1958 MGA Coupe

bobs77vet · Dec 5, 2015

todays mission

1/2 way done....

wet sanded with 1000 and 2000 and then finished with #85 and 84 with a wool pad and orange pad only inside the engine bay, will finish tomorrow with finishing pad and #83

bobs77vet · Dec 5, 2015

time to start putting everything I can on the car

stainless steel set screw

strange looking at the rear with lights on it

bobs77vet · Dec 6, 2015

well I see this going through late spring....and I have my next project tentatively lined up.

this is what I am working on today, normally you do this before paint but my ordering sequence got out of whack

I notice the holes are not even

I use cardboard so I don't dig up the paint if the drill slips

mark the hole using the light fixture and drill it out and test fit the bracket

jb weld to hold it in place

measured down from light bucket for uniformity sake

this orients them so the bars in the glass are horizontal and vertical

bobs77vet · Dec 7, 2015

well my buddies on the forum were looking out for me and let me know of a front fiberglass valance that was for sale and Alan was kind enough to box it up and send it my way.....

and we have our first trial fit

I was amazed with the 10 zillion fasteners I have that I could barely scrounge up 10 or 12 8-32 screws......

I am thinking these are going to be stainless steel hex head cap screws......more then half have functioning caged nuts the others will get a nut on the back side of them.... more fitting tomorrow.....sanding, priming will happen tues, weds and Thursday and finish painting will happen on Friday when its suppose to be 62*

SuperBuickGuy · Dec 8, 2015

neat... so what's the next project? enquiring minds want to know. :waxer:

bobs77vet · Dec 8, 2015

SuperBuickGuy said:
neat... so what's the next project? enquiring minds want to know. :waxer:

another MGA, a roadster this time and one that has no accident damage and is in relatively really good shape. that restoration I will do to a really high standard. it almost worth doing the same car twice since you become so knowledgable about the cars.

another quick hour changing all fasteners to SS pan head with SS washers.....its 8x32, tried again on the 10x32 size and it was a no go......not too much fiddling had to elongate several holes and drill three new ones for the fabricated piece I made. measured the distance along with a marked wooden stick and its dead on perfect. my guess is the previous owner spent a lot of time getting the fit right and I benefit from his effort.

tomorrow I mark the center hole for cutting out and start the stripping of the old paint.

bobs77vet · Dec 9, 2015

well goal for Friday is to paint it.....tomorrow night is the work Holiday party....so todays lunch time mission was to start the paint removal process

tonight it will get washed off, and the mechanical sanding process will start. strangest thing the Flat part by the bumper extension holes the paint bubbled.....the round underbelly part nothing came off, its just kind of rough. I wonder why the different results?

bobs77vet · Dec 9, 2015

about a half hour tonight hosing it down and sanding it with the water orbital sander with 180, some of the gel coat came off and you can see the imprint for the cutout for the center hole

bobs77vet · Dec 10, 2015

JRSCA said:
Bob:

Are you saying that the chemical stripper didn't do the job?

John

I honestly don't know why the chemical stripper worked differently for the paint behind the bumper vs the rounder under belly. on the behind bumper part it did exactly what you would expect and bubble and peel the paint, on the rounder under belly it made it more of a hardened alligator skin? I don't know? perhaps the paint was thinner and it came off with out me noticing it (it was at night) and what was left was what I noticed.

in any event, I hit it with 150 this am

you can see the demarcation line on the under belly

hit it with 150 to remove all traces of paint or any thing shiny and then again with 220

total wipe down with pre paint cleaner and then prime it with self etching primer

the fiberglass was so porous that I wanted to prime it immediately after getting it cleaned and the small repairs with get done later tonight with the goal to have it fully primed before I go to bed. that way if there is any paint in compatibility I should see tell tale signs before I paint it tomorrow.

bobs77vet · Dec 10, 2015

tonights work to fill the little digs and holes and to fill in the small fiber glass crack in the lower lip

bobs77vet · Dec 11, 2015

I prepped the area that I fiber glassed really well and scuffed with a 60 grit sand paper
and it worked to repair the point, basically I opened the tear which relieved the "point" and clamped it open and fiberglassed it. before it had a sharp point where the tear was. now look at the yellow spreader and it points to the repaired area which is nice and smooth

you can see the small point here on the bottom

bobs77vet · Dec 11, 2015

thanks Mark

todays effort

so we add a hole, do some more sanding, paint base coat and clear coat

bobs77vet · Dec 12, 2015

mostly just cleaning up today and putting away body working tools....now that's a good feeling
best spot for this front valance is on the car....final adjusting can come after the paint has hardened a little bit more

I could not get at my TCP global guns since my sons beast was staying with us and his cage is in the garage, so I used my sons guns I bought for him from auto zone, I really like these guns, may be even more then the TCP global ones

bobs77vet · Dec 13, 2015

5 hours cleaning, sanding painting wheels

cleaned twice with mineral spirits, cleaned twice with soapy water and a variety of wheel brushes, sanded and then cleaned with prepaint

bobs77vet · Dec 19, 2015

seat belt day!!!!!!!!!!!!! or may be weekend we will see....of course the seat belts are back order

while the paint is drying I will write this and then move to the other side

Barney says you can move it further back by about 2"

proximity to seat back at 30.5"

sweet spot for me at about 31.75"

the bracket is still on the top ridge and lots of seat clearnance

grinding outline

weld splatter control....what could possibly go wrong?????

welded in place

welds ground down and painted

same process drivers side

now to the tunnel mounts

bobs77vet · Dec 19, 2015

tunnel mounts....1.5" hole I drill 1/8 holes and mount the bracket backwards with 2 sheetmetal screws and then drill the other holes to size putting a screw in each one of them to hold the position and then after its all done flip it around and mount for real

and done!!!!

tomorrow the 3 point bolts on the inner rear fender wells

bobs77vet · Dec 20, 2015

well seat belt holes can get marked as DONE

pretty nifty looking set up

now I just have to wait for the seat belts to arrive.

on to fixing an errant muffler......

bobs77vet · Dec 20, 2015

well better late then never.....

this is a problem

take wheel off and theres lots of access

they just never seated it properly

cut the inner tube with a reciprocating saw

its as I suspected the exhaust was new just before the car stopped running

clean it up lightly inside

muffler clocked properly and this is at full bottom swing, it lines ups nicely

Sam Cogley · Dec 21, 2015

Gonna hit that poor thing with some high-temp exhaust paint?

bobs77vet · Dec 23, 2015

Sam Cogley said:
Gonna hit that poor thing with some high-temp exhaust paint?

I am not sure what the best thing to do is.....

a zinc/phosphorus treatment then paint.....primer then paint.....just paint.....brush on paint.... spray paint....or just leave it alone

I am conflicted....it is real metal though.....amazingly not rusted through

SuperBuickGuy · Dec 24, 2015

header paint is your friend, especially the ceramic stuff.

story time. So I was all about ceramic coatings, but it's expensive and I'm (sometimes) a cheapskate. I bought the VHT header paint and put it on some headers that I ran for a couple years in a Buick. When I swapped the chevy motor for a Buick motor, my nephew wanted to buy those headers... fine, I gave them to him (cheap, used, sbc headers are not really a marketable item). So he wanted them ceramic coated.

The coating shop bitched something fierce about how tough it was to get that coating off.... so epiphany time - $10 for header paint or $400 for ceramic coating.... yeah, I don't do ceramic coating, best part is you can easily fix paint.

VHT or even duplicolor header paint is your friend....

bobs77vet · Dec 24, 2015

I have cans of header paint from the corvette....I thought I had to bake it at 500* to cure it and haven't used it

I am about 1 hour away from breaking down the 3x8 assembly/storage table that has been my companion for the last year or two. I think January is going to be a light MGA month I want to do some other metal working projects, may be weld up a big arse wedling/assembly table from 1950 Bethlehem steel from windows of brick homes that were taken down to build new homes, this is all 1/4. 5/16 and 3/8 the big pieces are 9' long

pick off some easy work while cleaning up....

and I noticed my heater core assemblies were different

one has the directional vents on the flapper

the other has the directional vents

Sam Cogley · Dec 24, 2015

Most of those paints are rather delicate until they cure, but most of the cans say you can cure them in place with the heat of the exhaust. You might try using one of those oscillating parabolic dish heaters at close range to start the curing process, get the parts installed, then run the engine up to temp to fully cure it.

JPhil · Dec 26, 2015

Sam Cogley said:
Most of those paints are rather delicate until they cure, but most of the cans say you can cure them in place with the heat of the exhaust. You might try using one of those oscillating parabolic dish heaters at close range to start the curing process, get the parts installed, then run the engine up to temp to fully cure it.

What I have done is hang them up to paint them, then heat them with the rosebud tip of my oxy-acetylene torch, sticking it in the collector & all the tubes, & go over the outside lightly to just heat (not burn) the paint, over and over until I felt the whole thing had been at least partially cured.

I don't recall how POR15 is supposed to hold up to heat, but it's held up perfectly well on my exhaust pipe tips for years. That exhaust looks like a perfect candidate for it.