Heading home

Its been a busy summer getting the MG painted.  And now its going to be a busy fall putting it all back together again.  There is lots to do but the first thing is to get it towed back to Calgary. I rented a car hauler to get it back, it runs but it doesn't have any lights.

That truck of mine has certainly come in handy, but I am really hoping that this is the last time I will have to haul this MG.  From now on I would really like to drive it places!

Back in the garage I can get a good look at the paint and see what has yet to be done.  For starters I think I am going to need to clean up this garage.  I sure don't want any of that junk falling on the MG and scratching the new paint.  The cars in the back are my other projects, a 1959 Land Rover Series 2 (Canadian Edition) and a 1973 Rolls Royce Silver Shadow.  The Rolls is near mint, but the Landy is in bad shape, needs a ton of work.

Paint

The MG has been primed and sanded, now it is ready for paint. We used a new brand of paint with lower VOC's in it. That made it go on a lot thinner than what we were used to. The result was more coats of paint than expected. I think it was 12 coats in total.

Even the front air dam got a few coats of paint.

After the paint was left to dry for a few days the paper and tape was removed. The tires were put back on so we could roll it out in to the sun to get a good look at it.

Pretty pleased with the paint.  Now its time to put the thing back together!

Primer

The MGB has been sanded, cleaned, acid washed and is ready for primer. The engine bay, trunk and cockpit were taped off prior to paint.

There was a considerable amount of time and energy that went in to getting the B to this point.  And now its finally here.

Taping is finished, time for primer.

A proud craftsman, standing by his work.  A coat of primer sealer and a coat of primer surfacer was applied.  The red marks are primer putty that have used to fill in some of the smaller scratches.

Ready for paint

Well I really didn't think we were going to make it.  But after 3 months of weekends and evenings we have the MG stripped, patched, welded, filled and ready for primer.

We were both so proud of our progress that we had to take a few shots of the car sort of put back together. My dad is holding the door in place because we didn't have it bolted in and we didn't want to chip the paint.

That hood just looks fantastic, the paint is superb.

Its end of June and we have exactly two months to finish this paint.  I am going back to work and Pop is going to prime and paint.  You can see another project in the other bay of the garage, a 1973 Silver Shadow, thankfully it doesn't need paint.

Dam that looks good!

We are getting really close to paint.  The car is stripped and the rear Sebring bumper is on.  We are going to tackle the front air dam this morning.  Once that is installed we should be good for primer and paint.

Pop wasn't completely happy with the front fender so here he is making a few adjustments.

Front Rubber Bumper rails had to be trimmed down to fit the front dam.

With or without?  I pick with, because it looks AWESOME!

Fibreglass glue

I got the bumpers in and they are ready for install.  I have worked with plenty of fiberglass before but never had to glue fiberglass to metal. The local auto body shop guy sold me the right glue for them and I picked up some clecos from Eastwood.

You can tell by the look on the shop managers face that I am on my own on this one.  Fenders are installed and glued here, now to weld on the spacers between the lights and the bumper.

This is where things got tricky, and the shop managers blood pressure started getting dangerously high. It took a ton of back and forth on these things.  See the trick is that the early model B's had this bit of metal already on the rear quarter panel.  But the rubber bumper models don't. The trouble is that if you put the fiberglass Sebring bumper on a rubber bumper model B you will have this big gap between the fiberglass bumper and the tail light.  Since the fiberglass bumper is not a perfect shape, these little metal bits need to be shaped perfectly to match the light and the bumper.  It took me two full days to get this close and I am still not 100% pleased with the result. If I had the time and experience to do this right the entire Sebring bumper would have been manufactured from steel.

They aren't perfect but after sanding there isn't more than 1/4 inch of filler anywhere on the pieces or bumper.  And we managed to sand it smooth so they look like one piece.

Sunday morning coffee time and the shop manager is resting quietly, he had a good night sleep.  I was up all night trying to get that Sebring bumper installed.  And today's challenge is getting the front dam on.

We're going to Sebring!

I broke the news to the Shop Boss, we are adding Sebring bumpers to the MG.  Actually, a rear Sebring bumper and an air dam up front.  It's late June so we need to get rolling on it, the shop is closing its doors for business at the end of August.

The body has been fully stripped of paint and some filler has been added.  Any surface rust spots have been treated as well.  We are just waiting to get those Fibreglass bumpers on and it can be primed.

Driver side quarter panel

The driver side quarter panel had quite the crinkle in it.  We spent a fair bit of time on it to get it flat enough that it wouldn't require any filler.  It took some time but we managed to do it.  I learned quite a few metal prep tricks in the process from the resident expert.

Its getting closer, but its July. We have 2 months left to prime and paint. And I have decided I want to put Sebring bumpers on it, the shop manager is going to lose it.

Broken Front Wing

We rolled the MG out into the yard again this weekend to have a good look at the front fender.  It had been sanded a bit and the more paint we took off the more bondo we discovered.

So we made the call to ditch the old fender and source a new one.

Inner wing and rocker are in good shape, no need to do anything with them.  That's undercoater not rust in the picture.

The re-manufactured fender had to be modified slightly, but we managed to get it on and was well worth the money.  We never would have got that old one right.