1958 MGA Coupe

bobs77vet · Jan 9, 2015

remaining door lock hardware came off today and time to sand the remaining paint off, tomorrow the doors will come off and I will sand the doors out side

and while cleaning up I found a spacer on the floor???? does any one recognize it. it has flecks of blue paint on it......you know my son just brought over a blue pallet fork lift and it has a broken hand release mechanism and we were turning it over to look at it....any way does any one recognize this? I clean up regularly so it has to be some thing I have done recently worked on.

bobs77vet · Jan 10, 2015

17* outside and a slight breeze.....flannel lined pants, shirt, 2 hooded sweat shirts, jacket, gloves goggles to cover the eyes since they were freezing....it was cold!

sanded the doors, a little more to do but too cold out side

bobs77vet · Jan 11, 2015

when in doubt take more stuff apart

bottom looks really good

lets take out a crease

crease removed and lip folded back over again

just like the other side

a few spots to repair on the bottom

Sam Cogley · Jan 11, 2015

bobs77vet said:
a few spots to repair on the bottom

Ya lost a bracket there on that last /img tag. Every time someone takes a car apart, something goes missing and somehow ends up with two extras of something else. :harhar:

bobs77vet · Jan 15, 2015

Sam Cogley said:
bobs77vet said:

a few spots to repair on the bottom

Click to expand...

Ya lost a bracket there on that last /img tag. Every time someone takes a car apart, something goes missing and somehow ends up with two extras of something else. :harhar:

added the IMG bracket, I am pretty sure that spacer is off of the pallet jack we were turning over....the blue paint kind of gives it away since the pallet jack is also blue. my car only had some blue paint on the exterior of some of the panels, but no where on any nuts,bolts, engine parts, brackets etc...

bobs77vet · Jan 17, 2015

lets take care of some pin holes

the flash light shows the spots, after much deliberation I decide to plug them this is about 1.5 hrs of work

I made a nice big backing plate wrapped in copper

grind the area and plug the holes

once again after final grinding when you think you are done do the flash light test

nice skim coat of fiber glass and time to move on to the next spot, I need to remove a bracket to knock that "hole" flat and the screw is frozen on the bracket so its soaking

bobs77vet · Jan 18, 2015

well it was a busy day today

here is the manmade hole surprisingly located underneath the first barrel bolt of the door frame.

body dollys come in all different shapes and sizes this has a radius side and a flat side

hammer from the inside "on dolly', this means the hammer hits the metal on the support dolly, off dolly means the hammer hits the metal but the dolly is not behind the striking hammer

first go around

all done

skimmed with fiberglass

now to the work that got me no where......my son, his wife, granddaughter and dog are in between apartments so they will stay with us for a short time and the garage will be used for storage

built a frame for storing the body on top of the chassis

lift the current car body and frame up on to 12 ton jack stands about 24" tall

we got the heights with in 1/2" of each other then my son and son inlaw just got on either end and picked it up on to the new frame

you can see how high up the blue jack stands are these were under the old car frame

G-Pete · Jan 28, 2015

Took me a couple of days to read the 70 pages and look at these pictures of the progress.
Good job Bob!

Thanks for the insight, I just took possession of an '62....you made my life much easier.

Keep it up!

Greetings from North Texas
G-Pete:drink:

bobs77vet · Feb 4, 2015

G-Pete said:
Took me a couple of days to read the 70 pages and look at these pictures of the progress.
Good job Bob!

Thanks for the insight, I just took possession of an '62....you made my life much easier.

Keep it up!

Greetings from North Texas
G-Pete:drink:

nice looking coupe, I figure there are probably 1200-1800 coupes left in existence in the world, but who knows for sure. they only made 10,000 to begin with and racers have always wanted these for race cars and thats a hard life...

bobs77vet · Feb 7, 2015

well finally some nice weather, as you can see I need to do as much out side as possible

we did save some small work area and a place for the visiting 85lb beast, I mean my sons dog

time to do some more sanding on the door skin and put some filler down, since there is no repair here it is just polyester filler

use a long sanding board so you don't get waves

after sanding and a wipe down with wax and grease remover it gets the self etching primer. the kids and dog are away for the weekend so the evaporating primer will not bother the beast.

and my black primer

bobs77vet · Feb 8, 2015

beautiful day today high 60s*

sand the doors one more time

thoroughly clean them, a paint job is only as good as the prep work

first coat self etching primer

and the black higher build primer. funny thing was the doors were not painted under the hinges....so this time around that area will get painted before the door gets hung. that may be the first car part i paint the body color.

i guess my next task will be to start cleaning up the dash. its still accessible.

bobs77vet · Mar 8, 2015

finally another nice day....worked on the dash

these are those small head rivets that are hard to Find. there are some in the mail to me from Gio but they must be stuck in customs some where.

I marked the retaining clips

heres the how they make the bead

heres the thickness of the tube

and where we wound up

bobs77vet · Mar 14, 2015

worked on the gauges some today

start by cleaning off lots of dirt

some light rust on the outside really more of an annoyance then anything else

I think the fast etch will clean this up

some damage from the previous owner probably installing a radio

easy way to pop off the clip fasteners

so I have some weld repairs to do and the welder is buried, but the good news is the kids found an apartment so dad gets his garage back in a few weeks. this was a nice break but I am ready to move forward

bobs77vet · Mar 15, 2015

today I found two turn signal relays, but my trip to radio shack was a wasted trip and although the computer showed they had the relays needed to convert these to an electronic relay system. they were no where to be found in the store

the good news is one of the relays internally looks in pretty good shape, if you can judge coils by looking at them. so its time to so some trouble shooting with them. now to take the 12v battery our of the motorcycle and get it charged

bobs77vet · Mar 17, 2015

well another trip to two more radio shacks.....one to a store that is staying open to purchase one of the DPDT (double pole double throw) relays. cost me a whopping $ .97 at this store for one. then to a store that as closing.....to buy 3 relays......for $.17 each. I purchased all they had. I was thinking of you guys when I saw the price but they didn't have more to buy. I still want to test the original turn signal relays to see if they work before I cannibalize them.

heres Barneys write up that I will be following assuming at least one of these doesn't work.

http://mgaguru.com/mgtech/electric/ts202.htm

and heres the definition of the relay for those wondering "

A six-terminal switch arrangement which serves to connect one pair of contacts with either of two available pairs of contacts. Its abbreviation is DPDT switch. Also called double-pole switch (2)." if you look at Barneys site it has the schematic diagram explaining how the relays work inside of the turn signal relay.

1Michel · Mar 18, 2015

Hey Bob, to clean up electrical gizmos like that those little blasters do a great job.
Just fill the reservoir with baking soda and blast away.
Works great.

bobs77vet · Mar 25, 2015

1Michel said:
Hey Bob, to clean up electrical gizmos like that those little blasters do a great job.
Just fill the reservoir with baking soda and blast away.
Works great.

i like that idea, thks

denpo · Mar 25, 2015

I may repeat myself, but if you want to remove rust without acid or mechanical action, Evaporust will do wonder.

bobs77vet · Apr 5, 2015

I have never tried that stuff I will look for it

well came back from Easter break and spent some time cleaning up the shop, and making some space for me. didn't leave too much time to play but I managed to smoosh some metal

what needs to be corrected

working it with a hammer on an anvil

and we are getting there

I have the same extension weld marks as every one else. on an MGA coupe then ends that return are hand welded on at the factory

bobs77vet · Apr 11, 2015

a really quick hit today hopefully I can wrap the dash up tonight, today was wire brushing sanding and painting

a stainless steel look

still need to weld up the tears.. afdter wire brushing I sanded it

bobs77vet · Apr 11, 2015

worked on the dash some more to fix the damage from a radio install and to weld the top tab back on. the coupes dash get wrapped in vinyl covering ,so it can be less then a paint quality finish

voilla just add some welding magic

bobs77vet · Apr 17, 2015

well I understand that my garage comes back to me tomorrow and the coupe comes off the high storage frame and back on to the moveable saw horses.

so lets wrap up the dash board, I sanded the back side and self etch primed it and then both sides got primed in black primer. after sanding the back side I don't think the black was anything other then a primer

bobs77vet · Apr 18, 2015

almost back in business.....

we start by fixing a design flaw in my moveable saw horses and fix the rear part of the axle so it doesn't move down and make the wheels cant

lets fit the drivers side shut face panel

and I find out the bracket that the latch attaches too has been drilled out

weld up the holes

drill and tap

finally

SuperBuickGuy · Apr 19, 2015

simply because you're working on an English car, doesn't mean you have to change the proper terms of "door post" .... :mullet:

did you fire the engineer?

since you're all about english authenticity (shut panel :lol

, did you add rust to that hinge plate?

bobs77vet · Apr 22, 2015

i think the rust will come naturally.....the British do have their own names for things thats for sure and compared to Austin Healeys the MGs were well engineered...... i like the British terms for tools...spanners and ring spanners, ( open end wrench and box end wrench). we wont even talk about whitworth vs AF......and I think shut face panel isn't such a bad term since it hides the door pillar post and covers the rear fender (wing) where it attaches to the door post and the rocker sill.

got some parts for the doors today. I can see rebuilding these will be a challenge. but that will be in a while...