Re-Building a door

Hi

Busy couple of days, went down to the paint shop on Thursday and spent the whole day sealing the wing piping.

I was a bit wary of water getting in through the piping and being trapped inside the join of the wing to body, especially as I plan to seal the whole underside to prevent any water getting in from there, which would trap it.

I used the paint shop sealer and its what's used for windscreens, so good stuff, It was very messy as I roughly squeezed the sealer between the joins then with panel wipe and lots of paper toweling I wiped it of again pushing as much as I could between the joins.

Took most of the day to do the whole of the car but well worth the effort.

You can hardly tell there is sealant in the join, took a photo of the paint job while still inside the shop and the colour is even better than outside in the sun, even though it is covered in dust.

The plinths for the side lights have arrived, I managed to get hold of 3 which is a good job as they are made from cast zinc, I placed one on the wing to get some idea how much bending would be required to shape them to the wing contours.

Which is not a great deal, but sufficient that when I tried to bend the cast zinc it snapped, so good job I had 3. I shall use the aluminium filler I have left over and build up the base to the shape required then when colour coded you won't know the difference.

I have brought home the treads I had colour coded and they look great, I fitted the rubbers using washing up liquid to get them to slide and stuck automotive double sided tape on the back.

The end caps did look a bit cheap, which they are, but with a little paint they were transformed, I bought stainless coach bolts to secure them but the heads were to big so I put each one in the lathe and turned the diameter down and gave the tops a little pattern, I filed off the squares on the bolt that prevent turning, maybe still to wide.

Yesterday was a bit of a no work day as my computer was getting a little cluttered and slow so I saved my stuff and formatted then went and bought Windows 8, I spent the rest of the day loading everything back on and learning the new system, same as the old one.

I also splashed out on what I hope is all of the chrome work for the doors, mirrors, handles etc, didn't ask the price as I was a little scared to, these bits should be coming Monday or Tuesday.

When out yesterday I went to Halford's and got ripped of on 2 spray tins of wax oil for the insides of the doors.

I say ripped of because the first one is still a quarter full and has run out of propellant, I could have used the waxoil I have but I wanted to get into all of the corners that only a spray will reach and if I had used my compressor gun it would have been everywhere, which I know from experience.

So to start re-building the door, first you take your wife's best Egyptian cotton white towel and place on the dinning room table, which saves the new paint getting damaged. 

I had plenty of pictures as reference in putting everything back but it still took lots of trial and error before I got the sequence right and as with everything it was easy once you know how. 

Once the wax oil is in I fitted the lock, when removing the lock I had to cut the clamping bolts to get the retainer out, the bolts had tiny allen key heads and just ripped out on attempting to turn. I saw the new clamping kit on eBay a while ago and bought it in preparation. It was from MG Hive, I also tried these for the door chrome work.

This kit comes with heavy backing washers that weren't on originally, the washer goes into the door first as it sits under the side bars then the lock with the rubber through it. The clamp then slide into the grove on the lock and the screws tightened down. The pack said fibre washers but arrived with rubber, fibre would have been better as with just a little to much pressure on the screw and the rubber pops out from around the lock.

The next in is the door lock mechanism, I buffed up the chrome on the openers as I don't know if these parts are included in what I bought for the doors, and they ain't coming out again.

The lock mech is slide in through the side and and lifted into position making sure that the key lock fork fits into the locking mech pin.

It can then be screwed and bolted into place, there is a bit of movement on the door locking handle so until the door is fitted I won't know the correct position.

The next to go in is the glass side runner, this is fed through the opening and bolted in, again there is play so I waited till the window was going up and down before hardening the bolts.

The winder mechanism is slide in through the opening and this is where the trial and error came into play, in and out a half dozen times until I came up with the solution.

Slide the winder around until it reaches the winder hole, but don't bolt down yet.

Fit the quarter light, you need to lift the winder mech by the drive to feed the long leg underneath.

Position the long leg and bolt on the securing plate.

You can now feed the glass into the gap, positioning it into the quarter light and the side runner.
On the winder runner are 2 running guides that fit into the groove of the glass runner with a gap in the middle, the first/furthest away running guide slides into the beginning of the runner then as you feed the glass in, the second guide fits through the gap and slides onto the second part of the glass runner.

The winder can be put onto the drive and the window wound into position then line up the bolt holes, fit and tighten.

The quarter light needs securing and there are 3 positions for bolting down, the 2 nuts inside are 1/4" UNF so don't lose them as I did, luckily the local fastening shop had them in stock, also there are the 2 on the bottom and 2 larger ones on the side.

Before fitting the quarterlight I fitted the new rubber seal, this required a little trimming as the rubber didn't go right down the the edge of the frame and needed adjusting, fit all of the bolts but don't nip down hard as yet as the rubber needs a little fettling.

This needs levering over the edge of the frame on both sides then the bolts can be nipped up evenly checking the position of the quarterlight as you tighten, I shall silicon this seal when all happy.

I lubricated the winder runners with silicon grease and wound the window up and down a number of times to check it was running smoothly..

I received an order from Bruno this week of the quarterlight stop ends, door edge seals and clips, these need cutting to size and Bruno kindly included a sketch of the fitting and cutting procedure.

I used the old seal as a guide to get some idea of what needs cutting to get it right first time.

The new one has a little joddle where it goes around the frame and this needs cutting to lie against the glass.

I made the first cut and checked its position.

Then trimmed of the excess.

I marked of the rear end and cut of the excess.

It fitted quite nicely.

I haven't tried to clip it on yet as I am not to happy with the edge painting and shall take the door back for a touch up.

The last parts were the hinges, I had had these powder coated a while ago and they contrast quite nicely.

I fitted these with new stainless bolts and washers.

Well that's the door mostly complete and I am going to wait to build the other one until I am happy with the paint finish on the edge.

Ant say's he is limiting the booking this coming week so as to concentrate on the Panther and his car is in as well so hopefully the body will be complete then its all of the plastic to be colour coded and the job of removing the dash which I am not looking forward to.

see ya Paul

And the other wing

Hi

Another very busy day getting the other wing fitted, but first I had to finish riveting the rear wing on the passenger side it didn't get finished yesterday as I needed my right angle drill attachment to get into the tight spaces.

I jacked the car up and removed the wheel to improve access then a simple matter of drilling through and riveting.

Once complete here I moved onto the drivers side, this side if anyone remembers is the one with the replacement rear wing fitted in 1988 and was a little shorter than the passenger side but only around 15mm.

I attempted moving it back to be in the correct position but it sent the front out and caused more of a problem, so I shall live with it.

I started by fitting the step and the front support, I also bolted on the headlight bracket but this is not as good a fit as the passenger side as it sits with a gap on one side and no positioning could get it better. I shall pack it out before tightening on the headlight to prevent distortion.

Because I used filler on the mounting area for the rear wing, all of the rivet holes also got filled, so I had no positioning reference to work from. I bolted the wing onto the step and with a clamp I positioned it where I thought was best.

I then moved onto the front wing and positioned it onto the front arm before bolting to the step.

I did not have to put rivets in the step as with the other side as the rubber did not squeeze out, once all tight I got the lads to assist and we lifted the complete assembly onto supports and run the double sided tape along the edge.

I then ran the wing piping along the tape and again with the help of everyone available we lifted the wings into position and got the steps bolted on.

I clamped the rear wing onto the body and started by getting the very front into position and got the first rivet in then worked back towards the step.

Once the front wing was secured and the step tightened up I drilled through the original holes in the rear wing into the body and started riveting. I dipped each rivet in waxoil before fitting, something I never did on the passenger side which I will rectify tomorrow by drilling out the one's I've fitted and replacing them. This should prevent any action between the steel and the aluminium.

Well that's both wings fitted although there is still a huge amount to do in the paint shop before I can take it home, but that's tomorrow.

See ya Paul

Fitting the wing

Hi
Home again and back to work.

Been looking forward to seeing the paint job first hand, I had some photos sent and it looked great but it looks even better close up.

While away I had a good search on the Internet and found the rear combination lights I was after, I had seen them on Europa Spares for £37 each and after a search on eBay I picked up the same set for £32.64p each  with free p+p from a local firm.

These are 200mm x 50mm LED lights I have checked them against the rear bumper and if not a perfect fit then its just a simple mod to fit.

Another great buy was for something I never knew was available and it is a cover for the wiper motor, I found it when searching through MG Midget spares on eBay.

 I shall have it colour coded to the scuttle and it will all but disappear when in place.

I also bought in some more double sided tape for the wing piping and some foam tape for the Kallista script.

The plinths for the side lights I bought last month have still not arrived, the seller blames the mail but I have never had anything gone missing in the past. So I have been searching for more and have managed to buy another and am still searching for the other.

I have spent the afternoon down at the paint shop and have the wings on one side nearly finished, the paint combination works well and apart from a few bad places that I have either caused or found that need re-working.

I couldn't resist going back down to the paint shop the day before I went away and carried on rubbing down the bodywork with 320grit, the lads then carried on and it was then given a thinned down coat of primer and rubbed down again with 800 wet which made it ready for the base coat.

The red base coat was only put onto the areas around the bonnet and the doors as the rest of the car will be in White.

It has been masked off around the grill area.

The white pearlecent is not quite white, when we picked the colour I was shown what made the colour up and I was surprised to see it contained yellow which has made it look more like a cream colour. I was pleased with this as it gives more of a match to the new steering wheel than pure white would do.

The red was masked off.

Once the white was finished the masking was removed and 3 coats of lacquer applied.

I decided on a basic design, just the wings, bonnet and around the doors are red, the idea of the red following the line around the top of the grill came from our German friends as I saw a number of cars with this design.

All of this was done while I was away so today was my turn to get stuck in.

I had everything prepared for my return, so I loaded the car got straight to the paint shop.

The first job was to fit the rear wing, the difficulty was trying to get the levels right and the rubber T beading from squeezing out of shape when tightening the two sections together, In the end I had to drill 5mm holes through both sides and the rubber then riveting together.

I had clamped the rear section to the body while getting the position as best I could, I am still not happy about it as the T of the beading is not as tight as I would like so when complete I shall lift the edges of the rubber and squeeze sealant in place, should have done this at the beginning and will do on the other side.

I then fitted the front support arm and the headlight bracket before getting some assistance with the front wing and bolting that into position, I had the same problem of the rubber squeezing out of position and again ended up riveting first.

Once the step was riveted and bolted I then recruited lots of help and the whole wing step combination was lifted off and taken to a work bench.

I then ran extra strong double sided tape along the whole length.

I had prepared the wing piping with the cuts to go around the tight areas of the rear wing and started sticking on the piping there first then continuing along.

When all stuck on, we very carefully carried it out and positioned the step on the studs, the front wing was positioned and bolted on the support arm and clamps kept the rear wing in position. only then did I breathed easy, no damage.

When I was basically happy with the position I started fitting the 5mm rivets, I had bought a air driven rivet gun for this job and it worked great.

There where a couple of areas that needed wedging to bring the body closer to the wings before riveting  but generally it was a good fit.

The two areas for wedging where at both ends of the step area.

The riveting pulled the beading tight up to the body which I hope will be watertight, I completed as much as possible but I was unable to drill some of the holes without my right angle drill attachment and I also need to remove the wheels for access which I will complete tomorrow.

I 

I shall finish this side and hopefully the lessons learn't will make the other side a little easier.

see ya Paul