Luv2Wrench

Awesome job! Now we need some shop pics.... Is that a shaper hiding back there?

Thanks for sharing the story on the door, very interesting custom and makes perfect sense. You guys did a wonderful job with the restoration.

Got the 1/16" RG45 welding rod in today and it makes a big difference. Now, of course, I need a different tip size. For some reason I have a 000 and 0 but no 00 size. Figures. I think I'm very close now.

Thanks for posting the pictures, I've always dreamed of having a farm with an old farmhouse. I love the frame style with the thatched roofs. It reminds me of my visits to the Cotswolds in England as a teenager.

That sounds FANTASTIC!! I'm actually thinking of doing the same next year after the final kid goes to college.

The chrome is FANTASTIC!! Too bad those guys don't do engines as well.

I think you logic is very good. I don't have much welding to do on the MG so my needs are not pressing right now. Time is still my friend. Once the MG is done and, hopefully, I have a little money in my pocket, then a TIG is probably first on the list. I think the longer I wait the better a unit I'll be able to get, and, of course, the better my puddle skills will be.

Yes, I've been told to start with oxy-acetylene and then get a high quality TIG system. Since I still haven't mastered oxy-acetylene and I can't afford a high quality TIG system... I'm staying with the gas. I really think it will serve my purposes well. I think it is just a matter of practice and experimenting with pressures, flow rates, tip sizes and filler rod sizes. Granted that's a lot of variables but I've got time.

Small update... I've been practicing welding again. It has been quite some time since I last did any and I thought I'd get some practice in. Got off to a rough start as both regulators wouldn't hold pressure so I had to drive across a few towns (3 hours round trip) to get them rebuilt. There is a fantastic company, Regulator and Torch Exchange, that will rebuild your regulators while you wait. Really great guys. I went ahead and changed hoses, got new goggles, etc, etc. I'm more comfortable with the setup now and the practice has gone well. The owner suggested changing the spring in the oxygen regulator to allow finer control over lower pressures and I think that's helped a lot. I need to get some thinner (1/16") rod in as well as I'm struggling to keep the filler rod molten with the lower heat level needed to keep from blowing a hole in the sheet metal (20ga). Looks like it will be mid next week before that comes in so I'll have to find other things to do.

I made the same statement... but I'll be painting the house and shop later this fall.

Ooohhhh... an auction... do take pics!!

Awesome project!!! Very excited to follow along. Please post a few pictures of the farm as well.

I looked at the tech sheet again and they recommend 1.5 but say you can use 1.3. As such, you might want to get 1.5 for the primer gun. If you use their 2K primer they recommend a 1.8 tip for it.

I highly recommend using their water based wax and grease remover and *nothing* else. Barry (owner of SPI) can't be anymore clear on that. I make sure that any rust treatment, glide coat, etc, etc is throughly removed before I apply the WaG. So... 1) 80 grits scratches with a DA 2) Mix epoxy primer 3) WaG. Apply and wipe off in one direction. The WaG is "floating" contaminates off so no rubbing "around". 4) Wait 30 minutes for both epoxy primer to activate and the WaG be gone. 5) Shoot 2 coats. I actually shoot a quick tack coat and immediately follow the with a wet coat. I wait 20 minutes and do another wet coat. 6) Beer (ok, ok, yeah, that was step 1 as well). I use a 1.3 tip but I think you can use a 1.5 as well. On the last coat you can reduce it 15% and get a flatter sheen. It has UV protection so it can be the first and last step for chassis and such. You can call SPI just about any time and get tech support. Barry's cell phone is available after hours and on the weekend. Crazy.

90% of the bodywork doesn't have any rust, so there is very, very little pitting. With the little pitting there is I go over that with the media blaster (the indoor one, not the Clogmaster 2000) and then I use a phosphoric acid based metal etch. I blast that again to remove it and follow up with wax and grease remover. Epoxy primer goes on immediately after that. There might be some flash rust before I get the epoxy primer on but I've been assured that the SPI epoxy primer "loves" the flash rust. Experience has proven that out as well. 2K standard build primer goes on after the epoxy primer and then it is time for block sanding. After blocking is done a final coat of epoxy primer to seal it and color goes on! Looking forward to that.

Removed the rear fenders, plated the associated nuts/bolts/washers and got the bulk of the bumping done on all the fenders. The driver's side fender has some pinholes caused by rust right about where the end meets the step area. There are also some cracks in a couple of places where other pieces joined (like the back of the hood latches). As such there will be a little welding required before primer. I think I got a days worth of work done in three days... so the efficiency will need to improve.

With the weekend just around the corner I've been prepping to try and get some work done. I have mounted the front fender to my workbench to get higher up in the air so I can easily access the under side while bumping out the imperfections. Overall the fender is in great shape but it does have some small dings. I could fill these but I think probably easier to get the metal as straight as possible and just use a couple coats of sanding primer to fine tune.

From top to bottom, from start to finish, just an outstanding job and result!!!

Media blast with a fine abrasive followed by treatment with a chemical rust remover. The media blast takes care of all the rust you can see, the chemical rust remover gets down in pores for the rust you can't see. I soak it in a degreaser after that, then a quick dip in muriatic acid, rinse and then start plating.

So roughly 8 months ago I took a little "time off" the MG TD project to get some things squared away around the house. One thing led to another and now here we are 8 months later. That's how life goes I guess. I have managed to creep along and get a couple of things done and I've also managed to get some new (old) equipment in the shop along with a lot of tooling and fixtures. From a capability standpoint I think I've made a lot of progress. The car, however, really hasn't changed much since the beginning of 2019. I have taken the front fenders off and started the minor bodywork required for them. I hope to be back in the shop and working on the MG next week... as I'm out of town again this weekend. One task I'll have while doing the bodywork and prepping for paint is plating all the nuts/bolts/washers used on the bodywork. I've already done that for the chassis and engine but didn't bother with it when I was test fitting the bodywork. I was using the Caswell CopyCad Zinc plating system and while it worked well to start with it eventually became a thick slurry and I had no luck getting customer service to rectify the situation. Since I didn't want to pay for that plating solution again and, most likely, have the same thing happen, I surfed around the web and found a nice alternative plating solution. I did some experiments with it and have found a solution that works well for what I'm doing. The solution is a simple mix of distilled water, vinegar, epson salt and zinc sulfate. For the zinc anode I am using zinc that is sold as a strip to put on a roof to keep moss at bay. It seems to work very well and at a fraction of the cost. After plating the surface finish is a little dull so I briefly and lightly buff them on a brass coated wire wheel on the bench grinder. I've done some corrosion tests and plating depth tests and I feel comfortable it will protect the hardware as well as look good. Here are a couple of washers I just plated. The camera on my phone is adding the blue shading on the two lower ones which, in real life, look like the one in the middle. These washer were pretty much junk before plating.

Those look great! It is getting to be the time of the year that the Clogmasters actually work well. We've been having quite a drought here the last month... I'm thinking I might have to break out my Clogmaster to get some humidity and rain in the area... either that or try to paint outside. Either is about guaranteed to bring rain.

Nice tip!

Nice solution!! I too am puzzled by the inability to correctly make a reproduction part. My guess is that the process from design to part is lengthy and costly enough that there are limited attempts at getting the part correct. There might only be one attempt judging from some repro parts I've seen. Another possibility is the plant that produces the parts from the design specs is not able to maintain the required tolerances.... in your case, maybe the first 200 had the correct arc and each run after that got a little flatter. It certainly is frustrating though to us end users.

Hope the steroids continue to work their magic on you! Glad you're back in the shop and I'll be joining you soon (well, in my shop).

Master cylinder restoration looks fantastic! The rubber fitting that the pedals come up through is interesting as it looks to be the same as the one that would be on the inside of the MG TD with the master cylinder under the under the car. The two holes would be for the brake pedal and the clutch pedal. Very interesting how the same part was used in a slightly different way in the MGA.