1960 MGA Restoration

[MjSieler]

🥂🍻 Cheers to the end of 2023, a very productive year for you given the progress you’ve skillfully made. Happy New Year to you and all the others on this forum. 🎉🥳 Lookin’ for more in 2024!

[hursst]

The spaghetti in the interior continues to grow (Photos 1-3).  This is like putting together a big complicated puzzle.  First, I found a few minor problems:

 

- The ground wire for the horn was omitted from the repro wiring harness.  It should branch off a 3-connector section to go to the horn, but there is just nothing, just the two-connector section.  I cut the ground wire from my original harness and attached it to the horn.  I'll then buy a three-section connector or just a larger connector and attach all three wires, so it should look seamless.  I'm getting more and more disappointed by Moss' work on this wiring harness.  Their quality control is lacking.

 

- I'm missing one of the wire pinching screws for the ignition.  It was missing when I disassembled the car.  I noticed the previous owner had jury-rigged a spade connector that was broken, so not sure what happened there.  I should be able to get one from the junk MGs at the junkyard we visit, so for now, I can't attach the far side ignition wires.

 

- The far end of the original wiring harness that goes to the map light is just a bunch of home-made spliced nonsense that doesn't match the wiring diagram.  Luckily, the Moss harness has it right, so I was able to connect everything on the far end.

 

I put in my Moss order for some bullet connectors, bullet connector connectors, and new bulbs for everything.  I'm pretty sour on Moss now, but they do have easy on-line ordering.  It's easier and less time consuming than having to call the leading competitor instead.

 

I was able to re-use all the original Bakelite pull levers on the dash.  However, half of them broke off at disassembly due to them being rusted on, but I was able to epoxy all of them back together.  One challenge I have is that all the white lettering for the knobs has worn off, so I'll have to see if I can get a super-fine brush and a magnifying glass to see if I can paint them well enough to look reasonable.  Luckily, the originals have indentations where the letters are, so it's just a matter of filling them with white paint.  I imagine it will be quite challenging, but I may be the only guy with original knobs.

 

My decision to install every electrical item to the harness before I install the gauge cluster is one of the best decisions I have made.  With all the wire stripping, crimping, missing parts, and difficulty finding all the matches, there's no way I could do this crammed under the dash.  It will be much easier with everything hooked up, it's just a matter of feeding it in the appropriate holes.  At this point, I'm probably about 2/3 of the way thru with the interior wiring harness.  I'll be slowed down by the missing parts and research I have to do with some of my notes and labels.  The wiring diagrams are REALLY helping.

Edited January 2 by hursst (see edit history)

[Laughing Coyote]

You will get it, just take your time. Wiring can be a real pain. You want it correct so you're not hunting electrical issues later on when you really just want to be driving it.

[Model56s]

Good progress. Can you just use a water-based paint for the knob lettering? You wouldn't have to be that careful and just wipe the surface leaving only the filled-in lettering. My 2¢...

 

You have the difficult task with wiring done - you know where the leads go. I think you're closer to the finish line than you might think.

[hursst]

56s,

  I may try that, but the valleys of the lettering are so shallow that if I try to wipe anything, it will probably wipe into the letter valley and erase/smear it.  What I'm going to try is use a magnifying glass and a very, very thin brush and try to just freehand it and see what happens.  I can probably get it mostly right, then use a razorblade to remove any paint that doesn't belong when it gets a little tacky.  I think your water-based paint idea is good, so I'll probably track some of that down and use a razor blade to "wipe."

 

  Yes, I'm doing okay with the wiring, just a little frustrated by the extra time I will need because of Moss' lack of quality control and attention to detail.  I'm slammed with other problems at the moment, so probably won't get back to the MG for another week.

 

  Off topic, but I finally successfully repacked my water pump on my '30 Plymouth with the original graphite-style packing after struggling with it for years, having it rebuilt with someone installing a "plastic" type seal that eventually spun itself thru the packing nut onto the shaft, and constant coolant leaks, up to current time with a leak so bad it was undrivable.  No leaks at the moment!  Very proud of finally tackling something so simple to other people, but I had so many problems with over the last 8 years or more, not really knowing what I was doing.  Eventually I learn how to do things, but with no one to show me how, it takes my 3x-10x as long as normal car people.  Ok, back to dealing with life's absolute nonsense again for while...

[hursst]

My main appointment got cancelled at the last minutes today, so got a few hours back in the garage.  I was able to finish the wiring harness, although I still have 3 more connections to make once I get my parts from Moss (Photo 1).  What a mess!

 

I was also able to install the tubing/gauges for the oil pressure and water temperature.  I will have to install some more clips to attach them properly, once I finish restoring/buying some new ones.  I was also able to plug a few more holes in the cowl, so now every hole is filled with a wire, tube, or plug.  

 

Once I get the parts from Moss and install them in the wiring harness, I'll be ready to install the gauge cluster, then climb under it and start to hook everything up (Photo 2).  I suspect I'll have to undue some of my work and re-route a lot of it to make it all fit properly.

 

After the gauge cluster, I think I'll move on to the radiator.  The original radiator was missing completely when I bought the car, so had to piece together an original radiator and hardware, so should be quite easy to install what's left.

[Luv2Wrench]

Wow that looks sharp!  Love the white/black.

[hursst]

More progress today.  Got the gauge cluster installed (Photo 1), as I wanted to test fit it, but then I found that I did have enough room on the carpet to complete the rest of the wiring harness work and get things organized to install.  I ended up installing the turn signal light indicator, turn signal switch, tach drive and light bulb, speedometer cable and light bulb, and map light bulb.  I then went on to install the heater controls, but had a lot of problems.  Seems the original pull cables that I restored are too tight, especially when slightly bent to where they go when they are installed. Luckily, the center cable that controls the heat and blower motor seems to work okay.  The other cables require a ton of effort, or they just freeze up altogether. Also, the original pull knobs will just pull off, as the original attachment mechanism doesn't work well anymore due to a lot of corrosion before I "restored" the knobs.  I'm going to first try to hang them and drip some WD-40 down the sleeve, and if that doesn't help, I'll just pull the cable out of the sleeve and see if I can clean up the cable and sleeve separately.  I originally dripped oil and WD-40 down these cables when I "restored" them, as they were all entirely frozen up after sitting in a damp barn for 45 years.  I will probably have to get two new heater control cables to make things operate smoothly.

 

I brought in the heater blower motor knob and the starter pull cable in so I can try painting the white lettering back on them.  

[hursst]

Painted the heat control knob and the Starter pull knob (Photo 1).  I think the "B" must mean "Blower."  The heat control knob turned out fairly well, but the whole knob, being 64 years old now, has small cracks all over it, so the paint doesn't look as sharp as it would with a new knob.  The repro knobs, along with being cheap plastic (instead of the original Bakelite), have white printed letters that will probably wear off in about 3 weeks, so I want to avoid the repro knobs as long as the original knobs are still at least functional and reasonable looking.

Edited January 5 by hursst (see edit history)

[dalef62]

Isn't the "B" for bonnet?

[hursst]

Dale,

   Good deduction, but the "B" knob goes on the center of the heater control panel and is used to slide between "Min" and "Max" Temperature ranges.  The Bonnet pull ring is non-descript and is under the dash at the left and is part of a body-color metal rod that goes up to the front of the car.  All of my dash board knobs are original, but have the white lettering worn off of them, so I have to hand paint them all back.  Luckily, they are all engraved, so the paint will flow in the valleys of the letter, making it easy to clean up the edges to allow the lower paint to remain.

 

-Chris

[keiser31]

Just make certain those heater cables move very freely. That Bakelite heater control panel is a very weak item. I sometimes had to hold the panel with my left hand whilst moving the pull knobs in or out. I broke one before I realized they were so weak.

[hursst]

Keiser,

   I did buy a repro heater control panel, as all the writing on my original had worn off and I don't have a way to repro the lettering.  I'll hold onto it for the future, though.  Yes, I see a lot of these panels, original and repro that get broken.  I've been bracing my hand behind the pull switch when testing, so no breakage so far.

[hursst]

Got my Moss order yesterday.  Was able to install all the new light bulbs, the two new connectors for the horn, and the new bullet connector for the heater.  Found a screw that fits for the map light wire connection that was missing as well.

 

I was then able to attach almost everything to the dashboard (Photo 1).  I didn't add most of the knobs as they needed white paint for their letters, which I was also able to do today (Photo 4).  I'm still working on the heater blend door cable, which is still a little stiff, but much better since I've been soaking it.  I think I got the defogger cable working well enough to use, so I installed it.  I still need to tie in three ground wires into one connector, as original.  The Moss harness came with only a two-piece ground connector, as I discussed in a previous post.  I am missing the cable attachment screws for the defroster door where the cable meets it.  I looked at my original photos during disassembly and it was missing, so I never had it in the first place.

 

The spaghetti is getting better under the gauge cluster (Photo 2).  Since I attached most of the wiring to everything first, I may have to go back and disassemble some of the wires and re-attach them so they are not bound up or too twisted/awkwardly placed.  I also need to add more wire and cable clips as I go.  I may have to do some research to figure out exactly where they all go, as I think some were missing from my car and some were so disintegrated that I could not reuse them.

 

Last, I broke out all the radiator parts.  Looks like I have everything, but unfortunately, I have to re-weld one of the six attachment nuts to the radiator support (Photo 3), as it somehow came off as it would shipped from the seller from whom I bought it.

Edited January 10 by hursst (see edit history)

[keiser31]

EXCELLENT!

[hursst]

Very frustrating day today.  I tried to make today a catch-all car repair day where I just get caught up on the constant car maintenance I have.  Unrelated to the MG, I got my brake fluid flushed in my daily driver '07 Chevy HHR at my favorite shop.  They snapped a rear wheel cylinder bleeder screw...again.  They claim they get corroded, but they installed the last one and obviously didn't apply and anti-seize, like they should have.  They couldn't bleed that corner, so will need to replace the wheel cylinder (again).  Used a McGuire's headlight restoration kit on the same car today.  These kits work very well, but only last about a year before the damage returns.

 

I then spent HOURS trying to figure out the leak situation on the back hatch glass on my '97 Saab 900.  It's been leaking since I bought it and I've been chasing the leaks ever since.  This last big storm was the last straw, where the rear hatch floor filled up with maybe 1/2 gallon of water.  I can no longer waste my time drying the car out every time it rains, not to mention all the damage the water is doing inside the car.  I've been in contact with my Saab shop and a glass shop to try to work some solutions.  I may have found the problem, though, a cracked and dried up rear wiring harness rubber seal.  Of course, everything's dried up and some mounting hardware broke when I removed it and same with the hatch interior trim, so had no choice but the use a bunch of body sealant to try to create a new seal around the existing seal.  We'll see if that makes a difference after the next rain storm tomorrow PM.  I still have a leak that I don't think will ever get fixed fully, but I've created a sealant "dam" that at least seems to divert the water down the back hatch door and to the bottom of the door itself.  After this last rain storm when I lifted the hatch, about 12 oz of water poured out from the lower lock mechanism area.  I removed a small drain plug at the bottom of the hatch and I'm hoping any extra water from this leak will just leak out the back lower hatch to the bumper instead of inside the trunk floor.

 

Then on to the MG.  Got my new 3-way loop connector installed on the 3 ground wires.  Finished installing all remaining gauge cluster wires.  Kept working on harness loom clips.  Then the frustrating part.  I tried installing the 4 under-dash support brackets that go to the bottom of the dash.  The two middle ones go on top of the heater control panel attachment screws, which means I had to take off the heater control panel.  Well, things didn't line up that well, angles aren't quite right for attachment points on the repro control panel, so I ended up cracking the panel in two places just to get it installed.  It's another cheap piece of junk made of cheap plastic.  The downward pressure on the control panel was just too much with the two cables installed, so it didn't quite fit right without some forcing and it broke.  You wouldn't notice it unless you already knew about it, so I'm just going to leave it in place for now.  I'm sure it will disintegrate once I try to use the cables for real.  A real disaster.

 

I also was able to install most of the newly-painted pull knobs on the dash (Photo 1).  Half of them will pull off again with a little force, so may have to glue some of them a little to make sure they stay when used.  Unfortunately, the "P" knob (for the rheostat) shattered into 3 pieces when I tried to twist it to test it and it had a little resistance (Photo 2).  It broke on the same lines the first time when I originally removed it, as everything was so rusty.  This time, I'll try some heavy duty epoxy and sand it down to try to get it to stay put.  I think the first time, I just used super glue, which is a little too brittle for twisting or turning of the knob.  I epoxied some of the other knobs and they are still together (so far).

 

I'm worried about the wiring.  I think I did it all correctly, plus it's a new harness, but it will be challenging not to get electrical faults of various types when I finally hook up the batteries, with there being only two fuses.  I think I will have the pros go over everything before initial start-up and test all the electrical with maybe some lower power to make sure there are no shorts or grounding issues.  I also think that all the original components I'm trying to reuse may fail, so I'm prepared to have to buy a lot of repro stuff on the dash, like the rheostat and various switches.

 

Rough day, a lot of work was done, but very little actually got accomplished!  We'll try again in the near future until it's right.

 

 

 

 

Edited January 12 by hursst (see edit history)

[STEVE POLLARD]

The positive: that dash looks beautiful ! It will come together Chris.... you doing amazing work !!

 

Steve

[keiser31]

Ohhhh MAN! I hate those cheap parts. That does look gorgeous, though.

[hursst]

Today, installed the three clips that hold the front wiring harness up over where the grille will go.  Epoxied the two pull knobs that broke.  They will need ample time to dry.  Installed the rest of the cables and pull knobs that aren't broken.  Still having some problems with the pull cables.  I got them working fairly well when they are just straight, but anything other than a mild curve will create enough friction that a lot of force is needed to complete whatever task the cable has.  I'll probably have to do a trial run once everything is settled and see if they will all work out of not.  Still may have to buy some repro parts.

 

The heater control broke completely today.  It's the center section, which isn't structural, so I will try just supergluing it back on, since I don't want to deal with taking it off and all apart again right now.  May work out okay.

 

Last, I installed the radiator and associated parts.  What a pain in the neck!  First, I welded on the broken off captive nut.  Next, the radiator wouldn't fit in with the two air intake tubes that I had already installed, so had to take those out.  Once I fitted the radiator again, the bolts wouldn't screw in as the captive nuts were too corroded inside.  So, I had to take it out again and chase all 6 captive nuts with some WD-40 and my tap and die set (Photo 1).  This worked very well, so on the third attempt, the radiator went in and the bolts went in fairly smoothly.  Here's the final product (Photos 2 & 3).

 

I think the next project will be to wet sand and polish the hood and get that installed.  I think the engine compartment is mostly finished now.

[Luv2Wrench]

I might have some MGA nobs.  I'll check tomorrow.

[keiser31]

3 hours ago, hursst said:

Today, installed the three clips that hold the front wiring harness up over where the grille will go.  Epoxied the two pull knobs that broke.  They will need ample time to dry.  Installed the rest of the cables and pull knobs that aren't broken.  Still having some problems with the pull cables.  I got them working fairly well when they are just straight, but anything other than a mild curve will create enough friction that a lot of force is needed to complete whatever task the cable has.  I'll probably have to do a trial run once everything is settled and see if they will all work out of not.  Still may have to buy some repro parts.

 

The heater control broke completely today.  It's the center section, which isn't structural, so I will try just supergluing it back on, since I don't want to deal with taking it off and all apart again right now.  May work out okay.

 

Last, I installed the radiator and associated parts.  What a pain in the neck!  First, I welded on the broken off captive nut.  Next, the radiator wouldn't fit in with the two air intake tubes that I had already installed, so had to take those out.  Once I fitted the radiator again, the bolts wouldn't screw in as the captive nuts were too corroded inside.  So, I had to take it out again and chase all 6 captive nuts with some WD-40 and my tap and die set (Photo 1).  This worked very well, so on the third attempt, the radiator went in and the bolts went in fairly smoothly.  Here's the final product (Photos 2 & 3).

 

I think the next project will be to wet sand and polish the hood and get that installed.  I think the engine compartment is mostly finished now.

Don't forget to re-attach that spark plug wire.

[hursst]

Keiser, yes, have the plug wires off/loose and loose plugs as I've been turning the engine by hand every so many months to try to keep it somewhat fresh, since it was rebuilt a while ago now.  They'll be tightened up before going to the shakedown work.

Edited January 14 by hursst (see edit history)

[hursst]

Made some good progress today.  First, finished installing and attaching the fasteners for the 4 under-dash cross bars that support the lower portion of the dashboard.

 

Next, I replaced the 39" long felt piece that goes between the back edge of the trunk assembly and the rear of the body.  I had to buy some good felt at the hardware store, cut it to length, then cut it in half lengthwise to double up the thickness to seal the gap properly (Photo 1).  I guess because of the steep rear body angle, they couldn't effectively weld that part in and get sealant in there, so they originally stapled it to the edge of the trunk pan.  I assume they stapled the felt on the trunk portion first, then welded it in the body, creating some sort of seal at the back end of the trunk.  I just used some 3M trim adhesive, which will keep it just fine (Photo 2).

 

Last, I broke out the hood, wet sanded it, polished it, and installed it (Photo 3).  Still ended up with some scratches in the paint; I think I'm not spending enough time in between sanding layers and not getting all the sanding lines out from the last grit level.  I was able to get it good enough for now, but I'll be spending more time polishing the whole body and polishing the edges all around, such as where the hood edges meet the body.  I didn't really get a chance to sand/polish these areas very well yet.  That will have to be part of a final detailing.

 

I think next may be to install the steering wheel and seats.  That should only take maybe two hours (the seats will be a little problem because many of the tacks that secure the captive nut under the floorboards have loosened or fallen out altogether, so will have to piece that back together.

 

 

Edited January 16 by hursst (see edit history)

[hursst]

Very tiring day today, but got much accomplished again. 

 

First, I installed the felt weatherstripping that goes between the hood and the top of the radiator (Photo 1).  Pretty easy! 

 

Next, I installed the steering wheel and seats (Photo 2).  Not quite as easy.  Steering wheel itself was easy.  Found that I had to move the adjustable steering wheel all the way to the dash to make it mostly comfortable.  The seats were more difficult.  Had various small troubles installing the passenger seat, but the driver's seat went fairly smoothly.  I also found I have to put the seat all the way back to make it reasonable.  I'm 6' tall and I think I'm maxed out for this car.  I don't think anyone 6' 1" or taller would fit.

 

Next, I spent about an hour adjusting the hood latch.  Once I got all the bolts in the hinges, the hood would latch but not fully open again.  It took about 10 rounds of adjustments to get it were it will fully release.  There's a reason why the grille will be the last item installed...so I can access the hood latch.  I'll probably open and close the hood 20 times in a row to test it before I would be fully confident that the hood latch will open consistently.    I'll have to do a lot of touch up painting of various fasteners due to screwing them in and out a million times and the paint damage it caused.  No big deal, though.

 

Last, I broke out the passenger door and did the whole process of wet sanding and polishing again.  This was a much more challenging job, as the door is small and light and moved around a little on the sawhorse.  It was also more difficult to sand the upper curve of the door, so that took extra time.  This time, I spent about twice as long sanding at 1500 after starting with 1200.  Added a little more time for each level up as well.  Overall, I think the scratches are much, much better this time, but being vertical, the flaws are not as obvious in the light.  I also got the door loosely attached (Photo 3).  It's going to need hours and hours of adjustment eventually, but for now it's fine until I get the rear fender on.

 

Next will be the other door, but I'm going to take tomorrow off and do other things than work on the MG.  I think I need a short break.  Overall, very pleased with the rate of progress.  If I can keep this rate up, I may be finished by March/April and have it ready for its first shakedown.

Edited January 16 by hursst (see edit history)

[1957Birdman]

Looking really good Chris. I was wondering about how you fit in your car. I've sat in one a couple of times and it was just too tight for someone my height, 6' 2". The interesting thing is that I was able to fit into my daughter's 1997 Miata with no problem and it had a fixed steering wheel. The MGA was definitely designed for shorter people.

Lew Bachman

1957 Thunderbird

[STEVE POLLARD]

15 hours ago, hursst said:

If I can keep this rate up, I may be finished by March/April and have it ready for its first shakedown

It's looking great Chris..... any chance that you may be on the Hershey Show field this coming year ? I would really like to see your car in person!

 

Steve

[hursst]

That's my goal...but there will be logistics issues, so I'm not sure.  I don't have a truck or trailer, but maybe I'll buy or rent one before then.

[hursst]

Finished wet sanding and polishing the driver's door and installed it (Photo 1). 

 

Also put on the leather trim strips on the tops of the doors, as I'll need them in place now for fitment purposes (Photo 2).  Unfortunately, I ran into a lot of problems with door fitment already.  First, the repro door bumpers are too thick, maybe by 2x, so I can't fully close the doors, especially at the bottom, where the edge of the door sticks out a good 1/2" or maybe a little more from the top of the rocker panel.  I'll have to shave off quite a bit of the bumpers and see what I can do. 

 

Next, the passenger side door won't close on the latch, as the latch is too low.   I moved it as high and as far back as it will go, but it's still too low.  This may work itself out after I shave the door bumpers, but I also may have to cut a small slice of metal from the bottom of the door latch opening to make it fit if I can't make it fit via various adjustments.  This door is an NOS door I picked up, as the door on it when I bought it was from a different year, was different enough in details, and had lots of bondo from dent repair, that I would need less work if I used the NOS door.  The NOS door was never on the car previously, so it's not a perfect fit.  The driver's side on is perfect, but this was a door that was original to the car.  This will be a lot of work to get these doors to fit correctly with all the hardware applied.

 

Last, I started wet sanding the passenger side rear fender.  It has a lot of very small fisheyes in the clear coat.  I think some type of dust or other contamination got in there and created a small crater.  There are maybe 20, 5 of wish are fairly deep.  They are very small, maybe 1mm.  I'm trying to put some clear in the crater with a very fine paint brush and I'll see if I can fill them in.  Most panels have these little fisheyes, but usually only 2 or 3, so I didn't really worry about them, as I'm not going to get an absolutely perfect paint job.  This panel has a lot of curves and details up front, so it is taking much more time to do properly.  So far, I'm about 95% finished with 1200 grit.  

[Laughing Coyote]

Looking good. You're almost there.

[keiser31]

I have to ask because I am confused. Is it an optical illusion that the panel behind the rear wheel looks too big to fit under the rear fender? It does not seem to match the contour of the rear fender. It almost looks upside down to me.

[hursst]

Keiser, I see what you mean in the photo.  It's an optical illusion, the photo may have stretched it a little.  It can only be installed one way with three bolts in a pattern.

[Model56s]

This looks great! I’m looking forward to a video of the first drive.

 

This was my high school car. I always loved the profile lines, especially the way the door slopes down to the quarter panel and the way the designer merged the quarters to the cockpit. 
 

There are several designs that couldn’t be improved - the MGA roadster, 1953 Studebaker Commander coupe, Gen 1 Toronado and El Dorado, Series 1 XKE and a few others.

[Luv2Wrench]

The paint looks fantastic!  The combination of white, chrome and black is intoxicating.  Love it.

[Mr. Don]

These were very popular and for very good reasons! It is a beautiful car! I think that they were the first car from the UK whose exports exceeded their domestic sales?

[hursst]

Long day today.  Was held prisoner at home by an HVAC company all day, so just spent the day in the garage.  They still haven't shown up yet; they say 6pm.  Oh yeah, did I mention my hyper expensive HVAC unit is only 5 months old?

 

Did a little more 1200 grit sanding on my rear fender, but didn't get very far.  Did try more of filling in those little craters with clear.  I tried three craters the other day, sanded them out, and I can't even find them, so that technique works.  Unfortunately, I have maybe 50 of these little craters, so I'll probably try to do the 20 most obvious and just keep sanding the rest and maybe live with them.  We'll see.

 

I spent most of the time on the doors.  First, I got the doors at least equal to the top of the rocker panels.  As was discussed in a previous post, the repro rockers are garbage and don't fit, so they are a little higher than they should be.  If I'm lucky, I will be able to get a 1mm gap between the door bottom and the top of the rocker at the end of my adjustments. 

 

Next, I tried to get them to fit with the door striker installed.  The driver's side one went fairly well, maybe 3 rounds of adjustment, but that's an original door.  The passenger side is kind of a disaster.  First, with the striker in the upper most position, it was still too low to match up with the door (Photo 1).  I can't raise the door any lower because it will hit the rocker and I can't raise the striker any higher.  So, I had to cut a slice about 5mm from the lower part of the door striker aperture in order to get it to fit.  I also had to shim the upper door hinge to try to get the back of the door slightly lower.  This is the NOS door, which may be a reject or have other problems...why else would it have survived 60+ years without being used?  Who knows.  Anyway, I got it to fit nicely with this cut. 

 

Next, I had to secure the bottoms of the door post cover plates by pushing them in as far as possible and drilling two holes in order to get in the machine screws to secure them.  This took a little effort, but I was able to get them secured, just like factory (Photo 3). 

 

Next, I found that the repro door bumpers are about twice as thick as they should be.  I had to remove all 4 and cut about 3/8" off all of them lengthwise so that the door would have enough travel to match up with the rocker. 

 

Next, I installed the door latches.  These were originals, so they just needed a lot of clean up, but they work great.  Again, the driver's side one went fairly smoothly (Photo 5), but the passenger side one I was able to line up okay, but it was too shallow.  The door would close but leave a good 7/16" gap between the door and the rocker.  I had to make some shims out of washers, glue them together, then onto the latch, then screw it into place (Photo 2).  Worked quite well, so doors are closing nicely and are somewhat lined up.

 

At this point, I found that the original upper dash panel crash pad trim was slightly too long.  It may have expanded over the last 60+ years to the point that it is about 4mm too long on both sides.  This means that the corresponding door trim hits the dash door trim, leaving no room and not matching up quite right.  I would call it acceptable at the driver's door, but the passenger door has a massive door gap, almost an inch wide (Photo 4).  I think this is more a result of the NOS door not being quite right than anything else.  I can't move the door any more forward because of the hinges, so I may just have to live with it.  I'll worry more about that later after I get all the fenders on.

 

I'm calling it good for the moment, so I'll be getting back to sanding the fender next.  It's going to take me a very long time to get it sanded properly with all the curves and those little craters.  Pretty sure I'll have to polish the whole car again once everything's together and I can see what it looks like in the sun.

 

 

[hursst]

Worked on the fender again today.  Spent a long day mostly completing the wet sanding and polishing (Photo 1).  Not too happy with the results, mainly because the rear fender is difficult to get any real pressure on when polishing, so the work is uneven.  You can't really lay it flat anywhere, due to its shape.  Still having problems with sanding lines in the paint, even after I tried to spend extra time sanding with 1500 grit after doing 1200 to take out the orange peel.  I'll give it a more thorough round of polishing once it's on the car and I have better leverage and lighting.

 

I also found that I still had too many easily noticeable "craters" that I've talked about before.  I did another round of filling them in with clear coat after I finished polishing, so I'll have to do a little more sanding to flatten the clear coat repairs, then more polishing.  After that, I'm ready to at least set the fender on the car, loose.  I'll then have to cut the welting, not only to size, but with multiple slits and slots to make room for all the bolt holes.  Still have a lot of work to do!

[Steve_Mack_CT]

Chris would it be possible to use sandbags as a backing for the rear fenders? When i read this I imagined maybe bolting them to a plywood base to help keep them from moving and usung sandbags or maybe even kitty litter bags to back that up.  May be worst idea ever but thought I might suggest anyway.

 

Exciting to see the progress!  Thanks for bringing us along!!

[hursst]

Steve,

    Those are good ideas, but those either involve my buying sandbags/kitty litter at large expense, or bolting it to some type of jig and great time expense.  I will be okay by just bolting it to the car where it belongs, then doing more polishing.  Since there are no trim pieces on the rear fenders, polishing on the car will be easy and I'll have plenty of leverage.  Thanks for the tips!

[hursst]

Today was two steps forward, one step back.

 

Completed the work (for now) on the rear fender.  Wet sanded the "crater" repairs and re-polished.  Turned out okay.

 

Next, installed the passenger rear fender on the car.  This was fraught with difficulties.  First, I had forgotten that the door pilar cover panel needs to go on after the rear fender is installed, not before, so I had to undo all that work.  Fitment of the panel onto the body went well for the most part, but I had some problems getting the fender far enough back so the door would close reasonably versus getting the fender far enough forward as to meet up close enough with the rocker panel attachment.  After about 4 rounds of adjustments, I got it to the right balance (Photo 1).

 

Now the bad part.  After about 6 attempts to get the door fitted properly, I had to give up to attack another time.  The repro rocker panel was not even close to fitting when I first attempted to weld it on (if you go back about 6 years in this blog, you can see the trouble I had with that).  I had to do a lot of cutting and had to bend the curve of the panel drastically to get the radius reasonable enough to spot weld to the rocker support panel on the body.  Well, it still wasn't good enough, as it turns out.  The problem now is that with the outer upper edge of the rocker panel probably being about 8mm too high, I can only hang the door so high before it touches the rocker.  I have the door set to the lowest possible level with maybe a 1mm gap.  This creates a problem where the upper rear portion of the door is about 7mm higher than the rear fender.  This isn't much of a problem, because most of the overlap is hidden by the upper door trim and rear deck trim.  The problem now is that when I installed the fender and the door pillar cover again, there were some slight changes to geometry so now the door striker and latch are too low, so the door won't close.  Raising the door will just make it worse and I can't lower the door any.  The only solution is to cut more of the door latch opening where it meets the striker while also notching all four door latch attachment holes so I can lower the door latch about 4-5mm so the striker will meet the latch properly.  Unfortunately, I also chipped a small amount of the paint on the upper rear door and where it hits the fender during all this fitment.  Once I get the door situation fixed, I should be able to repair the paint.  I'll have the same problem on the other side to some extent, although dealing with the original driver's side door will help.  For now, I took the striker out so the door will close.  Looks good from a distance (Photo 2).

[Luv2Wrench]

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.