1958 MGA Coupe

[SuperBuickGuy]

nice work :thumbs:

I swear, you and this guy http://www.bangshift.com/forum/showthread.php/17739-65-GTO
must be brothers from another mother

 

[bobs77vet]

nice work :thumbs:

I swear, you and this guy http://www.bangshift.com/forum/showthread.php/17739-65-GTO
must be brothers from another mother

his work is awesome.....all I can say is at least I have a smaller car.....did i ever mention how i got my first MGA? i had just finished the body work and painting on a 65 Chevy fleetside. after that i swore i would never do the body work on a full size car again.

today i made a Harbor Freight run for one on those hydraulic rams with different size arms to help move my front bonnet (hood) opening back to the proper size...

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

It's why I went plastic.... I hate steel. Of course, I also have a Fiat, but its steel work is going to be covered by carpet so it's not going to be a huge deal.

Still, the amount of work and skill level that you're demonstrating on the MG is quite admirable

 

[bobs77vet]

thks i like the challenge

spent an hour or two fiddling with putting the hood on and tweaking the drivers side area where the two halves meet





I needed to elongate the bonnet hinge holes a little bit so I conjured up this idea.

 

[bobs77vet]

spent a couple hours this am and I welded up the two halves today there is a lot of tension in those joints, I think I will not grind them until after the body is taken off so I can weld the bottom side with a nice seam. and then after grinding If I need to touch them up I will use a TIG on it.

here is my handy dandy anti burn through gizmo made out of Bonnet scraps





i definitely got the gaps where they should be

 

[bobs77vet]

well finished up a little this weekend and welded the last repair panel on the front pass side where the bottom of the inner fender atraches to the end of the inner sill. and worked on finte tuning the Bonnet gap and putting the bonnet catch on. i think it took me longer to adjust the bonnet then it did to graft the front end on....

 

[MYBAD79]

looking good :thumbs:

in addition to some serious skills, you seem to also have a lot of patience LOL

 

[1Michel]

looking good :thumbs:

in addition to some serious skills, you seem to also have a lot of patience LOL

+1 I just love this build.

 

[bobs77vet]

thks guys I am mired in white collar shit all day long this is my escape....I probalby have said this before but I really like welding and if I had any artistic talent I would be a metal sculpter... but I do better at recreating what someone else had created previously so I am like a paint by numbers artist.

 

[bobs77vet]

not too motivated today I have cold or something so we are picking low hanging fruit....kind of the crap work that you never like to do anyway, I force myself on days like this to do an hour or so just to get it out of the way.

so i primed the welds on the front end graft and removed the divers door and had to drill out all but three of the hinge and catch bolts. there were a spacer on each door hinge

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

was following an MG today thinking two thoughts:
1) It wasn't rusting fast enough
2) get out of my way (I was in my Corvette)

 

[bobs77vet]

its hard to imagine it wasnt rusting fast enough....

picked up my youngest son from college to day for spring break .....my goal is to have the body pulled off before he goes back to school. 4hrs working on the drivers side sill repair. i decided to start at the front and work my way back.









heres the donor panel



the salvaged repair piece



same method of grinding off the spot welds and peeling off the metal





the repaired repair panel



trimmed and primed



rough welded in place, grinding will come on another day

 

[bobs77vet]

4 hrs today kicking some butt.....





cut away the rust





the template to make the part, i am not sweating the bottom length and i am making to too long on purpose and will trim it later



this is the offset flange



here is the back side primed with cold galvanizing compound you can weld through this but it really sparks alot




while the paint is drying i removed all the body bolts and was surprised how easily they came out and the rear body mount is in great shape

the front needs some work though



made up new piece and primed it with weld through primer



while thats drying i went ahead and removed the rusted out section



same trick i ground off the old spot welds. what looks like holes is actually shiney metal





after everything is cut away the new piece is made and flanged and primed



and welded in place one step closer to being done...

 

[bobs77vet]

1 more hr needed to wrap things up

i used a piece of angle iron to make sure that i had a nice straight and tight seam



that thin line is the middle piece nice and straight



and of course you need to have a mock set up admittedly this was for my satisfaction



so i paint the inside of the inner sill





i had to move some stuff around to get the welding cart over behind the MGA where this use to taking up residence... what would a garage be with out a sons custom motorcycle project??

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

First a MG, now a Honda on a site dedicated to America's sports car? :banghead:

while that leaves me scratching my head, I wonder if you weighed your MG - how much weight you'll actually add to it from the time you bought it in both replaced metal and MIG wire

 

[bobs77vet]

all I can say is the workers and shop is pure USA, I suspect we all have many different interests in our cars......the entire body only weighs about 220 lbs once all the doors and fenders are taken off....

 

[bobs77vet]

3 more hrs of work..had my son helping me..I welded up the inner sill, while he removed the rear bumper horns and the 6 inner boot body/frame attaching bolts.one of the rear bumper horn extension bolts was a major PITA and we wound up cutting it off. i drilled two 1/8 aligning holes in the bonnet hinge mounting plate. cant believe so little work took so much time

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

Do you like your cordless grinder?

 

[bobs77vet]

I will say it has its place with out question, it has a horizontal wire wheel on it now. its great for cutting stuff and doing stuff especially out side of the shop. it is not my "go to " grinder in the shop but I am glad that i have it. it does eat up batteries when heavy grinding. it has the wheel removal tool stowed in the handle which makes alot of sense and i am surprised others dont do this. you can see the zinc colored top if you look close. its real usefulness is in its portability for "quick jobs". i would buy it again

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

I will say it has its place with out question, it has a horizontal wire wheel on it now. its great for cutting stuff and doing stuff especially out side of the shop. it is not my "go to " grinder in the shop but I am glad that i have it. it does eat up batteries when heavy grinding. it has the wheel removal tool stowed in the handle which makes alot of sense and i am surprised others dont do this. you can see the zinc colored top if you look close. its real usefulness is in its portability for "quick jobs". i would buy it again

I keep thinking they don't have the battery life to be really effective... can't say that you've convinced me to change my mind. To me they'd be useful, but my truck has a 2500 watt inverter on it, so I can run corded tools when in the field - I'd love to abandon that, but I keep coming back to the problem that almost-cut is exactly the same as not-at-all-cut when it comes to cutting things apart.