Part Tilt Midget

It has been so long since my last post, but sorting out our new house has taken priority. I have been itching to get into the lovely garage and in recent days I made a start on my new project of being able to tilt the chassis to make the welding easier.

As the photo's above show I made a mount out of 3mm steel that would bolt on to the engine stand and attach to the radiator uprights.

I then made a mount and attached it to the rear damper supports as shown below.

I then had to hope that the chassis would tilt...

Thankfully it did! It will tilt further but I didn't want to risk it on my first attempt. Hopefully I can find some more time to weld more panels in!

New Residence - Update

I have managed to grab some time to sort out the garage and get things back on track with working on the MG Midget. Things have been a little crazy with our new house, which has meant time has been limited in the garage. But I am so pleased with my new workspace.

The next challenge is to weld in the new floor, which has made me decide that I really need to rotate the chassis safely and accurately. After doing some research I decided to purchase two engine mount stands which I will bolt on to the front and rear sections of the chassis. I found two on ebay that seemed to be ok and they turned up today! I have to say that for £36 each I am really impressed with the quality. They seem high enough to allow a full rotation, but I will need to create some bespoke fitting plates with some adjustment in them just to make sure they do rotate.

Next steps will be to buy some more steel plate for the bespoke fittings so I will report back when that is done and then I will be able to weld in the floor, I can't wait for that!!

New Residence

It has been a while I know but there is good reason for the lack of progress in that I have moved house and with it now have a nice big garage!

I will update this post with photo's when things have calmed down a little.

Footwell Side Panel Preparation

So now that the triangular support is mostly finished and can start work on the footwell side panel. I have made the decision to leave the A-post repair until I am in a position where all the panels are in place that will allow me to get the gaps around doors perfect.

Looking back it did all seem to be a very scary, but after tonight the side panel is ready to be welded in. All the edges to be welded have been wire brushed to clean metal and then painted with welding primer.

 

I have left this part of the A-post (above right) to be the guide or the new A-post repair

Triangular Support Installed

As the cold long nights drawn in again for another year it is time for a quick look back to where I was two years ago! At that time I was removing everything off the car that could come off. One thing I noticed was my comment about may be not needing to replace the rear bulkhead...How wrong was I!! 

So back to my progress update for tonight and would you believe it welding in more new metal! This as actually been over the course of some weeks, just because it has been hard finding the time to get into the workshop. But during this time I have been moving closer to finishing off the triangular support. 

This job has been in two parts. The first is to weld in place the new repair panel as shown here below. There were still plenty of gaps that needed filling by welding. 

The second part was to make a bespoke repair to replace the rusted outer section.

It was quite fun to try and create the slope of inner triangle by hand, but I think it is close enough.

This new repair only has a few more welds to go before it is finally all in place. This area has certainly taken longer that I first imagined it would. 

UPDATE

Here is the repair finally welded in!

What a difference to how it used to be...

Footwell End Panel In!

This evening was all about the final preparations for welding in the triangular support. A few weeks ago I was trying to make my mind up whether to weld the footwell end panel in before the triangular support or not. 

The preparation for the triangular support involved drilling the spot weld holes and then the inner section needed to be prepared with chassis paint to protect it from the elements. Chassis paint takes a while to dry so this helped me make up my mind to install the custom footwell end panel that I had made some weeks before.

My welding has improved so much now that it is almost perfect. I am now getting confident enough to weld gaps without the copper plate behind which helps stop burning holes in the metal.

So far it is all coming together nicely and all the measurements seem to be ok, with a millimetre or so either way. This should will allow me some movement when it comes to fitting the sills around the doors. But it is so nice installing a new panel, it just makes the chassis seem so much stronger already.

Next time I will be welding in the triangular support!!

Further Preparation on Triangular Support

Continuing on with making a few alterations to the standard triangular support panel in order to make sure that it fitted ok was my aim tonight.

The photos below show the gaps that I needed to cover. I decided to cut into the panel and weld in new sections to finish off the new panel so it would fit the chassis better.

These next photos show some of the finer welding that had to be done.

So now the panel is ready to be permanently welded in place!

Triangular Support

I know, I know, I should not be surprised but I did honestly think this area would be far simpler than the rear bulkhead. 

But I really didn't expect that the heritage replacement panel could be so far from the original! I even took it back to my local MG parts supplier to get them to double check. I had photo's and everything thinking they would say "oh yeah" must have been a doggy one and pull out a perfect replacement from behind the counter. Well that didn't happen they of course found another one in their stores that was exactly the same as the one I purchased two weeks ago! Grrr.

I felt like a right idiot because I am sure they get this all the time. I did check my vehicle type (GAN3) and it did match the panel.

So I had managed to remove the old panel which was too far gone. Just so relieved the left hand side of the car is better.

But on test fitting the new panel I noticed that there was a gap so it would not line up with the footwell end plate, as you can see here below. Also in fabricating the new panel they have covered up half of the drain hole, which just seems odd to me.

What I have worked out is that I needed to drill out these welds on the lower part and reweld this so that it covered the hole completely and drill a new hole using the hole (shown above) as a guide. That way it would fit.

So off it came and I found out that by moving it down a centimetre it did fit in line with the footwell end plate. Happy days!!

Well not quite because after inspecting the rest of the edges it became clear that I would have to make a few more alterations as you can see gap right in the centre of the picture below.

I also noticed that they changed the design of this panel further so the flange you can see running from bottom left to the middle on the new panel now is bent downwards and not upwards as it is originally. My only conclusion was that this has been done to help with prevent further rust as having the flange facing down would reduce the chance of moisture getting behind it.

On the positive side the area has been cleaned of rust and I am very nearly ready to start welding in new panel.

Triangular Support Needs Replacing

Continuing on with the footwell repair I have decided that the inner or engine side triangular support needs to be replaced. The metal is so badly corroded it just isn't worth taking a risk. I will be going to Moss this week to invest in a replacement.

Tonight I did make a bespoke repair panel which will be welded in when the new panel arrives in the workshop.

What I am considering though is where to carry on with the footwell repair or wait until I have sorted the triangular support? Looking at a few other blogs it seems others have gone ahead and sorted the footwell out. 

I guess I will decide soon enough.