Here we go again

With the boot floor mostly finished apart from working out which holes are not required and can be filled and those that need to stay I was ready to move on the the left hand side of the car.

I'm really please how this area has turned out as it was certainly one of the worst areas on the MG Midget. Looking back at the photo's reminded me of just how worried I was about restoring this back to anything near good enough. I guess I needn't have worried as it looks really good.

Which is not something I can stay about the next stage....oh my!!

This time however I have 6 years experience behind me (still can't believe it has been that long) and nothing is phasing me anymore. And so with grinder in hand I started to cut away the rusty metal in order to take the chassis back to good metal.

The reason I again have not braced the door opening is because the door gap wasn't right and the door didn't shut properly. I am really happy with the gaps on the drivers side that I ended up with and with the A-post in a bad way I am planning on doing the same thing as before which is basically rebuilding this section around the door.

Few jobs completed

I have been trying to get as many jobs completed as I can in order to finish off the right hand side of the MG Midget.

These included:

The bump stop plate

The boot striker plate support

The whole in the floor that a prior owner made in order to grease the prop shaft not knowing that it was a self sealed type with no grease nipple!

I didn't weld the bottom of this repair as I will be cutting out the old floor along that line

There were various other little things that needed tidying up, but once that was done it was time to wheel the car out of the garage and turn it around so I can start on the other side which was such an amazing feeling.

That obviously exposed all the work that now needs to be done on the left hand side of the car. I'd forgotten how bad it was!!

But there one thing I had to find out and that was whether or not the petrol tank, that Kim Dear from Magic Midget gave me when he sold me the car, actually fitted my nice new shiny boot floor...

Result!! A perfect fit

Bump Stop Plate - continued

Continued to make more progress on the bump stop plate, but it was slow. Having to make a bespoke repair for the bracket that exactly matched the multiple curves wasn't easy.

But eventually got there and welded it in place.

Next stop weld in the bump stop. More welding upside down! Hmm, Can't wait!

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.