Bits and Bobs

Having now completed all of the main chassis components (can't believe I am typing this!!) I wanted to make sure that I had all the miscellaneous parts that I wanted to send to the blasters along with the chassis. 

This includes all the hinges from the doors, boot and bonnet. The bumper mounts and supporting brackets and splash guard brackets.

Most of these are rusty but thankfully require no welding. I did feel though that there were a few parts that I could get into my rust removal electrolysis experiment.

Here's an example of just how well it works.

Looking very rusty and ready for a dip.

All wired up

After 12 hours in the tub

And after a good go with the rotary wire brush, starting to get the shine back.

And finally primed ready for another 55 years!

Bonnet Repairs

I have had this bonnet since I won a bid on eBay back in March 2013. That's 7 years ago!! These are one of the areas that are prone to rusting out. Mine was no exception.

It still looks the same so no real deterioration over those 7 years. 

But what I really wanted to check was how bad was the metal behind these holes. 

Time to start drilling out some spot welds.

Which revealed unsurprisingly...yes more rust!

Now I could see behind here I notice that the this slam panel had a lot of rust that needed sorting, so there was no alternative but to remove it.

This was actually much easier than I first imagined. There are only eight spot welds on the outer skin and fourteen holding the slam panel in place and without the lip which needed replacing the panel just slid out.

I'm glad I took this out because it has given me the chance to be sure the rust will be gone for years to come. First job was to wire brush the surface rust off using the drill attachment. Amazing how it comes up really.

There is some pitting on the surface of the metal, but for the majority of the bonnet it is in good condition. Not bad for a £16 eBay win. Time to stabilise the the area with rust converter.

Looking better already!

So now for the slam panel. I have been reading a lot about rust removal via electrolysis and so set up my own experiment.

Items required:

1. plastic bucket - I'm using a 40 litre one, but for some parts you might want a bigger one.

2. car battery charger - I'm using a 2amp 12v

3. copper wire - stripped from main cable

4. Soda crystals - 1/4 of a 1 kg bag

5. 4 x steel plates

6. length of steel wire

7. length of wood

8. a rusty object

So hopefully the photo is clear enough to show the set up. Things to note are not to get the copper wire in the water. Use the steel wire to hold the metal in the water and wrapped around the length of wood and then connect the negative lead on the charger.

I have 4 metal plates to surround the rusty metal. Just improves the process.

Make sure the soda crystals are well mixed in. I put them into the bucket before filling with water.

Only things to really be careful of is the build up of hydrogen and oxygen, so needs to be in a ventilated room to avoid potential explosion and not to use this method on any steel that is normally under stress, like a suspension spring for example. Apparently there is a process called hydrogen embrittlement that can weaken tensile steel.

I left the panel in for only 4 hours and it came up really well after a small amount of wire brushing and washing in clean water. But due to the size of my bucket I could only get just under half of the panel in at a time. 

This gave me the chance to see the difference between this process and a wire brush.

I hope you can see from this photo that the pits that have been in the bucket (on the right) and subject to electrolysis are completely clean of rust, whereas the pits with the wire brush (on the left) still have a small amount of rust in the bottom of the pit. This is why rust converter is so useful as it stabilises the metal surface and prevents from further rusting. 

Time to paint the panel in rust converter and start replacing some of the metal.

Final clean up and coat of primer. Panel is now ready to go back in. I also made a new lower lip of the outer skin. 

Time to start welding up the holes on the nose of the bonnet. Finished off the preparation of the nose and slid the slam panel back into place. Went in perfectly.

Next up was to weld that in place and tidy the edges and align the new lip. 

All looking good so far.

and after some grinding and welding and grinding and welding and grinding and welding...

It will need a little bit of filler to make it perfect, but overall I'm really happy, especially as there is no rust behind that slam panel any more.

Nearside Triangular Support

I remember when I first got to look over my MG Midget and thought at least the nearside triangular support isn't as bad as the other. 

In some ways I wasn't wrong, but just because it didn't look like this...

... doesn't mean it will be a quick fix.

Ultimately I found some rust and if I don't deal with it now it will bother me for the rest of time. So that mean't pretty much the same amount of work as before.

I think this is the only photo I have of the nearside when I first stripped the car and you can see it looks in much better condition than above. There is just a small rust patch in the bottom right corner which I thought would clean up.

but it turned out to have a few small holes!

It was at this point I decided to repeat the same job as before, which meant starting with the end panel.

Now that was all taken care of and back to good metal I could get on with the main structure.

But then I had to deal with the badly fitting repair panel. 

That needed the same alterations as before.

I don't know why heritage have made the panel that don't fit but my local Moss supplier assured me they have always been like that. At least this time I knew what I was doing!

There were a few more welds to make good to seal it all in correctly and make a replacement splash plate that was previously damaged, so now it should last for many years to come without me worrying about that rust!