Luv2Wrench

Spraying the inside will trap dust so that's a great plan. I used 1.5 gallons but that was due to goofs, I think it would've been done in 1 gallon. I think the TD has more surface area than the MGA so I think you'll be fine. On the other hand, getting a quart to be sure is also a good idea. If you get it... you won't need it. If you don't... lol.

I pulled the oxy/act torch out and tried to remove the hub from the tube. Didn't happen. I wasn't surprised. I haven't yet worked up the courage for the next step but when I do... I'll put it in the power hacksaw, cut each end off, chuck those in the lathe and turn the tube off the end pieces. Once I find out what the wall thickness of the tube is I'll order the material. When it comes it I should be able to square the ends up in the lathe, bore out to the correct inner diameter and braze the ends on. In theory.

I chucked it up in the lathe from the other direction (the left side in the picture above). I did this by putting the jaws in the bearing seat (the big gear was not installed). When I spun it around I was surprised to find that the opposite end was mostly true. The middle part was pretty wonky but from bearing seat to bearing seat it was OK. The issue I had was trying to hold the hub in the jaws. The hub is definitely in the tube at an angle which is causing the problem. I'm 99% sure that I'm going to rebuild the piece even though the two ends are kinda OK. I've spent years on this car already so another week isn't going to be a big deal. Per how did it work before, originally the piece had ball bearings in a cage on each end so alignment issues were not that big a deal. At least I think that is correct. I also think this piece has been repaired/modified at some point. The end of the tube that has the hub is not cut well.

It sounds like you've done everything you can possibly do and are at a level way above the average paint-at-home guy, so congrats on that! You can fix almost anything in the paint with some time so beyond trying to minimize what you have to correct, this stage isn't that critical. With enough effort at the end your car will look way better than a professional spray job because 99% of those guys are not going to wet sand it and buff. My biggest failures were not getting paint in some areas like blind spots, behind this or under that, etc, etc. Most of those issues came from how I tried to hang/hold the piece being painted. It is a pain to have to prep it and spray it again but not a huge issue. I think I dropped something as well.

Here is the first one I did that didn't have any issues. Hopefully you can see how it fits on the axle. There are bearings and the far left and right ends. There's another flange that's not shown that matches the one on the far right. The spokes go just to the right of the flange on the far right and then the flange (not shown) bolts on from the right and hold the spokes in place.

Houston, we have a problem. I put the rear hub and extension tube into the lathe to take out the taper and radius and immediately noticed a problem. I had the indicator in the end of the extension tube (where the inner bearing is) and was measuring over 240 thousandths from one side to the other. After some investigation I determined that the extension tube is not true to the hub. Way back when I got these parts I thought it looked a little funny but didn't look into it. At that time I didn't own a lathe much less an indicator!! The hub and the inner bearing holder are brazed into the tube. I've been able to determine that the inner bearing holder is square in the tube and that it is the hub that is out of whack. I might try to heat it up and remove the hub but I'm doubtful this will succeed. I think the most likely path will be to get a DOM tube that matches the dimensions (it appears to be 3.5" outer diameter), cut the existing tube at each end, insert the hub/bearing holder into the lathe and turn the tube off. Then cut a piece of the new tube and reassemble. I'm not sure how I'll get the assembly true though one idea is to go ahead and put the bearings in and then assemble/braze on the axle. I haven't thought through it much so that might be a terrible idea. First step is to get the tube off one way or another and determine the outer and inner diameters.

Paint looks great and it looks like you're getting that hang of it, congrats! Time for a thousand questions, lol. Is the fan blowing air into the booth or pulling it out? Are you running the fan after you spray? Can you post a close-up of the particulate in the paint? It looks like you've wet the floor, have you tried putting plastic down on it? Are you wearing a Tyvek paint suit? One of the things I read was that once you have a nice clean both the remained of the junk in the paint comes off you! I had issues with the garage door opening but they were a bit different. I chose to go with a positive pressure paint booth (fan blowing in) because I had read that a negative pressure booth needs to be sealed perfectly or it will pull air (and possibly junk) into the booth. Any leaks in a positive pressure booth will go out of the booth which keeps stuff out of the booth. The downside to that is, of course, you can get overspray outside of the booth in your shop.

There are some very high quality paints/products available that are only well know to those in the custom paint/restoration business. Here's what I used for the MG TD. (2021 prices) Automotive Arts - Motobase LV is a fantastic base. 1 gallon of Jaguar 701 (British Racing Green) was $468 For everything else I used SPI (Southern Polyurethane Inc) products. Their Universal Clear is $132 a gallon and the activator is similarly priced. I believe if you do some research you'll find that these products are of very high quality. You can call SPI and they will find a jobber close to you. For Automotive Arts I used Chad's Paint Supply in New Troy, MI.

Thanks for mention that! They were indeed tapered and also had a radius at the bottom that was larger than the race I was putting in. I didn't realize they were tapered until I went to clean up the radius. I indicated the hubs off the "top" and also touched off there. As I went in the boring bar started removing material. This was initially confusing and I put an indicator on the outside and found that was running true. That implied that there was a taper. It wasn't much but it was a bit surprising. Glad to hear you found the same thing.

Summer vacation is over and back to work! I've been working on getting the Timken tapered roller bearings in the hubs. The hubs have required some slight modification to get the bearings to fit properly. I now have one front and one rear hub completed. In theory the other two should go pretty quick since it is just repeating what I've already done. I've found, however, that theory doesn't work well in my shop, lol. Once I get the hubs completed I'll need to take a bit more time off to get maintenance completed on our daily drivers. Hopefully I'll be able to get the wheels done after that and finally get a rolling chassis.

Many thanks for taking the extra time to show the details of the process.

Looking great Chris! What you have there is what I call "Finished Parts". I love finished parts. I love saying "finished parts". There's just something about getting a piece of the puzzle completely done to where all that is left it bolting to another piece. I love the Scotch-Brite pads. Surprisingly enough, Home Depot carries them. I'm sure Lowes does as well. You can order them on Amazon in bulk as well. I keep mine in ZipLoc bags so that they don't trap contaminants while hanging out on the shelf.

If you plan to wet sand and buff later, make sure you get plenty of clear on there. I think I did 4 coats and in the future will do 6 (2 a day, spaced out by a day out in the sun). Pay particular attention to edges as they're easy to miss. I usually shoot the difficult parts first and then the rest of the part.

This is going to be one sweet ride!

Great job Chris, looking good! The small light parts are a pain. I did what you did in adding "tails" to the parts so I could hold them while spraying. Later on I started tying the tails to the floor. I had issues with the gaps around the garage door as well. I was running positive pressure ventilation so it kept bugs and stuff out but it would end up sucking the paint back through the shop and back into the fan! You'll learn what to block off, not that big a deal.

It looks amazing! While I know taking photos, creating posts and uploading images is a pain, I would certainly like to see more of the car in the future if possible.

Let me know if you need help as these pesky computers are my day job.

Such high quality work, really amazing!

Not at all and I agree. Happy to hear more issues that people run across. Perhaps pictures and links to period correct radiator hoses and clamps would be helpful

There's an odd cylinder of sorts that separates the brake drum (which is also the drive sprocket) and the wheels. If I do peen anything it will be something that isn't going to be coming apart and will be done after I'm done with everything else. I do think I will get the car running/driving with modern fasteners and replace as I go.

Great response by everyone and I'm very appreciative of the information! My main focus is what it looks like as I'd like to restore this car such that one could look at it in great detail and learn from how it was put together. Fasteners are obviously a big part of that. Fortunately before I changed my major to Electrical Engineering I was going to be a Mechanical Engineer so I do have a pretty solid background for understanding the functional requirements of the fasteners. My goal is to get it to look correct while, obviously, not sacrificing safety. As an example of what I'm trying to accomplish, I will most likely peen the bolts that will not be removed (such as hub bolts). I'll be using modern thread lockers but I would peen them because that's how they did it then and I think maybe an important detail. Maybe, lol. We'll see when it comes down to that. The 1913 Metz Model 22 Roadster that I'm working on has some interesting fasteners and I'll do everything I can to either reuse where safe or make lookalike replacements elsewhere.

How does everyone feel about modern faster on Brass Era cars? Reusing 110 year old fasteners in safety critical areas is a no go for me so I'm wondering what others are doing when replacing ancient fasteners with modern fasteners. Grinding off grade markings? Using or not using lock washers? Peening the end of the bolt to keep nut on? Machining a matching replacement? Leave zinc finish or strip and do what? I'm leaning towards grinding off grade markings and machining duplicates where modern is way off. I'm not sure about peening/mangling bolts to ensure nuts stay on. This was done on all three of the Metz (parts) that I've seen. Any critical area was hammered to death to make sure nut stayed on. I might do this on the bolts securing the hubs and other areas I'm near 100% sure are not coming back apart. I have no idea what I'll do about the plating. Very interested in experience here. Anyone have a nice black finish that doesn't corrode? Is black oxide acceptable on an old car?

Bearings arrived today but unfortunately the seller sent the wrong item. It'll be next week before I can get that straightened out, very frustrating. That delay likely means my goal of a rolling chassis by end of July will not happen. I'm going out of town in 2 weeks so there just won't be enough time. I decided to use the rear leaf springs that came on the parts I bought a year or so ago. I'm confident that these are the original type springs and I'm not as confident about the ones that came with the original pile of parts. As such that meant a lot of media blasting and then more epoxy primer. It is the hot and humid days of summer that remind me off all the hard work I put into the air system to remove water. The transmission cooler I added a couple years ago that sits between the compressor head and the tank is particularly helpful. I've done a lot of media blasting lately and that system alone has pulled nearly half a gallon of water out over the last two days. Getting the water out before it even goes in the tank is a huge help. The bronze bushing also arrived and I got it in the lathe and parted off two pieces to go between the axle and the cone of the inner bearings. I'll need to clearance the inside of the hub a bit, then press the cup in and that will take care of the inner rear bearings. I think that the inner rears were going to be the most difficult so if I can get the seller to send me the right parts... I might have the bearings squared away soon. I'm going to go ahead and hang the axles from the frame rails tomorrow but that will be about as far as I can go without the bearings. I'll probably end up media blasting the rims and getting the wheels ready to restore.

"lint", that reminds me, you need tack rags. You'll be shocked how much those will pick up after you think the surface is clean. Light touch with the tack rags and get 3M if you can find them. Very light touch because if you press down you can get a bit of the sticky stuff on the surface. Another thing I remembered is that you can do a pass with no paint. This does two things. First it lets you see how you'll need to hold the gun to get in various areas, how far you can reach, etc, etc. Second the air from the gun will blow dust/trash off the surfaces. The most important thing to remember is that you've shot a ton of primer and the base/clear should actually go down easier so relax. Plus, any mistakes you make can be corrected.

Very well said @chistech With this car I know that I have a core and a bunch of parts that were cast off from other projects. These parts existed as a car at some point and that car was likely loved by its owner. I feel a sense of responsibility to restore these parts to a car that will last another 110 years and be loved again. I probably should get out of the shop more! 🤣