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Restoring the Driver's Side
With the MGA inside away from the cold, it meant that work could continue
over the wet winter months. Most of the work has been restoration of the
driver's side body panels and door pillars.
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| Photos showing the state of the driver's side
before restoration. |
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| I had just finished the passenger side outside
repairs (or thought I had) and started on the drivers side. This time I
started towards the back as it was in a really bad way (see photos) and I
was afraid that the roof was going collapse. First exercise was to patch
up the rear roof post from the inside and stiffen it up. There was zero
support from the body in this area and I ended up propping it up with a
wooden pole to give it support. |
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| The rest was routine using the panels seen in
the photos. Again the transition area from the inner wing wheel arch to
the roof is puzzling mainly because mine has disappeared so it's a
guessing game. Again, any help gratefully received. With this stiffened, I
worked my way towards the back repairing and patching where necessary.
When I got to the extreme tear drop shape end, the fun started in the
boot... |
Cleaning the Boot
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| Like most UK MGA's this area was at the mercy
of the spray from the back wheels and is designed cup shaped to catch and
hold water and I could not find any sound metal to repair to in this area.
On top of this the design is such that access to the area right under the
front edge is impossible. The only solution is to cut the back part of the
body of in order to get access. Most of the book floor in this area looked
sound but once I got the old part of the body off I showed me how bad it
was. This area has the main body mounting bolts for the back half and this
area was very bad so I cut the whole front section out. (See Photos)
Underneath showed where it had rusted from inside out. Luckily the rest of
the boot floor was sound. Replacement parts were sourced and welded in.
For those who would not tackle the body skin welding give it a try. It was
my first attempt and with the help of filler to smooth out the minor bumps
it looks ok. |
Taking Seats Apart
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| As usual as I was stripping down the car I was
running out of space and decided to strip the seats down to the frames. It
turned into an interesting exercise because it became obvious that some
furry rodents had been living in them. We found evidence of the nest in
the seat which meant the in the interest of safety I had to scrap all the
upholstery including the leather seats that were not in to bad a
condition. We did not know if they were rats or not and the risk of Vials
Disease condemned everything to the rubbish tip except the hardware.
Anyone with Coupe seats to spare please contact me. |
A Visitor...
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We also had a visit from another MG - this time an MGB that
has recently been professionally restored. It actually consists of a new
body shell populated with restored parts from an original car. |
All the photos from spring 2004 can be found here.
  
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