6-14-2009
Been working on the air damn some more. Sanded down all the rough edges and the resin drips on the front. It likes it will all work well.
I set the LED fog lights that will be the daytime running lights. They fit in just fine but I still have to fill, smooth and prime the openings.
I cleaned up the steering wheel and hub, wire brushing and sanding them smooth and down to bare metal. I primed them and painted them gloss black. The leather still needs replaced but the metal looks good.
Big parts haul, carbs back and actual work 6-19 through 6-22, 2009
Went out to see Butch in Burlington. He finished my SU carbs and they were in pretty good shape. The needle and jet assemblies still looked like new though they have about 165,000 miles on them. New solid butterfly valves on the throttle shafts, new seals, springs and a few other minor bits and the carbs should be good.
Went out to his MGB graveyard to pull parts. About 30 MG’s and a billion crickets, wasps and weeds…what fun on a hot southern day.
I got a new vapor recovery canister for the engine bay (it will be show since the car has been desmogged) a center consol and radio consol, various little clips for the upholstery and to hold down the hydraulic lines n the engine bay, mirror bases, fresh air grill, window crank, back up lights and a bunch of other little parts.
I also found a set of Mini-lite alloy wheels that I think I’m going to get for the car, a deal at $200 for the set.
Other tidbits. I got the steering wheel and hub painted and the new gas tank finished. I cleaned and degreased the tank on the outside and sanded it. On the top I sprayed two layers of truck bed liner followed by two coats of paint and two coats of flexible rubber undercoating so I shouldn’t have to worry about the tank top rusting anytime soon.
On the bottom of the tank I sprayed on two layers of self-etching primer and four layers of Rustoleum black gloss paint. The tank has a better finish than most cars.
I started on the major body work today. I began by getting out my new air cutter and taking off the lower half of the rear valance. The freaking thing has like 300 spot welds in it and I’m NOT going to try to drill all of those out. I’m just cutting off as much of the old panel as I can and welding the new one over it. It already test fits well so good for me.
I cut off the starboard side dogleg and cut out all of the bad metal in the sill areas. The outer sill which extends up under the dogleg was all but gone and now I just have to drill out the spot welds that are left and I can start the final welding prep. The front of the inner sill has a hole in it so I’ll cut out the bad metal and will weld a patch over that before the outer sill goes on.
Cutting off that metal afforded me a peak inside the inner sill behind the castle rail and it looked pretty good. At some point a previous owner had slopped some kind of rust preventative up in there and the metal is still pretty strong. I reached in with assorted wire brushes and a dryer vent cleaning brush and got any dirt in the area cleaned out,.
I then put the nozzle and extension tube from a brake cleaner can on a can of spray-on bed liner and shot it up into the area via the small drain holes along the bottom or the “frame” rail. The coverage was pretty good for doing it blind and I sprayed up in there until it was dripping heavily from the drain holes. I’ll do another couple of coats of that after it dries.
Then it’s onto the other side to repeat the process.
Oh joy!
6-23-2009
Got all of the remaining pieces of the starboard sill assembly cut out. Very much a pain in the ass.
The toughest part was the section towards the rear that is sandwiched in the center of 3 panels where the door goes vertical and up beneath the dogleg.
I drilled out the spot welds on the outer piece that curves upward on the rear area of the door sill and then just jammed a chisel up inside to cut the aft sill section under the dogleg out of the area. That part of the rear sill section is still sandwiched up under the side panel but I’m just going to weld the new sill section over it.
I still have some more grinding to do in the area and I have to split the remaining pieces of metal off the wheel arch where it meets the rear of the dogleg.
I test fit the new sill section and it fit pretty well. The new dog leg fit is more “problematical.” and it is going to need a lot of fudging and wrangling to get it to fit even close to how it is supposed to.
I used my new air panel punch to knock out all the holes all along the edges of the sill piece that I’ll use to plug weld it to the car. Took about five minutes to punch out all of the holes. It would have taken at least ten times that long to drill them all out. I’d say the $29.95 tool from Harbor Freight was well worth the money since it save me a great deal of time, sweat and swearing.
I cut the bad metal out of the front of the center membrane and bought some 16-gauge metal to replace it. I’ll cut that out and weld in place.
When everything is all welded up I’m going to wiggle a modified garden sprayer up inside all of the sill and “frame” rails areas and spray several good coats of paint mixed with Penetrol (which I also bought today) as the final rust protection.
I got the fiberglass air dam cleaned up and sanded and laid down two coats of filler primer. I then filled in the scratches and factory flaws in the air damn and imperfections in the holes I cut out for the daytime running lights. I’ll fine sand and clean up spot filler, put a final coat of primer on it and set it aside until I’m ready to spray the epoxy primer/ sealer on the whole car. On Sunday I test fit the LED DRL’s and got the brackets adjusted so the lights will just bolt right in place when the car is finally painted.
I finally found my box of around 500 LED’s that I used to use for scale model work and with any luck I’ll have enough white ones left so I wont have to order a bunch of new ones. I’ll be using LED lighting for everything but the headlights and turn signals which will drastically reduce the stress on the old wiring and pretty much insure that I won’t have to replace a burned out light bulb until I’ve retired.
I already have some of the cold cathode lighting tubes (CCL’s) that I’ll be using for interior and trunk lighting. The neon lighting you see for cars isn’t actually neon but is cold cathode lighting. The tubes are sealed in clear plastic tubes to protect them, put out a lot of light and use very little power so they are perfect for use in an MGB. I’ll be putting CCL’s in each footwell, up under the lip in the cargo area behind the seats. They’ll be controlled via a radio consol-mounted switch that will also control the LED task/map lights. There will also be at least two CCL tubes in the trunk in addition to the center trunk light, all of which will be controlled by the stock trunk pin switch.
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