though.
It seems strange to be saying "winter coat" since its the last Sunday in August and the weather this month has been rubbish. Not hot and settled at all. Generally sunny with some rain and scudding clouds & wind, changeable and average. Where oh where have the long, hot and lazy summers of my childhood gone ?
Here it is covered, as I've just finished a couple of hours between D.I.Y'ing.

Below shows the end plates of the Rubber bumper mounting removed. I intend to convert to chrome bumpers so theses must come off. Its not as straight forward as you think to convert a RB car to chrome bumpers. It now leaves the longitudinal chassis end plate open so I can chop off about 2" ( 50mm) back inside the grill opening ( to allow the fitting of a grille) of the top half, the bottom half needs only be cut back to be behind the valence when fitted. A plate is then welded to the top half to re-cover the section and a nut welded somewhere to hold the bumper bracket.


Then, the lower valence has to have its two square holes ( where the above mounts poked through) welded up.
The wings have to have two square holes filled in and new square hole cut to suit the light fitting with chrome surrounds.
If you can remember the RB cars have the lights( Indicators) integral into the bumper and are larger than chrome bumper cars.
The rear needs the pointy body extensions under the lights ( done when I fitted the rear wings yonks ago). A conversion mount can be bought cheaply to fix the mountings and bumper.

Fortunately I have most of the stuff bought in the mists of time from E-bay and collected
from various parts of the country back when I was travelling this fair isle.

Incidentally, here is a list of places I've travelled to collecting my E-bay purchases :-


Enfield . North London...............................MGB-GT purchase...............................£180
Doncaster ( S.Yorks)........LH & RH sills/castle rail/jacking points and x-member.....£35
Harlow ( Essex)..................................MIG welder.........................£60
Mitcham ( Surrey)..............................Front chrome bumper & lights.............£15
Somewhere north of Wolverhampton miles from anywhere...... rear chrome bumper ....£10
Slough (Berks).........complete roof section......£10............still in storage at former employers ?
Dewsbury ( W Yorks)...........pair doors ....£15 .......Rubbish, never used, in shed I think.
Belper (Derbys).....................doorskin..............................£ 25
Doncaster ( S Yorks ) Head gasket set....................£8
Chesterfield ( Derbys).................Chrome bumper front springs.....................£10
Liverpool (Merseyside ).........Oil cooler & pipes........£15 ( Scouser Jim collected, ex colleague)

And that's not counting the trips to MGOC (many), MGB Hive (three), Mechspec( two) & Watford MG for proper purchases with real money for NEW stuff. Or stuff bought on E-bay that's been posted ( Mostly tools but did include VW golf repair rim for wheel arch) and "other" stuff generally purchased on E-bay.
I might like to add that I am not being paid by E-bay for all this promotion. of their wonderful product. A donation would be appreciated though !

More soon.

Homeward stretch

Well I've almost reached the point where all the bodywork is complete.
As we speak all that is left is :-

1/. Sand down filler in tailgate gutter and prime
2/. Tack weld boot/wheel-arch repairs to strengthen and add some seamsealer
3/. wire brush and paint ( Hammerite- Ku rust, its brill at killing rust) tailgate inner lower lip
4/. fill and sand hole in picture now rear screen is removed.
5/. Drill out snapped bolts in front upper valence mounting captive nuts.
6/. Maybe..............only maybe, re-position front indicator mounting holes in valence,
7/. Chop off old bumper chassis leg plates ( so a chrome bumper mount can be attached)

Not bad eh !! most of the above can be achieved in the next session. if the weather of our glorious summer holds out.
Spent the last two good days helping brother in law lay vast quantities of cement for his new patio. An we aint done yet.

Below are the photos mid repair of the top RH tailgate gutter.
LH side is fine RH side poor with BIG hole
















So I set too thinking....................how the hell do I repair that !
I actually spent more time thinking why did it rust there and how ??
BL cars are really amazing, they rust in all the expected places usually, them that don't rust in all the weird places and not symmetrically.
Anyways, decided since this part is not seen i would weld some thin steel over and fill to a smooth finish.

Here are the tools of the trade for weird shapes.



Sorry for the "break" in the post..................Monday above ^ Wednesday below

Its very important to use only "Shredded wheat" cardboard , as this is never missed when you spirit away the box and leave behind the bag since no-one ever bothers eating the healthy stuff.
On a serious note though, label the template front face/rear as its easy to cut a Mirror Image of what you want.
One snag is I forgot to take a photo of the finished article, since its had its plates welded on, ground down, filled and sanded ( Twice)
I have also filled and sanded the tailgate outer edge and Ku-rusted and red leaded inside lower edge + covered in primer.
Below is foot-wells cleaned out, swept and Vac blown.
By Vac Blown I mean I used the trusty B&D leaf blower/sucker. God is it powerful.
Its like a hurricane and blows all debris into the stratosphere.

The dreaded rubbery compound sound deadening type stuff on the floor is horrible. Its about 1/4" thick and either comes up in chunks or like soft sticky toffee. So I'm leaving it in where its sound.Besides its too much time, bother and expense to remove. Trouble is what can I replace the removed bits with ? Anyone got a spare bitumen lorry load of it, warm and ready for pouring ? Red leaded the previous welds (Again) after another Ku-rust treatment.

Decided not to weld the rear boot corners/infills. I'm going to fill with copious amounts of seal sealer. I did also drill out the one seat runner bolt head that sheared on removal a few years ago. It took 3x 4mm drills ( Damn, just bought them too), angle grinder + 6mm drill + mole grips+350 squirts of WD40 in the end, but its out clean (ish). My tactic was to file the screw head flat (mistake) it was 5mm tall off the floor. I ground it down lower, flush to floor ( after drill break no 3) then started the hole with the last 3mm drill(till that broke) then all the way down with the 6mm. Underneath I ground 2 flats on the 8mm length poking out and gripped with moles and Presto ( all this took about 40 minutes and a bit of cursing)

So next is removing the Rubber bumper mounting plates at the front and those pesky captive nuts with half a bolt in them on the lower edge of the valence/body join.

I did also start up the car again, using a makeshift fuel directly into the carbs....WD40 !!!

GREAT<<<<<<<<<< IT SOUNDS LIKE A SOPWITH CAMEL BI-PLANE !!!!!!!

It turned over for a few seconds and the oil pressure is good.

I did video the occasion but Blogspot prevents me from uploading for some reason. Maybe next time then when I've worked out the fuel pump wiring and actually put real fuel in.

What Colour ................tell me what you think

Well as the title says I've been giving this some thought, over the last 4 years actually.

The car was originally white ( Old English or Triumph White ) according to the log book and MG archives.

At some stage early on in its life it was given a very thorough respray to black. Even the engine bay ( Including wiring !!) rear tailgate inside and boot, door pillars /windows inside and bonnet underside.

Logic and common sense says make it back to original white. I think maybe so. Wifey saw a brand new re shelled Roadster at the MG hive last year in Old English White and loved it.

I'm not so sure as its a very yellowish white and it will really show up any panel gap errors.

I did see at the weekend a Fiat 500 in brilliant Blueish white. This looked really dazzling and I'm not sure if it was a White or very Pale brilliant light Blue, it still looked good though.

Below is a V8 example in Glacier white

.

I've decided that the car will be converted to chrome bumper and lowered back to standard or a little lower. However what type of grille ?. The above sports the later type ( 1970's).

There is a sixties style which I'm fancying as shown on the Bermuda Blue example car below.

This is how I envisage mine without the wire wheels and front over riders for a cleaner look.

I must admit the blaze red does look good though.

But having said that I do like the dark Midnight Blue below. Mine even has the large Chrome sill protectors and Rostyles too, plus it would hide any poor panel gaps.

Or could it be Black as it is/was now ? Shown is the older style grille and wire wheels.

I hate wire wheels, they always look dirty, must be a pain to clean and constantly need checking for loose spokes.

I suppose to keep the retro 60's look the colour should be pewter-ish ala 007's DB5 or even silver. But No, and here's why.

During my stint as a traffic surveyor recently and during the hours we got to sit down to count traffic i did my own car colour survey, By far the most common color was silver, or a variant of light blue/ green- silver, followed by Red then Black and Blue with Green last but fairly even with White. I did not count the weird colours like the Peugeot 80's Gold ingot type of aberration or the new Ford RS whatever with its bile/vomit green ( and JCB Yellow) aka 1970's glam or the boy racer pearlescent " I did this myself" paint jobs. I did see a rather attractive Brown on a Toyota Avensis ( oh.... how I miss mine) though and thought good, its nice to see one manufacturer breaking the mould a little. But not for my MG.

So What colour then...................It would be nice to hear your thoughts.