Bump Stop Plate

Whilst the car is on its side and the floor is in place I need to put back the plate that the rubber bump stop on the suspension is designed to hit. 

Both of them were very dirty and a little bit rusty, so I set about to clean them up with my assortment of wire brushes.

They came up quite good and certainly good enough for another few years. They just needed some protection so I coated them in a couple of layers of rust converter.

I'll paint the insides with chassis black paint before welding them back on.

The only trouble real I had was that in order to attach these to the floor you need this bracket and one of them was totally destroyed by rust.

This one will be ok once cleaned up but I need to make a new one.

Boot Floor Progress

Made some further progress this weekend on the boot floor by welding in the left hand side extension panel.

Even with just one of these in it makes the whole floor look more complete. 

I also finished welding the rear edge of the floor panel which (with a bit of filler) is looking good as well.

Boot Floor Extension Panels

Trying to get these extension panels to fit perfectly has certainly been very difficult, but after about four hours I'm ready to weld them in.

Part of the problem was unfortunately that the curve on the wheel arch that I had to make myself wasn't an exact match. So I had to make some alternations. Probably should have taken more time to ensure it was perfect. 

The other issue was the amount of repair work that I had to do around that area, most of it was guess work. However with a little more fettling they now appear to slot right in and ready for welding.

Boot Floor In!

For the past 7 months I have been unable to get into the garage to work on the MG Midget, which has been really hard to handle, but we really want to finish the house as much as possible. We have been living in this house for 3 years now and we're finally coming to the end of the top to bottom renovation.

However now that much of the work has been completed I have been able to get back to restoring the car!

First up was to get that boot floor welded in, which has been a big task. 

There is still more welding to go which I will be tackling over the next week or so, but happy this is in and fits really well. Hopefully progress will now pick up.

Really need to spend quite a bit of attention around the rear wings and extension panels on both sides. Seems like they will fit...

Boot Floor Preparation

This has been a long time coming, but tonight I finally started to prepare the new boot floor repair panel for welding into place, now that the wheels arches and the rear panel were done.

There were quite a few holes that needed to be drilled. Around the wheel arches, rear panel and the new floor panel. It almost seemed a shame to drill the new repair.

Once all the holes were drilled I needed to prepare all the welding contact surfaces with weld through primer.

Getting proper excited now. All that is left is to apply final coat of black chassis paint to the box sections that will be hidden for hopefully some time to come. Then I can weld this huge panel in place.

Right Hand Rear Wheel Arch Repair Continued

I have been pushing on towards my target of getting the boot floor all welded in. It is now time to finish off the rear wheel arch that was without doubt one of the worse affected areas on the car.

But progress, although slow, has been made an it was time to finish this area off by welding in two bespoke panels.

After a few alterations the new panel fitted fairly well

Once all the welds were ground down the wheel arch was starting to take shape again.

Just one more section to go.

Looking much better! I wondered many times if I would ever get this finished.

Rear Panel Repairs continued

Grabbed a couple of hours to finish off the rear panel on the left hand side. I was a little worried about this as there were multiple curves involved which took a lot of banging with the hammer and twisting with pliers. 

Assess the damage and cut out the template.

Make up the new part and bend into shape.

Test fit and then weld in

Grind down the welds and admire your handy work!

Really happy I was able to close the gap using pliers on the inside and the weld the joins. I had to remind myself that this whole area will be mostly covered by the chrome bumpers.

Left Hand Rear Wheel Arch Repairs - continued

As mentioned in a previous post I needed to repair to left hand side rear wheel arch as shown below.

So I needed to manufacture a replacement part, but this time make sure it fits the curve of the inner wing panel.

Having already made this before on the right hand side it took no time at all to make the new part.

 

And this time I made sure the curve was correct before welding it in place

Once welded in it was time to double check

and then tidy up...

Very happy with that. Next up will be to finish off the right hand side wheel arch.