hursst
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Posts posted by hursst
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After car 60637, in early 1959 or so, they changed the design, no snaps on the door anymore. As you can see from mine, it's still super-tight. In my case, too tight, as I can't even snap all the snaps.
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Completed installing the roadster top and got it tucked behind the side curtain storage bag behind the seats. Everything seems to fit well. I also vacuumed out the interior again and installed the factory floor mats (Photo 1).
Next, I installed the factory tonneau cover that I fixed up quite a few years ago (Photo 2). Unfortunately, it has shrunk over the last 64 years, so I wasn't able to attach all the snaps. I heated it up with a blow dryer to get most of the fasteners snapped. I'm going to let it sit on there for a while and see if it will acclimate and stretch out a little. If not that, it might just split. I tried zipping the zipper in the center, but it's too tight and started popping the original stitching. The stitching I did held up nicely, but if I can get this to eventually fit all the snaps, I'll have the whole thing resewn to ensure it has the strength it needs. I think putting this thing out on a hot day would definitely give it enough pliability to fit on there, so maybe I'll try that on Wednesday, as it will be 70 degrees here.
I also connected the headlight and parking light wiring to the main wiring harness, although I need to do some research to see how the wiring is supposed to hang and attach to various body bolt tabs.
Last, I started wet sanding the last fender. Got about 50% thru 1500 grit sanding. Getting closer...
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Thanks for the reply. I would be towing a 1974 Camaro as the biggest vehicle, probably around 3,800 lbs or so. The other vehicles would be a 1930 Plymouth roadster and a 1960 MGA. It would be for towing to car shows, tours, and local garages/events if they are more than about 20 miles.
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Dale, I'm late to the party, so had to catch up on all your new posts. Great to see you're building another Crosley, especially a convertible. Looks great so far, plus you are still working at lightning speed. Warm weather should be arriving shortly.
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Steve, did you ever purchase a towing vehicle? I'm very interested to see what you get.
I'm thinking of getting a towing set up myself. To the group- it looks like 3/4 ton is best. Is there any preference for a van, pickup, or SUV, or does it matter much?
What about enclosed trailers? Do AACA folks advertise them on this forum anywhere? Where is the best place to shop for a (used) enclosed trailer?
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This morning, I installed the roadster top, VERY loosely (Photo 1). Found that one of the fastening screws had the phillips portion stripped too much (it was stripped when I had to remove it with an impact screwdriver to remove it. It's not good enough to screw back in). Also discovered that a floorboard fastening screw is the exact same screw, so cleaning up an extra one of those up for the roadster top. Once installed all the way, I'll fold the top away in preparation for a professional to install a repro top. I'm going to have the pro remove all the original fasteners from the original top and reuse those.
Next, I installed the front passenger side parking lamp/turn indicator lamp. Here's a photo of the "before," as I had not restored this piece yet (Photo 2). Here's the "after" (Photo 3). The original rubber seals had turned to rock, then dust. The repro seals all fit well. Here's the parking lamp installed (Photo 4). Looks good, but I quickly realized that when I bought the car, the lens and trim ring were missing. I didn't remember to buy trim rings, so I will see if I can find some originals first, then buy repros only if I have to.
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Today, I spent about 2.5 hrs on the passenger door, making shims, trying shims, making adjustments, etc. I ended up putting back a thicker shim then adjusted the door latch and the door striker accordingly, so I think I was able to reach a reasonable balance between huge door gaps in the front and a huge difference in the door height in the rear. I've increased my front door gap a little, but not to the point where it's insane, and I've managed to lower the door height in the rear so instead of being 1/2" too high, now it's about 1/4" too high (Photo 1). I may make some more slight adjustments to get the door a little more flush vertically with the front and rear fenders, but I think it's the best I can get it.
I then made a few minor adjustments to the front of the fender, which meant I had to loosen all the fender attachment bolts, plus remove the inner splash panel to get to them, so a lot of extra time to accomplish a very minor adjustment.
I then spent a few more hours installing the passenger front headlight assembly. This was a disaster! What should have taken maybe 20 minutes took about 2.5 hours. I had a missing nut/bolt, a spinning captive nut (after I almost had it all assembled, the trim ring seating set bracket was installed backwards (by me), and I had to re-chase both headlight adjustment screws with a die, among other minor annoyances. All told, I had to almost assemble and disassemble the whole works 6 times because of all these issues that didn't turn up until I was assembling or almost completed assembly. Turn out perfectly in the end (Photo 2). Now I know what to look for on the driver's side one, so installation should be about 20 minutes. I will need to hunt down or order some fasteners for it before I can do that, however. About half of the original fasteners for these assemblies were rusted being re-use or missing altogether.
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I wouldn't think so, since the body is fully on the chassis, but that's probably something I should test before I move on, as I'm not sure. Thanks for the tip.
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Lew, thanks for the tip. Unfortunately, I can't move the rear fender, as there is little to no vertical alignment available due to the lower front of the rear fender tucking under the rear edge of the door, so moving the fender up a little would cause it to close the gap at the bottom of the door. The door itself is an aluminum skin over a steel frame, so bending it at all would be difficult and would destroy the paint, as it would not flex very well.
I've been thinking about this problem, and I think what I'll try is to make a much thinner shim and place it in the upper door hinge. The current Moss shims I have are about 1/16" in thickness, so maybe something like 1/32" may work. This should buy me up to 1/16" or so of closing the rear door gap and I may be able to split the gaps between the front and rear, where I don't close up the rear gap, but I don't make the front gap too offensive. This may create a balance where the problem is not as noticeable.
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Completed the passenger side front fender. Finished wet sanding and polishing, although "finishing" is not quite the right word. I just cannot get the 1500 scratches out of the clear when doing all the wet sanding. I think I will be able to polish it home once the car's assembled, but very frustrating. Trying to spend more time sanding with the higher grades, but not much difference, I guess I need to sand a LOT longer. I also had a strange problem with the paint about 3/4 of the way down the fender. Basically, at the line where the ender starts to tuck under to meet the rocker panels, there is a pattern of paint that is a little rough looking and porous, when I look at it under a magnifying glass. It's not in the clear coat, but under, in the paint. I don't know if something got contaminated or I didn't cut the angle quite right when painting, but I can't remove or improve it. Luckily, it's really not noticeable, being so low to the ground that unless you get down on that level and look at the right angle, you can't notice it, so another thing I'll just not worry about.
I hung the fender on the car and got it loosely bolted up (Photos 1 & 2). Once I got the fender on, I noticed the door gap at the top front was about 7/8" and was still about 5/8" even 1/3 of the way down the fender. It just looked terrible. My only solution, due to the rocker panel being about 1/2" too high was to remove the shim on the upper door hinge, so the gap would be reduced. This worked very well, so now the gap is about 3/8" at worst, but mostly about 1/8" to 1/4", which looks about factory. HOWEVER, of course, removing the shim caused the rear of the door to rise even higher, so the door didn't even come close to latching. I had to completely relocate the door latch by drilling new holes in the door in order to get everything to line up and latch again. Unfortunately, the rear of the door, at the top, is about 1/2" too high. The only way to fix this would be to replace the rocker panel with one that fits properly. This is very unfortunate, but having the high rear door is much less noticeable than the 7/8" door gap at the front. I still have some fine adjustments to make to try to get it a little better. Last, there are now quite a few paint chips on the door edges due to all these problems that you don't know exist until you actually get the door to close properly, then it's too late. I think I can repair all of them to where no one would notice it but me.
Next will be to install the fender welting and torque down the attaching bolts. I'll probably start to install the headlights and parking lights, but I think I also may install the roadster top frame in the car, just to do something different.
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Spent a LOT of time wet sanding today. Got the fender knocked down to 2500 grit, but still have 3000 and 5000 to go, then start polishing. So far so good, but this fender is a real bear. Hope to have it on the car by Monday PM.
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Continued on the MGA over the last couple days. Bolted up the driver's side rear fender, added welting, and got the door fitment to a reasonable level for now. Of course, had a few problems and chipped some paint on fitment, so I'll have to do a series of repairs later.
I was able to install most of the taillight assembly, but couldn't complete it, as I am missing three of the press-fit wire terminals and two of the screws that hold in the lens cover. I think I can find these at my junkyard, so will hold off from ordering new ones for a couple weeks.
I also installed the bumper assembly, now that the rear fenders are in place (Photo 1 & 2). When I first put it on, I quickly realized I had the bumper itself upside down, so had to flip the bumperettes and the license plate holder assembly, then flip the whole bumper. (Photo 4) is the original mess with the home-made driver's taillight. Hats off to Librandi's Chrome Plating, they were able to salvage the original rear bumper, which is on there now. All parts in the "before" photo were restored and reused, except the fuel filler cap (which is incorrect for the car) and the home-made taillight.
I then started wet sanding the passenger front fender (Photo 3). I had a lot of fine spray of clear coat in the middle of this fender, I must have been too far away from the fender when painting it. It will take extra time to knock down the very "fuzzy" spray to make it flat and smooth. I believe I gave it some thick layers underneath this "fuzzy" section, so I think it will turn out okay.
Last, I think I'm ready to finally register the car. I had the title transferred when I bought it, but never registered it, as why pay the registration fee for something that will sit for years before it's finished? We'll see how the government decides to mess with me for registration. They always have an angle or problem that I will have to pay for with time or money or both.
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Thanks, Keiser. I hope I can get it running as nice as it looks.
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That's going to be one fun Corvette, plus, you don't see too many '73s, especially 454s. Great work, you make it look very easy.
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Back in town, finally. Took a week vacation in the Caribbean and then three days (commuting) to the 2024 AACA Convention. Both events were excellent!
Missed working on the MG, so picked up where I left off with 1500 grit wet sanding of the driver's side rear fender. Wasn't very easy, again, mainly because of the shape of the fender versus having to support them on racks or sawhorses. Turned out okay in the end, but still have the same old problems with not being able to sand out all the sand marks from the previous sanding grit. Also ended up sanding thru the paint on an edge (again). I'm getting very good at touching those mistakes up and re-sanding and polishing them to the point where I can barely tell where it was, so happy with that. The ultimate solution to this will be to do another round of polishing out in the sunlight where I can clearly see all imperfections and get them polished to a reasonable level. It's probably not too bad as is, as I'm my harshest critic, but I think I can make it to a higher standard.
Next, I hung the fender on the body, loosely, and cut the fender welting to size for the numerous mounting bolts and installed (Photo 1). Did about 1 minute of adjustment with the door and fender and it's already about 90% right, mainly due to the door being original to the car. This side rocker appears to be a little lower than the passenger side one, which means the door will probably fit perfectly when I'm finished adjusting it.
Still have a lot to do, like installing the door pilar cover piece, adjusting the door, adjusting the fender, back and forth, then torque down all fender bolts once it's correct. Last will be installing the taillight assembly and hooking up the wiring. I'll do a "before and after" with that, as the driver's side rear fender had a home-made taillight assembly and massive fender damage when I bought it, probably from a fallen tree or tree branch. After that, I think I can throw the bumper assembly on there, and the rear 60% of the car will be completely finished (except for the MG octagon, which is still at the plater being repaired under warranty).
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Yes, I still have it for sale. Just to be clear, it's just the one wheel.
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Thanks, Neil. I am patient with old cars...but not so much with slow drivers in the left lane!
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Looking forward to seeing this restoration!
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Mike, yes, it is actually correct. I had three other folks on the MG forum confirm this, as well as this article from the MGA "Guru" site: SLEEVE TERMINALS for Wires - Where and How To Install (mgaguru.com)
I also found these connectors and this style of installation on what's left of my original wiring harness.
There are two types of these connectors, the regular solder-style bullet connectors are for connecting various wires in the main wiring harness. These are thinner as they are meant to accept just the copper wire, then solder at the top thru the hole. The non-solder types are wider, as they are meant to accept the entire wire with the insulation, then the copper wire will fully come out of the top hole and be folded over. I used the solder-type connectors on two wires that were missing connectors on my gauge cluster wiring harness, as was original.
Thanks for the response either way. It's always good to discuss all angles and thoughts on these things!
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Pushing ahead. Walked away from the door for now and just worked on the taillight. First, I sanded the taillight plinth with 1500, then had to do some with 1200, then back to 1500, then 2000, then I had a very small sand-through, so I touched it up a little and went to 3000 and 5000, as the clear was probably getting thin at this point. Paint seemed to stick to the pot metal a little differently, so erred on the side of caution. Finished up with the fine grit polishing. There's still some orange peel in it if you look very carefully, but I think there's too much risk to keep sanding.
I discovered that I still had all the original wire connectors (for the passenger side) on my old wiring harness. I also discovered that they are non-solder barrel connectors where you simply put the exposed wire through the connector and the hole at the end and bend it over the connector. It then just presses into the lamp assembly and the friction of the wire on the outside of the connector holds it in. Didn't even know that was a thing. Made everything much easier. Used my wiring diagram to confirm I had everything connected correctly (I think I got it right). The rest was just a big puzzle with a wire grommet, plinth gasket, plinth, taillight gasket, taillight assembly, lens gasket, lens, turn indicator/lens gasket, turn indicator assembly, and lens (Photo 1). Here's the before photo of the same area back in 2016 (Photo 3). Hard to believe I'd ever get to where I am now.
78 degrees today, so actually was able to open the garage door today. Car is really coming together now (Photo 2). At the end of the day, I got out the driver's side rear fender to start wet sanding. It's got a lot of orange peel and texture on about half of it. I must not have gotten the ideal angle when I cleared it. It's going to need a lot of effort to get the texture out. Last, I took out the driver's side door pilar cover to get it ready for the fender installation when that comes.
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Jeff, I've rotated the panels every which way but loose, tried shims, everything. The only real solution would be to cut out the rockers and weld in NOS rockers that fit properly, then I could hang the door and rear fender to match them and not have any problems. I think I've reached the best possible setting with the door considering my issues.
I think I'm going to take a break from the door for a while and work on the taillamp setup for now.
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No, the hinges are perpendicular to the front of the car, so no forward adjustment, only aft, if using a spacer. The adjustment is in moving the rear fender back, but I can't do that without leaving a large gap between the bottom of the fender and the rocker indent. I tried moving the fender back and it did work, but it slid forward naturally when all the fasteners were torqued. The repro rocker threw off a lot of things. I'm actually fairly happy with my work in the end considering what a piece of trash Moss' MGA rocker panels are. I think I can clean up the upper door a little more to where it's not really noticable except to me.
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Busy day today out of the house, but didn't stop me from getting out to the garage before the sun was up for about 3 hours.
First, I am realizing that my grounds on the car are probably all bad because I painted just about everything and just connected everything up. I'm going to have to go thru the car methodically and make sure I have good grounds. I think many of them I can fix with a star washer, or maybe some already have one, but I can already sense a big problem here. I started with the taillight ground by adding a star washer.
Next, I moved on to my disastrous passenger door debacle. I ended up cutting another3-4mm out of the bottom of the door latch opening on the door so the striker would clear it properly. This worked. I then used a Dremel grinder to grind down about 3-4mm on each of the four holes where the door latch goes. This worked well also. I now have a solid and well-closing door. Unfortunately, this is at the expense of some chipped paint on both the upper door and upper fender (Photo 1). I also had some of the welting on the body trim piece come loose, so I'll have to remove that and fix it, then re-attach. I will have to think about it, but I may have to grind a very small amount away from each to get at least some clearance, then touch up paint and clear the problem areas. The door gaps are...acceptable (Photo 2), except at the top where the upper rear gap is zero, while the front gap door-to-body is still about 3/4", which is huge. I'll keep thinking about how to resolve that, but I think I'm stuck with it.
Before I ran out of time, I started on the taillight on the passenger rear fender. I pulled the wiring thru, reused the original grommet thru the fender, placed the main housing gasket (Photo 3), and started to piece together the whole mess (Photo 4). Lots of lenses, trim, gaskets, housings, wires, and fasteners to piece together. I will need new wire end connectors, so trying to research what is correct and where I can get some new ones. I will also need to wet sand and polish the taillight housing pieces. These will be challenging because they are small and have a lot of corners, so lots of opportunity to sand right thru. I may start with 2000 grit and only go to 1500 if I have to.
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11 hours ago, Luv2Wrench said:
No, you're wrong. It doesn't look good from a distance. It looks great!
When dealing with these fitment issues I find it best to evaluate and then move on to something else. Come back to it later, think about it again and then move on to something else. Do that enough and your subconscious will come up with a brilliant solution for you. If I try to force it I'll end up cutting something and making it worse.
Jeff, on this one, I have no choice but to make the cuts, as there is no other way I can adjust the door. The cuts don't really affect anything, they just give more degrees of adjustment. You could put the door on another car and it would fit as well, you'd just have to move the latch slightly.
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1960 MGA Restoration
in Our Cars & Restoration Projects
Posted · Edited by hursst (see edit history)
Completed wet sanding the last fender with 1500 grit today. Looking good so far.
I'm now ready to install the door cards and door pockets, so I broke out all the parts, only to find that I failed to ever order the door pockets, just the door cards. Moss seems to only offer this as a big kit for about $600, so I want to avoid that. I'll try some other suppliers.
I also found that at this point, I'm missing a lot of small parts such as both parking light bezels, two fasteners for the headlight buckets, two screws for the taillights, bullet connectors for the taillights, one door stiffener bracket and four mounting screws, two headlight aim screws and their water-tight sheaths, and heater door mounting hardware. I'm going to try to find some parts at the junkyard, as they used the same parts on many cars, otherwise, I'll have to order from a catalog or try a British car junkyard I know when I visit next month.
Next, I assessed the tonneau cover and it looks like the original stitching is completely worn out and is close to just disintegrating, so I'm going to re-sew the entire cover minus the sewing I did on it a few years ago. The good news is that I can just use the original holes, which will make the sewing easy, but the bad news is that there is a LOT of sewing to do, so I'll just do a little each night until it's complete. I don't feel like paying someone to do it, as I know they will find a way to mess it up. It passed the stretch test without any problem, so I can probably coax it back into shape over time, once I fix the stitching.
Last, I've started a side project of pulling the engine on my 1930 Plymouth for a rebuild, so trying to do that work while I do things like wait for paint to dry or just to take a break from the endless sanding. The Plymouth is good driver quality, but the "driving" part is not good anymore because of completely oil-fouled plugs. Maybe one day I'll restore the whole car, but for now, I want to keep it a driver. Trying to not let this side project slow down the MGA work.