Wednesday 7 November 2018

Tackling the rust

After many hours sanding and grinding with my assortment of tools the transmission tunnel wasn't that bad and once cleaned up and with a few layers of rust converter has come up quite well.

The photo's below show my first pass at doing this. On bad areas I have been applying the rust converter and allowing it to dry then sanding it all off again to try and expose further rust pitting. 




As mentioned in my last post I did have to remove the reinforcement panel, thankfully it came off very well with some new spot weld drill bits.



The next step was to repair the lip of the transmission panel.


And that turned out well.


Next step on the list was to repair the inner wheel arch. Now this area didn't look that bad, but there was significant rust pitting which I felt needed to be replaced.


Definitely needed attention!


Now that is in and once it is grinded down smooth I can sort out the outer wheel arch.

Thursday 1 November 2018

Not what I expected!

Brimming in confidence having tackled this section before but on the other side of the car I have been carefully measuring and cutting back the rusted metal and with new panels ready to go I thought I would have this area done in no time at all!

But then on removing the rear bulkhead panel I find this!


Need a closer look!


Trust me it's rusted!



The transmission tunnel has rusted out right in the corner where it meets the floor panel and the rear bulkhead. You can see the hole my screwdriver made just above the hand brake cable bracket.

This unfortunately means, I think, that in order to sort this area out I'm going to have to take off the floor reinforcement plate and maybe more depending on how that goes.


This is so typical of this restoration project as I thought this side wasn't as bad and in some areas it isn't, but some areas it is a lot worse. I am going to have to drill out about 20 welds to hopefully remove this reinforcement plate without distorting it too much.

Oh well...

Saturday 20 October 2018

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.

Monday 8 October 2018

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

Monday 1 October 2018

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!



Wednesday 26 September 2018

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.