Conference terri::cars_uk

    A friend offered me some Corroless sevral years back.  As I recall it
    was a tad expensive.  Anyway, I put it on the battery box of my VW bus. 
    I was surprized at how well it worked.  No more rust.  I didn't paint
    it or anything so I could see what was happening and two years later it
    was still strong.

Its good to know that the stuff holds up to the test of time.  It is certainly
expensive (1 US Quart is $24.95/ #12).

If I do this, I'll do the entire frame, floor supports, etc... then paint it with
Chassis Black.

-Al

    
    
    Hi Al,
    
       Just a few thoughts. Definately take the body off the chassis if the
    car has quite a lot of visible rust. Once you really start looking
    you'll find a whole lot more !!!
    
       If you've got the chassis out have it grit blasted. I took the
    chassis out of my car and painted it the first time. It was alright but
    no better. The second time I rebuilt it I had the chassis grit blasted.
    This leaves you with nothing but metal. Make sure you take it to a
    reputable blaster who's worked on cars before otherwise the thinner
    bits will get blown away.
    
       The blasting on mine didn't uncover any new rust, but did expose a
    large number of hairline stress cracks on the front suspension mounts.
    I didn't spot this the first rebuild ............
    
       Once blasted and repaired you can either paint the chassis or look
    at galvanising or zinc spraying. Galvanising is expensive and can flake
    off, zinc spraying is similar in price but avoids the flaking. You have
    to use etch primer after zinc spraying and then paint.
    
       On the topic of removing the body. I didn't have this problem as my
    car is fibreglass. However the car magazines covering total rebuilds
    normally talk about bolting or welding in a strengthening cage. Scafold
    poles seem popular !! I think the main risk is the car folding up in
    the middle just behind the bulkhead especially if the doors are out.
    
       I strongly recommend you buy a new wiring loom.
    
    							Chris. 

Thanks for the info Chris.

I'm all too familiar with Grit/Sand Blasting.  I have an 'at home' unit that I
used when stripping the paint from my 74 midget.  It was slow going, but worked
very well.  What a mess it made!

I've banged at the frame with a screwdriver and found only a few peices that
seem like they need replacing.  Most of those are smaller and do things like
support the wood flooring.  This car spent a good bit of its life in Arizona, so
it wasn't subjected to that much bad weather.

In terms of the wiring loom.  Things look very good.  The car has been stored for
about 10 years.  Shortly before being stored, the guy who who had it bought a
new loom.

In terms of supporting the body, I'm wondering where exactly the braces need to
be placed, etc...  Last night I got the latest copy of 'MGA!' (the magazine of
the North American MGA Register... NAMGAR).  In the classified section in the
back, there was a guy who had lots of 1600 and MKII parts for sale - he's about
2 miles from my house!  I called his place and spoke to his wife (he wasn't
there).  She said that he's done a couple of Body Off Restos on MGAs and has some
1500 parts, too.  This could work out well!

Cheers and keep the info coming,
-Al 

    Al,
    
    	There was a sequence of articles in the MGOC magazine here in the
    UK by a guy doing a comprehensive body-off rebuild of an MGA. I could
    dig out the articles (7 or 8) and copy them for you. It covered
    virtually everything you might come across and was very detailed with
    plans, sequences etc. Let me know.
    
    chris

That would be GREAT.  I'd really appreciate it!

-Al

ZK02-1/Q18

    Al,
    
    	On it's way via internal mail. Let me know if it doesn't turn up.
    There are 10 episodes covering most aspects of the restoration with
    detailed plans. Should help. He recommends NOT taking the body of if
    you can avoid it.
    
    chris

Thanks Chris.  I'm sure the articles will make for interesting reading.

Last night I began the process by stripping the bumpers, the badly bent front
valence and some of the lights.  Tonight I hope to gut the interior and remove
the bonnet & boot lid.

I'm seriously considering building a little cart of put the body onto.  This
should allow me to move take the body from the chassis, place it directly onto
the car, and wheel it around the garage to work on it.  I have room in the garage
for the chassis, the body and the midget, as long as I put the MGA body in side
ways while not working on it.

Cheers,
-Al 

Chris,

	I got the articles today.  I haven't read them yet, but a quick skimming
leads me to believe that they'll be very useful!


Thanks alot!
-Al

Note 110.142                         MG Note                         142 of 142
RPSTRY::MGA58::legerlotz "Alan Legerlotz - Reposito" 51 lines   6-JUL-1993 09:59
                      -< MG sill replacement...FINALLY! >-

I'm going to replace the sills in my MGA this week (and next week if it
requires that amount of time).

I've done the following so far:

        - removed the "wings" from the car

        - put the car on jack stands, leveling it as much as possible from
          front to back AND side to side.  It's pretty good, I was
          surprised at how easy it was; just luck I guess.

        - painted Eastwood Company "Cold Galvanizing Compound" on the
          areas of the replacement parts which will be inaccessible when
          they are installed.  The Galvanizing Compound was advertized as
          being weldable, so I'll be putting that to the test.

Here is what I have planned:

        - Install bracing so the body cannot sag when the sills are
          removed.  They will be removed and replaced one complete side
          at a time.

        - Lay out parts in the order and direction they'll be installed, to
          be sure that nothing is upside down, backwards or from the other
          side of the car.
 
        - Remove parts from the outside in until all of the parts being
          replaced are off the car.

        - Derust any areas where the new pannels will be installed.

        - Fit new pannels and hold them in place with vice grips; loosely
          fit fenders to be sure that everything fits together with
          reasonable spacing, then remove fenders.

        - MIG weld and spot weld the parts in place.

        - Spray them with primer to keep them from rusting until the whole
          car is stripped and painted.
        - Crack open a beer and call the job done and round up the guys
          that will help me remove the body from the frame.



Any words of wisdom from people who have done this job already?  I think
that I've covered most everything and accounted for it, but I could be
overlooking something that would make the job easier and the repair more
accurate.

-Al

I suggest several beers interspaced between the various tasks you have laid out 

:-)

    You mentioned getting the spacings right, but didn't mention
    fitting the doors before welding up the sills.
    With my MGB, a hydraulic ram was placed between the A and B
    posts, and "adjusted" to give the best door spacings.
    Just keeping the A and B posts at their current spacing might
    not be what you want.
    
    I remember a friend of mine having the sills on his MGB replaced
    by a local garage. They jacked up the car, took off the sills,
    and welded on the new ones. When it was finished, it became
    obvious that the car had flexed, ending up like a banana with 
    the middle higher than the front and back. It didn't look good :-(

    
    I'll second that!
    
    When I rebuilt my 67 Midget the door gap was the thing I tried to get
    the most accurate.
    
    I used a hydarlic trolly jack under the tunnel to flex the body up or
    down and welded the sills when the door gap was the best!
    
    Cheers, and good luck,
    
    Steve

How's your midget running, Steve?  When I was over there a year and a half
ago you were still trying to sort things out...

I pulled off the rocker pannel last night (I'm not sure what the Queen's 
English for it would be, but its the cosmetic part of the sill on the MGA). 
These pannels on this car had been replaced once already, but the ya-hoo 
who did the job left part of the old ones in there.  I had the distinct
pleasure of using the air hammer to remove the bodged "new" rocker pannels
and then the residual parts of the originals.

Basically, there is not much left of the strengthener (what I believe is
refered to as the outer sill on the MGA), but the inner sills are good
enough to provide support, and could be left on, but I bought all new ones
and intend to use them.

The bracing that I installed was quick to go in, but is plenty strong.  I'm
sure that its not going anywhere.  The nice thing about the 'A' versus a
midget is that the chassis will do lots of the supporting, too.  I'm 
pleased with things so far, more updates later.

Cheers,
-Al

    
    The Midget is going great!!
    
    The problem I had was that I was missing a one way valve on the inlet!
    
    It seems as though we know the same ya-hoo!  On my first midget when it
    came to replacing the sills I removed the outer sill to find to my
    amazement, another really rotten outer sill which had been bashed about
    with a hammer so that the newer outer sill could be put over it!!!
    
    Steve

Both ya-hoos might have gone to Mickey Mouse's body repair school...


I made some more head way last night.  I did a detailed drawing, and noted
lots of measurements.  When that was done, I stoked up the air chisel and
went to town.  It really blows right through the spot welds and rusty
material.

Lots of the new parts are supposed to be spot welded, so its going to be a
bit tricky to do some of them.  What I figure I'll do is to fit them to the
car, then clamp everything together - after that I'll take the parts off
while those I need to spot weld are still clamped together.  I can spot
weld them off the car, then fit them as one assembly afterwards.

Since this is a major rust repair kit (slightly overkill on my car) it
includes most EVERYthing.

Cheers,
-Al

I'm still working on my sills.  I've managed to hit a snag or two along the
way, but I've fitted the door and wings to make sure that everything will
fit properly when I'm done.  At first I thought I'd screwed up, but it
turns out that all is fine.  I was relying on a far east made outter sill
being the proper size and shape, and it turns out it isn't.  It can be made
to fit easily enough, though.

I have to do the spot welding on these parts, then move the other side of
the car.  All in all, I think that this will be about a 3 week job for both
sides of the car.

-Al

I've posted this to the 'SOL' British cars mailing list on the internet.  Since
some of the parts that I get from Moss and such are from ROVER, I wonder if they
have any books which could reference these parts.

Does anyone know if the British Motorcar Heritage Museum have books that would
contain such information?

Cheers,
-Al

------------------------

I have a "Special Tuning Guide" for the MGA 1500 and 1600.  Since my car hasn't 
been on the road in 12 to 14 years, I'm certainly going to do a full rebuild on 
the engine.

With all this money invested, I want to get a little more HP for the buck, so its 
my plan to bring my car to stage 3A (I think that's correct, I didn't bring the 
book with me to work).  Anyway, what that involves is:

1	Porting and polishing the head

2	a Cam which is other than stock and optionally a different ignition 
timing curve

3 	Flat topped pistons, which give a 9:1 compression ratio, and rich carb 
needles.


RE: 1 Porting and polishing.

I have a 1622 head on my car, so the porting and polishing will be on a head with 
bigger vavles, so I should get good flow.  This is not a problem.  They give 
enough information in the guide, and I've read some books on the subject of 
porting and polishing.

RE: 2 Cam and advance curve

A friend of mine recently installed a cam in his MGA 1600 and noticed a good 
increase in power with no decrease in drivability.  I'll compare the specs of his 
cam to those in the special tuning guide.  I assume that they'll be pretty close.
With the installation of thise cam, however, the guide says that you can keep the 
curve you already have, OR for a little more power, you can install a distributor 
from a Reiley (sp?) 1.5 which will have the correct curve for this Cam.  The 
problem with this is that the part number given for the distributor is an old MG 
part number.  Is there any way to referece the specs of this part number?

RE: 3 Flat topped pistons and CC carb needles.

I know where I can get my hands on the 1500 flat topped 9:1 pistons.  They're 
still in the original bow, with wrings and wrist pins.  They're forged, not cast.
The guide says that if you install these, you must use connecting rods # xxxxxxx.
Again, its an MG part number, and it doesn't say what the difference is between 
those rods and the stock rods used with the 8:1 pistons.

I would ASSUME that the difference has something to do with strength/resistance 
to cracking.  I don't know if a good machine shop could recondition the rods then 
shot peen (is that the term, I forget) them to harden them.  What I'd REALLY like 
to do is get the specs or at least a description of the rods referenced.

The carb needles are, obviously, a no brainer.


The extra 10 HP (from 70 to 80) would be nice, but I'd hate to install all of 
this stuff on an engine, only to have the rods let go 10K miles after its on the 
road.  10 HP might not seem like much, but its about a 14% gain.


Thanks for any info you can give...

-Al

I'm ready to repair the rust damage on the chassis of my MGA, and would like
some opinions from people who have done this type of work.

Some background...  This chassis has been de-rusted professionally at metal
strip of New England, so there is currently no rust anywhere on the chassis,
just the aftermath of the damage caused by rust.  The chassis is structurally
strong and straight.

I have some holes in the side rails of the frame, and have two options in
fixing them.  Option 1 is to cut out the areas of the frame that are damaged
and butt weld replacement pieces in place of the areas cut out.  Option 2 is
to take a pre cut overlay, which covers the entire area, and weld it on top of
the damaged area.  Option 2 will, in effect, seal the area and the inside of
the frame will have a double wall and some added strength.

Here is a poor drawing.  @ and dots denote holes of larger (@) or smaller (.)
size.
						//
	---------------------------------------//--__________
		.....................	[]   @    @@	
	-----------------------------------------------------

The overlay is slightly shorter and has as cut out for the cross beam denoted
by the [].  It would go almost from top to bottom and would cover all of the
holes.


Here are the pros and cons I see with each option:

Option 1
---------

Pros -
	.If done properly this will be most like original
	.There will not be a thin area to trap moisture

Cons -
	.It may be difficult to not get distortion of the metal, as this is
	 all sheet metal, about 18 gauge.
	.Time consuming.


Option 2
---------

Pros -
	.Extra strength because of the added metal
	.Installation of overlay is quick and easy

Cons -
	.Not original construction
	.possibility of moisture being trapped between surface of overlay and
	 remaining original metal.



Opinions, please.

Thanks,
-Al

    I would go for option 1 - option 2 will, even if done perfectly, look
    like a bodge, and diminish the value of the car.
    
    Use a MIG welder, and distortion will be minimal on 18 gauge, and once
    the welds are linished and the area painted, it will look like new.
    
    Paul

    Seconded.
    
    Laurie.

    Thirded

I've been planning option 1, but a couple of people suggested going the other
route, and I started to question my decision.

So far its about 7 to 2 (option 1 vs option 2).  That's good enough for me.

I'll stick to the original plan of cutting and butt welding.  I have a MIG welder
and have become pretty good with it.  Its the fitup that takes time, the welding
itself is quick once you get the knack of it.

Cheers,
-Al