Garage Gear, Sort of,,,,,

I have another interest,  i built an electric Spitfire rc model, a wee while ago now, my plan is to learn through a club how to fly it now, all i need is a speed controller, battery and charger.

I have a Ripmax Skysport 6 with trainer facility, my plan is to find a local club and be shown whats what, and hopefully use my electronics background to instal some extras in it, gyro, landing gear etc.

and i really should get a better hat.

Rear Valance, Removal

Monday night, a school night as they say, but determined, and inspired, to keep up the momentum,

Decided to start removing the rear valance assembly,

As you can see, it is very holed.

i ran the wire brush in the angle grinder along the seam of spot weld, then centre punched all the marks, this allows me to drill out a small pilot with a 6mm drill bit, but not all the way through.
Then i used an 8mm to go a bit futher, using a circling motion with the drill bit to ease out the spot weld.
I finished off with a 10mm bit, bit excessive, but it really thinned the metal out, and because this is the rubber bumper, it is quite heavily plated at certain points.

this will take more than an hour or two, hopefully i will catch more time on this this week.

CONTINUED,

Did some more work tonight, its hard work planning the cuts to remove this, and have removed more, im trying to keep the chassis rail intact as much as i can.

you can see from the above photos that this side of the rear spring hanger are poor too, and holed.

No surprises there then, so that will require replacement too. I have taken this friday off work to allow a calm and measured approach to the final welding of the other side, i sholudnt be playing with this side at all, as the structure is weak enough. I have to install some bracing at the same time, and that is neccesary as I gear up towards the sill work required. If you dont brace at this stage the your car can go all funny shapes, and doors and shut lines are ruined. I off to have a coffee and calm down before i remove andy more metal (or should i say rust!)

Inner Rear Wheel Arch repairs

Hi all,

As i promised, i'm injecting some well due time to the car, the main focus is my 40th in August. A gift to myself is to drive me and my wife out that weekend in the car. I'm aiming for an MOT for Easter!, then shake down,

Today i concentrated on the rear inner wheel arch on the drivers side, as i need to make good all of this before i can offer up the rear quarter i have cut from a scrap green mgb.

The rust had formed on the top of the arch, and ate its way all the way through and down , ala alien blood, main culprit for all of this damage seems to be the rust that forms in the rearmost window corner on all gt's, and the ability of the mazak GT badge on the C pillar to let in via corrosion to the actual panel. I will be sticking a new GT badge on, not in with holes. i digress, here's what has been done today

I cut to the line formed by the inner C panel stiffeners, but have left some final cuts to last fitting off outer wheel arch. That was delivered in fine time from Sandra at MGBHive, many thanks.

Here is what was removed and replaced,



I also had to repair the rear seat belt mount, as it was holed and rusty. I drilled out the spot weld, releasing the round plate and bolt assy, then formed a repair plate to go below and seam welded into position.

Then a hole saw was used to form the hole for the plate and bolt assy, which i cleaned up on the wire wheel.

I'm very happy how today went, got the wheel arch a lot healthier now, and all from some 1mm steel sheet i had lying around.

Garage Gear, DIY Dolleys

One other thing i find really useful is the car dollies i made,

I "procured" several old sets of trolley wheels, and had some uni-strut lying around so set about making a set, cost zero.

I can now fit 2 cars with ease into my garage, and turn the mg around, even push it out of the garage, with great ease, even on my rough garage floor.Bit hard going on your own though.

You can see these in my main picture. I really should work on my smile, but i was freezing!