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[phunkie hiboy]

I’ve been waiting for some shims, so the king pin end float could be set up. Now these have arrived and the king pins/spindles have the right end float, they have been trail fitted.

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From these being fitted the length of the new brake hoses can be calculated. They needed to be about 1.5 inches longer with a banjo at the calliper end. I could have done this using standard BMC parts (banjo + adaptor + stock hose), but thought this might look a bit Walt Disney. So I called a buddy of mine, Guy, he works for a hydraulics company (http://www.a1hydraulics.co.uk/flexible-hoses) and they’re going to make some original style hoses the right length and with the correct ends. Meanwhile the new callipers have arrived.

Back to the body, on the footwell sides under the wing there should be a strengthening panel. This would normally be part of the windscreen posts right to the forward edge of the footwell. The drivers side has one, but too short and no closed end and the passengers side, it was missing completely.

 

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The box shape folded up

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And the end result rust treated and epoxy primed. The forward end is not exactly as original, but as strong and less likely to trap mud and dirt.

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Now with the passengers “A” post pretty much finished, the drivers side was finalised. With the strength now fully back in the shell the bracing was completely removed. The small repairs in the drivers side floor (front and rear) were then addressed and that side rust treated and epoxy primed.

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[The North]

You are getting on with this nicely now starting to look like things are going to be taking shape very soon. Well done i am liking it.

[phunkie hiboy]

Thanks for that Mr North.

A bit more in the bag, as it were ......

Now to the passenger side, and the same, some small repair patches and a coat of rust treatment.

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Then a coat of epoxy primer.

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Now the bracing has gone the rear “seat” panel can be reattached.

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And now welded in with a coat of rust treatment.

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[Manky Monkey]

Lookin' great Chris. Very solid. Is that a brush on primer? Looks very thick,

[phunkie hiboy]

The rust treatment is a water consistency brush on product and the primer is an epoxy, 50/50 paint and hardener spray on product. Keeps rust away from bare metal areas. Once the whole car is covered in it I can start to repair some of the dents, just sand of the primer, repair the dent and locally spay with epoxy again. Small repairs can just be filled and shaped over the epoxy, then recoated. Once the whole car is straight, normal hi build 2K primer can be used to gain a good painting surface.

[Mendalot]

Excellent work going on in that there workshop, mate    It's great to be able to share and record all the hard work being done, as a great deal of it ends up being hidden from veiw as the projects progress. Keep up the good work.

[phunkie hiboy]

Thanks for that Mr Mendalot

Now we need to put a coat of epoxy over the rear seat area.

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The front hubs have now come back from re drilling to 5 on 4.5” and 7/16 studs.

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Put some bearings in and fitted them up, to check out the new discs and callipers.

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Only to find some issues with the bearing fit. Standard bearings for MG Midget front hubs are ball bearings, what we will be using are taper roller bearings. The ones that have been supplied us, as equivalent, have a smaller radius on the inner bearing than is on the spindle. This results in a gap, between the spindle shoulder and the face of the bearing, of about 0.020”. We could have the spindles machined with a smaller radius, but this will reduce the strength of the spindle and is likely to cause stress risers where the spindle and shoulder meet. I have heard cases where the spindle has actually snapped after carrying this mod out. So the inner ends of the inner bearings will be ground with a larger radius, which will solve the problem.

We also got some tyres on the rims now, whitewalls will be sorted out after the car has done about 1000 miles.

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I went to remove the passengers side top spring cup, which is usually just a tight fit over a small raised spigot.

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After the welds were removed and the cup turned upside down, this is what was found.

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This is what it should look like (the drivers side).

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Think I’ll come back to that. The panel that the steering idler is bolted to on the passenger needs a bit of a cuddle. The main bolt that holds the idler had come loose at some point, broken its captivation and also broken out the hole for the second securing bolt and nut. This had been badly repaired.

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Once the “repair” had been removed, this is what we had to work with.

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After bolting the idler on, as a guide.

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A more permanent repair was made.

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Now turning our attention to the front of the “chassis” members, that had rotted out. These pieces contained tubes for the mounting of the front bumper irons.

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The strengthening pieces were missing on both sides, so new ones were made and installed.

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And then replacement outer “chassis” pieces made and installed.

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And on the other side as well.

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At least the thing has now stopped creaking as the shell is revolved!!
Now back to that spring cup locator. Cleaned the area all round the damage and fabricated a tube set into a shaped flat plate.

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And welded it in, also welding through to the gusset above, in the engine compartment.

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Then a blanking arrangement at the open end of the “tube”.

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And the spring cup fits back on perfectly, with out having to secure it with welds!!

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Now all the repairs to the inner wheel arches are complete, a coat of rust treatment is applied. I did want to get it in primer before Christmas, but have run out of time. At least the bare metal is protected, to an extent.

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Well that’s it for 2013, back on it in the new year.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all our readers.

[Manky Monkey]

And to you Chris & Mrs Chris.
Looking fantastic.

[phunkie hiboy]

Right, so we’re back into it, now Christmas and our vacation is over.
The old captivation devices for door hinge screws left a little bit to be desired, so new ones were bent up.

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And fitted.

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Thought I’d try and get the lower portions of the front of the rear wheel arches sorted with fabricated panels. I did originally have a supply for these and the front wing ones, but now the guy doesn’t seem to want to supply them.

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After exploring different options to do this, I realised that I had spare outer sill panels and that they were the right shape (curvature) for the lower part, so I would then just have to make a bridge piece.

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Then fully weld and sand the panel. Just needs a bit of fettling and some filler to complete.

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[poprodder]

outstanding work there,well done.
looking forward to more great progress

cheers chris.

[phunkie hiboy]

looking forward to more great progress

Thanks Chris
Yeh, so am I!!   

[phunkie hiboy]

Well, I managed to get a couple of hours on it during the week and started fabricating the drivers side rear wheel arch front repair. Managed to finish it today, get some rust treatment on and shoot it with some epoxy primer.

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And the passenger side in primer.

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As today was bright, sunny and less damp than it’s been for a while, I thought I’d like to get the engine compartment and inner wings in primer, so spent a bit of time on that.

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With priming in mind, I sanded down the screen pillars, mounting edges and the area from the tops of the doors all the way from the front to the back. Rust treated and primed.

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Whilst I was sanding the guttering, there seem to be rather a lot of paint layers. So I decided to carefully sand back a bit of the paint on the roof and found 8 layers of paint, starting from the original and ending with the last time it was painted.

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As far as the shell goes there are just 3 areas to deal with now, The rear of the rain gutters, the joint on the “B” post between the roof and the post face and the area in front of the windscreen including the air duct for the heating, oh and get the paint off the roof, that'll be 4 then. Start them next week. Then we start the filling!!!

[the coppersmith]

good work. Would you take on my doors? I can do it, but I'm a bit lethargic at the moment, no, revise that I'm just to damn lazy. Must try harder I know, and when I see all what has gone into this I feel even more lazy. Good work, love following this thread.

[phunkie hiboy]

Thanks for that, You have a pm. There will be another update soon, we moved house a week ago Friday and we've been getting straight. I'm still spending some time on it now and then, but I'll be back on it more at weekends in the near future.

[phunkie hiboy]

OK, so here’s a small update. We’ve been moving house, so haven’t really been able to spend normal time on the car for a month now. Will be back on it again from next weekend though.
The battery box needed some attention and I thought it best to manufacture a new one, so got Fintan Ellis to fold up, in kit form, the sides and base. Will assemble these later.

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Next I spent some time on the brake master cylinder mounting bracket. This is a picture of the original standard mounting bracket.

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Looks plenty flimsy to me, so using some of the spare threaded holes in the chassis at that point, I made a strengthening bracket that could be removed should a purist ever own the car in the future!!

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This will be powder coated before final fitting.

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Whilst working on the brake pedal area, I made sure the pedal lined up with the hole in the firewall, it didn’t before.
I needed to get started on the steering column, so fitted it into the car with some of the accessories fitted (heater, brake pedal, wiper motor) and marked out the column.

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Removed it and fabricated a jig.

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What follows is a number of pictures, in sequence of a power steering addition using manufactured new parts from start to trial fit.

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You’ll notice that even the original gear shift mechanism still fits in it original position and it functions perfectly. I will however need to fabricate a plate to fit under the wiper motor, which needs repositioning by about half an inch.

More later.