hursst
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Posts posted by hursst
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To continue with some more photos, today I started work on a lot of miscellaneous stuff that has yet to be restored. I continued on more latches and rods, like the trunk lock assembly (Photo 2). I then broke out the rear corner and middle back deck trim pieces. Here are the back corner pieces (Photo 1). These go right behind the tops of the doors. They are aluminum covered in real leather with vinyl piping. I took one apart and left the other as a reference. Unfortunately, with steel screws holding the backing tack piece, a snap, and some other misc, the whole works has, thru electrolysis, welded itself together, so I had to either break off or cut off all the attaching screws. I'll have to see if I can drill some new holes to salvage these pieces.
I also took a look at the rear center piece which goes over the whole top of the back deck. This piece is wood covered in foam and vinyl, with vinyl piping. It is actually in very good condition and I think I can save the whole piece with a just a good cleaning. I did have two attachment screws break off, due to rust, but I can get replacements from Moss.
Last, I decided to take on the windscreen wiper motor. Started by just taking apart the ancillary pieces (Photo 3). The attaching bracket rusted in half and where it attached to the bulkhead rusted right thru as well, so will need to do some welding later. Other than moderate corrosion on the exterior of the motor, so far, the gearing inside looks great and still has some lubrication. I'll figure out how test test if it works or not, then get it cleaned up and replace/restore any needed parts. Starting to build yet another parets list for Moss Motors.
Stay safe and stay home and keep working on your cars! Post more photos.
-Chris
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Looks like today is the start of pollen season, so I'll be ceasing working on anything I need to primer for a while.
Friday, I was able to complete the boot lid with primer (Photos 1 & 2). Turned out really nice. I also put the hardware and bracketry on (Photo 3). It's all in black, as originally, everything was in black electro-coat primer (or so I believe), so to reproduce the look of some of the parts being black or lightly painted, I have them in black chassis paint. For example, the boot lid prop was set with the boot up whilst painting, so only the very top and very bottom received body paint, but just incidentally. so I'll be reproducing that when the car is painted with color.
I also re-visited both doors and got them cleaned up again and ready for primer on the aluminum skin, but ran out of time. I'll have to wait until pollen season is over to continue. Plenty of other small things to do in the meantime,
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If you can find one, please post a photo so we know exactly which hub cap you need.
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Boy are you in luck!
Contact Bob Nixon at bob.nixon41@gmail.com. He makes reproductions of these and advertises them in The Plymouth Bulletin. $25 for 2 brackets and attaching hardware, plus $5 shipping.
I'll also plug the Plymouth Owner's Club, Inc. here, as you may be interested in joining.
-Chris
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Thanks guys!
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This weekend, I finished redoing all the steel portions of the boot lid by getting them to bare metal and spraying rust inhibitor. They weren't too rusty, so this was easier than with the bonnet (Photo 1). I'm saving the aluminium for the regular primer. It needed a little body filler to hide the marks that were made from pounding out a few dings and dents. Turned out okay so far. The other side will need a little more sanding to clean it up a little before I spray the primer. The boot lid had more dings and dents than the bonnet, so needed a little more filler.
I've also been continuing to work on all the props and pull rods for the boot lid and bonnet. Here are the primered pull rod and hardware for the bonnet (Photo 2). Already finished both prop rods. Still have the boot lid pull rod and hardware left. Once I finish the boot lid, it will be on to the doors.
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Hello,
Bought this from a junkyard the other day. Looks NOS. No ID on the box, I don't see a part number. Any ideas on what this fits?
-Chris
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Jeff,
We have quite a few good shops here, but what usually happens is in owner is really good at painting cars, but his employees are just guys off the streets, so sometimes you don't know what you're going to get. I think your idea about hiring a free-lance painter is a good one. I'll have to look into that when the time comes. I know a lot of cars guys, so I'm sure I can figure something out.
Chris
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Later in the day, I decided to primer the front valance panel and see how it looks (Photo 2). It certainly turned out better than I thought it would, with my limited hammering and metal skills. It's far better than where it started, looking like a pretzel, but it's not quite there yet, not ready for prime time. Still has some issues from the metal being effectively folded and it has some contour inconsistencies. I think "good enough" may work eventually, as you can't really see this piece when the car is together, but I don't think it's good enough yet. I'll set it aside and revisit. I may pass it to a professional if I can't get it to where I want it.
I also continued to refinish and rust encapsulate, prime, and paint all the hardware (Photo 1). Some of the original bolts, washers, and nuts, being tucked away in the latch mechanism, are in mint condition and need no refurbishment. I think these are the only pieces on the car that will not receive restoration or replacement.
Pretty sure at this point that I will have the car professionally painted. I think I have the skills to do it, but I do not have the proper facilities and equipment to do a show-quality job. I'll try to deliver a perfectly primered body that will need minimum handwork to be ready for paint. I plan on having the body blasted around May, then get it in primer ASAP. Got what I think is a cheap quote for a mobile sandblaster service. Once the body is blasted, I'll be able to see the full extent of the rust damage to the trunk and some minor issues above the rockers. The rest of the body is a mess, but appears quite solid. I think I can have the body generally finished by the end of the year, then get it painted early next year. After that, it's all down hill. I'm quickly running out of other parts to restore. I think there's a possibility I can have the car finished around Spring 2022.
Cheers!
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Thanks for the tips and encouragement, gentlemen!
Saturday was a pretty good day out in the garage. I got the hood in primer, so it is now ready for a final sanding, I think, before paint (Photos 1 & 2). I'll be putting all the hardware back on today, as these parts were originally painted as installed on the car. I'll be setting it aside and continuing on the trunk lid. Want to try to get the hood, trunk lid, and doors in primer before I tackle the body, although it will probably be delayed due to pollen season. Hood turned out very nice overall.
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Any updates? If no luck on this one, there are a lot of these out there ready to be restored.
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Not sure about your orientation, but you may want to try posting here: http://www.1948plymouth.info/28Q29U/ These guys are all extremely knowledgeable and helpful when I have 30U questions.
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Got out to the garage this weekend a little. Has been harder and harder to find time to work on the car.
I was able to install the missing bolt in the transmission and get that all sealed back up. Hopefully I won't have to mess around with that again.
I broke out the bonnet again and completed metal-prepping the steel portions with rust inhibitor (Photo 1). Looks fairly good. Next step will be to clean up the rest of the aluminum portions and spray the whole works with some of the good etching primer to prepare it for paint. On the other side, I cleaned the surface up to remove any old primer that was left over from when I did the surface work months ago. It is pretty much ready for primer as well.
I then started on the boot lid (Photo 2). First round was to use paint stripper to get rid of the original paint. The original paint looked like it was painted during a dust storm, it was almost like sand paper! I'll be doing the same procedure here, with cleaning up the steel first. Most of the steel portions still had paint on them, so I should be able to get to bare metal easily, then just hit it with primer, no rust inhibitor.
In between, I've been restoring all the various brackets, hinges, hardware, and prop rods. Here's the bonnet prop rod and hardware (Photo 3). These were originally in black medium gloss primer and installed and painted while on the body, wit h the bonnet and boot propped open. Only a little body paint got on the tops and bottom of these, they were mostly left in black. I'll try reproduce that when the car is painted.
Last, I reached out to a mobile sand blasting company to try to get an estimate to blast the body. Will probably wait until the summer or even fall before I do it, as I'm pretty much out of money for the MG.
Cheers.
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Thanks. When you have to do everything yourself, you improvise. The skateboard is the perfect dolly.
No hole in that bolt. Nowhere for the slide on the shaft to really go, the trans may just stick in gear. I don't think the bolt will go anywhere.
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I couldn't get thru the weekend without problems, of course. When I moved the chassis out of the garage, I noticed that what I thought was neutral was not neutral, but 2nd gear. I shifted it into neutral and here is the position of the shifter (Photo 1), way up front. There was no way to shift it into 1st or 3rd, there is no room. Luckily, I was able to move the chassis around in the meantime. Here's the clean garage and where I placed the chassis for now (Photo 2).
I went on the MGA forum to ask for any ideas on what may be causing this and I got some ideas about the split ring that connects the shifter unit to the internal linkage. I had to take apart my nice work on the trans tunnel to access the shifter unit. I took it out and took some of it apart to see if I could figure it out, and everything looked fine. I then went to the trans itself to see if an adjustment could be made on the paw and main shaft, to allow the shifter to get a central neutral position. It was easy to adjust as THE REBUILDER FORGOT TO PUT IN THE BOLT THAT SECURES THE PAW TO THE MAIN SHAFT! ( you can see the hole at the bottom of the assembly on Photo 3). A forum friend was able to locate an original bolt for me, so I'll have that fixed soon. So disappointed that nothing, just nothing is done correctly by these people that you pay a good sum to, only to get shoddy, half-hearted work. I wonder how the inside of the transmission is now. Anyway, this should fix the problem once I get the bolt in there.
Once that got squared away, I got right into the body work again. Starting back on the bonnet (Photo 4). IT's been sitting for a while, so some flash rust has come back on the steel areas, so I cleaned up the steel section around the outside and sprayed it with some rust inhibitor to stabilize any remaining rust. I'll have to do that with most of the steel frame, as it was all a little rusty and it flashes back pretty quickly. I'll leave the aluminum alone and hit the whole thing with good primer once I clean up all the steel frame. After the bonnet, I'll do the doors, which are half-way completed already.
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Beautiful weather this weekend, so got a lot done for the most part. I put the original wiring back in my headlight buckets, finished up some misc work on the floorboards, and hooked up the throttle cable assembly to the gas pedal.
The big activity was that I moved the chassis and body out of the the garage and cleaned the whole side of the garage where the MGA work was being done. Here's the chassis, chassis with body, and the empty garage, pre-sweeping it clean. Took me most of the day, but now it's fairly clean, better organized, and I swapped out the positions of the chassis and body, so I can easily move the body in and out of the garage for when I get it blasted.
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On 2/16/2020 at 9:37 PM, Luv2Wrench said:
I hadn't thought of sealing the floorboards and since my car long since lost something like that... I didn't even know there was supposed to be something. Glad you posted about that, will certainly save me from having leaky floorboards.
I read this on the MGA Guru site. I'm mainly concerned with moisture getting between the wood and the metal and getting trapped, moreso that water splashing into the passenger compartment. I have no plans to ever drive this in rain or wet, although it could happen. It will also help with vibration and rattles, I would think. Just put a thin-ish strip, I went fairly easy to start.
-Chris
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Thanks for pointing that out, always looking for tips or issues I missed. I took a look at it, and it's a little of an optical illusion, it's about an inch way from the transmission and is at an angle, so it wouldn't be much of a problem to take the engine out again if I had to. It is also the correct size of screw. there is one in the kit that is even longer.
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Made some more progress today, finished the floorboards (Photo 2). Had to resize the holes a little on the last floorboard and grind off a little wood on the side to make it fit. Seems they have swelled up slightly after I put on the wood treatment when I first got them prepared. I'm going to go back and spend a little time putting some seam sealer among some of the cracks and crevices between the floorboards and chassis members to ensure that it's fairly weatherproof from the bottom. The original layer of felt was really not up to the task. I used some Eastwood seam sealer between the floorboards and chassis members as a moisture barrier and sound deadener.
I also spent some time installing the hydraulic clutch pipe, adding some clips to the firewall, and trying to sort out the other pipes to get them routed correctly (Photo 1). I still have some fine tuning to do. I also dug out the accelerator cable and got that partially installed whilst I clean/prep/paint some of the hardware for it. It's quite a mess in the engine bay with everything being mechanical. Glad I took a lot of photos on disassembly, it's been really helpful in piecing this back together. Almost time to get back to the bodywork.
Have a good and productive President's Day!
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I'm back. Had a nice vacation to northern Sweden racing Jaguars and Land Rovers on frozen lakes. What an experience. Then, back to work, so only got bits and pieces done on the MGA over the last 4 weeks, until today.
Ordered a lot of smalls from Moss over the last few weeks. Here's the carb drain tube line clip (brass colored) that I got from Moss to replace the original that the British Car shop lost (Photo 1). Got my gauges back from Bob's Speedometer. They did an excellent job of revamping my original gauges, I'd recommend them, although I won't be able to find out how well they work fro another year or two.
Today, I got back to it and continued to install floorboards and misc engine bits and pieces...but ran into a big problem. I got 3 of the front floorboards installed, only to find that the transmission tunnel was positioned too high in the rear, about 1" too high. I thought I could press it down and it would work, but it was way off. I had to take up all the floorboards, gas pedal assembly, and steering column to figure out the problem and fix it. It turns out that the repro rubber grommet from Moss that go between the middle of the transmission tunnel and the chassis are WAY WAY too thick to work, so the trans tunnel was teeter-tottering about an inch too high on these grommets, so you could not get the whole thing flush with the rest of the chassis members. Another repro piece of garbage. They are twice as thick as they should be. I ended up making my own out of old garage door weather stripping. They fit perfectly after I did some cuts here and there. That wasted about 3 hours of my time. It's clear that they did not test these repro grommets, pure garbage.
Here's a few photos of the floorboard work in progress (Photos 2 & 3). Have just the one large one left on the driver's side and the floorboards are complete. I also connected the parking brake and assembly in the center. Still have a few bits and pieces with the engine. I was missing a few tubes and brackets, so I'm finishing up on some of those. Also got the headlight assemblies 100% complete. I couldn't believe how many parts there were just for the headlights.
Once I finish the floorboards and other engine parts, it will be time to move the chassis out, clean the garage, and swap its position with the body, then really get into that. It would be nice to have the body finished and in primer this year.
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Another weekend at home, so another weekend with the MGA. I got the transmission bolted in (Photo 2), all the engine mount bolts bolted in, and the driveshaft bolted in. I kept going and got a battery cable hooked up, the exhaust hooked up, the vacuum advance assembly almost hooked up*, and a couple wires hooked up.
*The British car shop rotated my distributor 90 counter-clockwise, which threw off a lot of things. The adjustment wheel is now touching the starter, and the vacuum advance unit is directly in line with an oil tube, blocking the vacuum advance tubing and reservoir. I brought this up to one of the owners when he was at my house installing the engine tag, so they will have to move the interior pin, or whatever it is 90 degrees in order to get it correct. I can't understand why they wouldn't have just done this correctly the first time, as it's caused a lot of problems already and I don't know why they would think this could work, considering it's not really functional in that position. Very frustrating.
I then moved on to installing the lower firewall panel (Photo 1), the steering column, the transmission tunnel, and one of the floorboards (Photo 3). I thought this would be the easy, fun work, because it's all the original parts and it should just go right in. Of course, that wasn't the case, so there was a lot of minor adjustment needed to get everything to fit correctly. I'll have to do a lot of touch up work, as there was a lot of scraped paint and cursing going on. No big deal, it's easy to touch this stuff up, though. I was able to get one floorboard installed, but it was very difficult to fit, as the transmission tunnel mounting rubber bushings in the middle (repros) are new and slightly too hard, so the whole thing is difficult to seat. Still good progress when I look back at the day, but I could have done much more. Spent a LOT of time just making slight adjustments.
Also discovered I am missing my clutch slave cylinder tubing and that I had the incorrect setup on my slave cylinder (I had some 1500 parts that were removed with the 1600, simplifying it). Easy fix.
Also, ordered a repro clip from Moss for my valve cover vent tube. This is was the wrong color, the wrong shape, and was 3x as thick as the original. I real piece of crap. I wended up going to the junkyard Friday and found an original clip from an MG 1275 (ADO16 car), which is the exact original part. No substitute for original parts.
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Another one of your restorations is like getting the second season of your favorite show. Can't wait to see the details of your work and hope that I can do about 60% as good with my car. Plus, I'm first a Chevy guy.
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It may be a little of a drive for you, but Leon's auto parts in Culpeper, VA probably has these still on the cars in their yard. It's a U-pull-it facility. We recently pulled some 1969 Buick Wheels off of the cars there. May be worth a call to make sure they have some '64 Skylarks first (I'm pretty sure they have a few of them).
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Steve, you'll get way more enjoyment out of the '69 SS...
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1961 Mercury Meteor 800 restore
in Our Cars & Restoration Projects
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Martin, looks great! Really looking forward to more of your work. How did you do the sanding, by hand, orbital sander, wire wheel, other? Just curious how you're doing it, maybe I'll learn something.
Chris