Wednesday 2 August 2017

Front lower repair for the rear wing

I've been looking forward to completing this repair for ages as it will finish off the right and side of my MG Midget. When I look back through my blog one of the first repair panels and welds I ever did was in this area (back in Dec 2013) and now I have completed this section. That's only 3½ years! Not bad going really...



First job was to check the repair panel for fitting.


Then I decided to paint those parts that would be hidden for a few years with chassis paint to protect from rust.


Then it was a question of welding the gap, but I felt that the gap was a little wide in places, so I cut up some metal to weld into place.


And then I stitched welded the gaps whilst making sure the alignment was correct.


It all seemed to ok, apart from the bottom right corner has lifted up a little so the gap wasn't even against the outer sill. This was caused by welding too much too quickly and causing metal shrinkage. So I had to make a cut into the repair panel near the bottom that would allow me to bend the panel so the gap was even and then stitch welded it. Lesson learnt!


I still have a little tidying up to do on the leading edge but I think it turned out ok. Also being able to tilt the chassis made my life so much easier.


An emotional farewell

It is with the greatest sadness that I have to say good by to my long serving, hard working tool mate, my Draper 79340 Multi Tool. 



Yes for some time now Drapey hasn't been feeling very well and developed a stutter that often resulted in poor running and sometimes even stopped completely, until one day he went bang!




Oh well, time to upgrade and meet my new Dremel 3000!!!


Looking forward to some serious precision engineering!!

Footwell End Panel Repair - Completed

Finally finished off the footwell end panel. I found this repair particularly challenging as you have to lean across and right down into the footwell to do the welding. It is also hard to brace the panel in place, as you cannot clamp it, so I braced it with wood against the cross-member on the floor as best I could, but I found the panel didn't make perfect contact at every point so some of the puddle welds kept popping off and needed re-welding. But we got there in the end.



Tuesday 20 June 2017

Small Victories

Every once in a while something on the project gives me a real boost of motivation. The other week I bought the sill end cap which is designed to close off the inner sill from dirt of water coming in from the wheel arch. With all the cutting out of metal and potential twisting of the chassis and with no real experience in restoring an MG Midget I was so happy to find that it slotted in perfectly!




A-Post Repair - continued

Now that I have finished the A-post repair I have to say it has been extremely challenging to get it to fit correctly so that it makes the door and wing gaps look half decent.

Offering up the new repair panel seemed to suggest all was well.


 





Getting everything in line and moulded into shape took a lot of time.




After a lot of checking and double checking, welding, grinding and more welding I offered up the front wing to check the gaps.



You might be able to see the gap at the top of the wing widens right where I have welded the new panel to the original A-post. At first I wasn't sure if this was the wing or the A-post. I couldn't understand why the gap was there as the original metal curves in as well.
This meant I had to put a whole load on new metal to rebuild the apex of the curve.




But we got there in the end. I have also improved the gap between the door and the a-post so it is even all the way down, especially around the corner.

One of the final jobs was to crimp the flange into place. A pair of pliers and a block of wood was called for.





Carburettors Clean Up - Update

Remember these?



Well they now look like this...



I am really happy with the end result here. It was a lot of hard work as I don't have a blasting or cleaning cabinet, but toothbrushes, gunk degreaser and wire brushes have done the job. I will need to buy new filters, jets and gaskets but looking forward to getting them back on the engine.

Tuesday 28 March 2017

Footwell End Panel Repair

Whilst waiting for the paint to dry on the A-Post I started to prepare the footwell end panel ready for welding. Just the same with all the other repairs I drill holes on the welding contact points, spray with weld-through primer and add a couple of coats of chassis paint on those areas that will be hidden forever.




There were a couple of signs of rust on the original metal chassis so I wired brushed that all back to clean bare metal and applied a coat of rust converter. Once dry I will prepare for welding in the normal way.



A-Post Repair Continued

The next step is to prepare the outer A-Post repair panel ready for welding into position. This involves drilling more holes and spraying a coat of weld-through primer on the contact points, but applying chassis paint to those parts that will be covered up for evermore.



One of the issues that I had with this panel was when I test fitted it for the first time the door gap increased near the top as you can see below:



 

There was something not quite right and I took me a good while to work out the the panel had not been bent in the correct place. The photo below shows the panel after I had flattened out the flap and re-bent the flap in the correct place with the red line showing the old crease. The door gap is now correct. Panic over!