Too much to do.....so little time to do it.

 So I finally ordered the handbrake cable, along with another £ 80 of misc parts . Boy do the small items add up to a lot. Rear side window seals, chrome bumper bolts, door handle screw anchors etc.

The window seals were a bit of a puzzle. If you recall the shape of the outline is roughly triangular at the rear end and rectangular at the front. But the seal had only one area where the seal is/has a 90 degree mitred  corner. This meant that the seal ( luckily about 9" longer than needed) needed to be cut and joined right in the middle of the lower edge !!

Why not make the left part longer and the right side shorter so the bottom can have a nice 90 degree mitre, instead of a fiddly mid section join. Ppppffftt. 

Rant over. Also fitted vinyl to inside of window rims.

Squint hard and you can see.

Also fitted brand new wipers. Lovely. They work. The washer works. Getting there slowly.

So finally bit the bullet and fitted the handbrake cable. I must admit I struggled somewhat. I could not get the car very high up to get comfortably under the very centre. Struggle I did, that's after removing the battery clamps, battery and insulating boards as well as the P clip Phillips head screw therein hiding making mental note to fit P clip onto new cable. Twas too tricky to photo but I did my best.

Why I was dreading this is it meant having to repair the very small bracket below the handbrake lever mechanism that holds a 6mm diameter limit switch that switches off the "Handbrake on" warning light. It snapped right through the middle of the hole ages ago. Fortunately I had kept and located said part amongst this lot.

The welding of it meant a little tidy up In the shed in order to extract the mig welder. It took all afternoon. No, I don't mean the welding, just the tidying up of the shed. I did manage to find a few long lost parts that had been sought for for many years, so I stored them carefully to be lost all over again especially when they are wanted, rinse repeat for most of the " little jobs".

I did feel much better after the tidy up and the following day set to welding. I ended up making a new bracket since when using the scary grinder to clean up the tiny edges of the tiny "saved" part, it flew off at great speed into the undergrowth. Hey ho.

Cable and lever fitted, battery back in place, adjustment made and it works. 

Another step forward.

Amongst my many birthday treats was a a tool from Teemu, a rechargeable 3/8" drive ratchet. I'm quite sceptical with Teemu stuff, screws, plastics and low value stuff is very good, but manufactured tools not so. Same with the ratchet. It worked great for about 30 minutes, then sporadically for another hour.

That really pissed me off, as it's not possible to have them sent back for repair, just a refund after returning. So I dismantled it and found a wire from the batteries had come unsoldered. Re soldered it and back in business. No no no.

Same happened again. Worked sporadically, tapped it a few times and worked, sort of.

Repeated above repair but this time with much more solder. Hopefully now cured. You should not have to faff with something that cost upwards of £32 FFS !

Not resolved the front bumper alignment, so I moved onto the rear end whilst it was slightly elevated.

I've decided to locate the number plate under the chrome bumper. This means using the chrome bumper conversion brackets with a home made brackets and another home made bracket too.

The four holes in the rear needed filling but wisely decided not to weld in fresh steel. I filled them instead with aluminium mesh and glass fibre filler on the inside and good old filler on the outside.

Inside

Outside

Sanded

The whole rear valance looked a bit tawdry and a few shady rust patches were beginning to show so I set too sanding down the lower quarter, treating iffy areas with Ku-rust and giving it a good covering with some proper primer, not the crappy £1 a tin Poundland special, look 

I forgot to photo the finished article but it made it look a whole lot better. Then on to the chrome bumper and brackets.

Brackets to mount to the brackets. Home made found design on BBS MG website forum.

First fitting of the bumpers. Need to reposition a hole in the bracket bracket about 10mm up but fits much better than the front one and easier to reposition.

I'm dreading drilling an extra hole in them as they appear to be some chromed metal and are a swine to drill through.

more soon peeps

Back to winter and wondering

 So I've received the seat belts, carpets and misc other bits and bobs. Sadly I have spent a few weeks just staring at them as it was too cold, wet, and windy to make a start.

I did do a bit of browsing regarding the colour though. I'm undecided on which shade of green 

.

The garden pea green is more traditional, but a little boring. Still, it looks very much like I want mine to look, especially with the recessed grille and without the overriders.

Below is a more modern take on the Ford Mustang Highland green metallic ala Steve McQueens Bullit car. I think I'm favouring this colour though.

Or even this.

One point of note is the seatbelts. Mine has a sensor on the receiver end which turns off the seatbelt warning light when inserted with ignition on. The new ones don't. I knew this when I ordered them but thought....... " I bet I can modify them to work".....guess what, I was can't. They a quite a different design. I could use the original stalk and base but that wouldn't look right and I can't be bothered. I still have to weld the handbrake sensor mount, but that's after fitting the new handbrake cable.Which incidentally I forgot to order when ordering about seventyfive quidsworth of stuff !!!

So the warning light for the belts will have its bulb removed as per the advice from the MGOC.

 " They all do that Sir ". Guffaw.

The carpets look great though. Great quality and very well finished and excellent quality for only £140. I probably pondered the carpets more than anything, what with the vast price range, quality range, descriptions and postage charges from all online vendors. They did dwell in the conservatory for a few days together with the rear seats now recovered. Wifey got a bit fed up of having them take up so much room so made me move them. I loosely positioned them in the car and even literally thrown in makes a great difference to how the car looks now. Sadly I forgot to photograph them as I was in a rush to tidy up then had to mow the lawn as promised to wifey.

About ten days ago we had a rare sunny afternoon so I fitted the seat covers then set about trying to fit the front bumper. The bumper Irons are held in position with a large steel block inside the  frame rail via two M8 bolts and washers. Since I drilled the holes many moons ago there is not much room for adjustment and, this was a big and, the irons are at slightly different angles so this made getting the alignment even more difficult. I managed to get the irons more even but still struggled to get them centralised and looking concentric to the front lower apron rim, where the valance attaches. 

I spent about three hours faffing and swearing, still not perfect, so I left them as it was getting cold and dark. They are held roughly in position with two mole grips and that's how they will stay till I get all/ most of the other stuff fitted.

Middle

Right

Left

Today saw me busy all day. Fitted the new vaccuum hose, brake booster to manifold.

Hunted for in shed and found - bonnet mechanisms, all nicely painted Matt Black some time ago. The large spring loaded latch operated by a Bowden cable from inside had the  three bolts attached. 

Sadly the bonnet mounted ones did not. Neither could I find matching bolts, nuts and washers for the Bowden cable routing down the wing and front slam panel. I must have spent hours  walking up and down to the shed and back trying to find anything that would suffice but no joy, well a little joy, I found one set sort of, enough for the latch to work after some judicious lubrication. Aligning up the latch mechanism was a different matter altogether. 

What a major Faffffff !!!!!!!

I lined it up very centrally, tightened the three bolts and gingerly pushed down the bonnet.

I heard a nice thunk/click of the spring pushing the cone under the latch, the bonnet aligned perfectly, then came the crunch moment ..............would it unlatch when pulling the handle from inside the car !!!

No it would not !

That's where the major faff started. The only way to get the cone back past the sliding latch was to undo the three bolts. They were under the bonnet on the slam panel. The bonnet would only lift about one inch allowing awkward access to the bolts, about three inches into the slam panel. 

It took about 75 minutes to get the three bolts out......phewww.

I had another go, guess what, I got exactly the same result. @*&#"8%+.u*=/,0@!!

''Twas then I noticed something big, black and cone shaped in the box of painted hinge parts. 

I'd forgot the top guide thing !!!!. Just as a precaution though I ran a 1/4 unf tap down the slam panel captive bolts, lined up again and tentatively tried again knowing full well if it didn't work I was off down the shop for a big bottle of whisky.

It did though with great relief.    Look 

I still couldn't find a nut for the bonnet stay bracket which is in turn mounted to a wing attachment bolt so I bit the bullet, went online and ordered 35 quids worth of nuts bolts and washers UNF type. This will speed up the restoration greatly and save the 75 trips too and fro to the shed every time I embark on each little 10 minute job.

I'm still fretting over the passenger door gap and the fact the car now won't start. As I was packing up for the day I suddenly realised why it won't start...........,,,,there is no fuel in the tank!!!!!!!

That's enough for now, next up is making new internal panels to replace the shoddy and worn ones and then fit the carpet. Oh, and order a handbrake cable.