MGB New Project

[DanStokes]

Some progress on the B. The first shots are of the deck lid sitting up off the body - not pretty. It looks better in the pics than it did in real life.


This:






Versus this:







I have a bit more tweaking to do but it's most of the way there.

[DanStokes]

A resolution to an issue that's been vexing me since I started fitting the deck lid:


The problem: Note how the lower body edge sticks out 1/2" or so past the deck lid. I tried a bunch of techniques that involved slicing the offset that holds the weatherstrip then pulling the panel in toward the front of the body. NFG and it only led to messing up the lower back panel (as those are called) so all in all, frustrating to the point that I had to call it a night a couple of days ago rather than start throwing wrenches.





So what did work: I made a long horizontal cut across that flat area where the weld bead runs. Then I pulled the panel in and welded the slice followed by - grinder!






And after a bit more fiddling: Once I put a thin coat of filler this ought to look slick. The truth is that I don't know how bad the OEM fit is back there but I couldn't live with what I had. I have one more small area to move in and this will be good enough.

[DanStokes]

The correct body-mounted strips are readily available new so I'll go with that - but yes, I've grabbed and used those, too.

[Captain]

On my Parts Safari's, I grab the trunk weather strips out of new vehicles. Most just slide off the vertical lip/weld. Some are molded in shape, others have a molded in metal mesh to form it
to fit.
Either are Excellent Open Metal Edge protectors, wind, and water seals. Also anti rattle strips.
Again, Cut to Size, Beat to Fit, customizing to your Taste.

[DanStokes]

Back on the MGB. I need to fit the deck (trunk, boot) lid so I can weld the striker plate back in. I pulled it off by accident as I was taking the car off my 12" blocks so I need to get that area back in shape and reweld.

The first step is to reinstall the deck lid and use that as the template to make sure the supporting structures are in the right place. The red deck lid that I'm fitting is rust-free and features the old, open octagon badge that I much prefer - the newer ones have a plastic badge that isn't nearly as pretty to my eye.

Before the test fit I took the time to tap the existing bolt holes and to run a die over the bolts. Shown is the tapping process mostly as a reminder to anyone considering taking on a project like mine: buy a screw plate set (the old fashioned name for a tap and die set) and don't scrimp. Ace/Hanson at a minimum as this isn't a place to scrimp on tools. The cheap ones will either wear out in a couple of holes or worse, break a tap in a hole which is a PITA! This is old hat to many of us but may be new so some readers as I post these on 3 platforms.

After this I started fitting the lid and made some progress. When fitting an early model deck lid on a later model car you have to pull off the deck lid mounted weatherstrip and use the newer style body mounted weather strip - otherwise the lid will sit too high off the body. Yep, I forgot for a while then the little light bulb came on over my head.

[silver_bullet]

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Oh man, I hate it when I do that...

[DanStokes]

One step forward two steps back......

Well, really one step back. Reference post # 668 and the slugs I welded in for the crossmember bolts. Somehow I knocked the "slugs" on the drivers side such that it swung up and away from where the bolt could enter it. So today I cut open the outside of that "frame" member, pulled the slug back down into position, welded the outside end of the slug, welded the hole back up just like I did the inside cuts, painted and waited as usual. So everything is back to where I left it all those days ago. No pics.

[SuperBuickGuy]

Not sure you ever mentioned what year this was, but I'm surprised that a PnP had an MGB from last century still in the yard.

where I live, the PnP keeps those to the last drop - they have a couple 3rd gen Camaros and several Foxbodies that would probably be tossed from big-city yards but here? nope.

[DanStokes]

Not sure you ever mentioned what year this was, but I'm surprised that a PnP had an MGB from last century still in the yard.

Mine's an '80 as is the donor car. They have whatever rolls in and this B is just that. It'll sit there for a while then go off to become a couple of Kias. There's a lot of steel in an MGB so I'm thinking 2.

Actually, I wish I'd started with the donor car as the tub is in much better shape than mine was when I started. But they won't sell a whole car and it wasn't there when I started.

[Monster]

Not sure you ever mentioned what year this was, but I'm surprised that a PnP had an MGB from last century still in the yard.

[DanStokes]

Spent a couple of afternoons at PnP getting a much better LF fender. The hard part was drilling the heads off several rusted-in quality British sheet metal screws which were hard as a rock. I did get 'em eventually. And all this while fighting allergies which have kicked in in force. I'm thinking I'll take a couple of days off while this road of pollen settles down.

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

Oh, and the story of getting it running? That's for another day...

[dave.g.in.gansevoort]

We grew up so poor that we didn't even have an airport tug. Poor me.......

Dad had this grand idea. He had 2 sons, 16 and 12, when he bought this beast from an area golf course. They had used it to pull gang mowers on the fairways, until it started needing too much maintenance. It had sat for 3 or 4 years by then, and was stuck.

So his first idea was for the 2 of us to work together on it and get it running. And the second idea was he'd get gang mowers so we could use it to mow the lawn. And cut both hayfields down into lawn. 1 field was 2/3 cut down already, eventually it was completely cut down, giving us 8 acres of lawn. And it was the smaller of the fields. If the 2nd field had been made into lawn, we'd have had about 15 to 16 acres of lawn.

You know, what else would you have 2 sons for, besides mowing the lawn? At least he was thinking about the time required to get it all mowed. With approximately 150 inches of gang mowers it would have been about 1 day to get the whole yard done. Then there was another 15-16 acres of wooded area that could be cleared. And that's not counting the swamp areas and the pond...

Yes, dad had a master plan for his 2 sons...

[DanStokes]

Many decades ago, I'd just roll the car getting an oil change into the circle, pull the drain plug and filter, and wait 20 minutes. Then roll back to the garage and refill and replace. Here's where:] And downhill to the garage. Yup, that's 12 year-old me on our aircraft tug. Let's not dwell on how many decades ago that was...

That driveway was pea stone, and mud! And dusty in the summer. So it got oiled to keep the dust under control, kind of...

So the parental units didn't have any problems with the dumping of oil on it. And we were even instructed to get the weeds in particular, as the hot oil did a good job of killing the weeds. So innocent in those days. I think the current owner has paved it, so what's the difference? Asphalt is the bottom of the distillation curve, and contains way worse than the stuff in drain oil.

We grew up so poor that we didn't even have an airport tug. Poor me.......