- This topic has 16 replies, 6 voices, and was last updated 14 years, 7 months ago by
.
-
Posts
-
Mind if I keep a rebuilding thread? I’d like any input you all have while were working on this.
After getting it home, I have looked it over closer… what a mess.
pics will be here
http://s9.photobucket.com/albums/a71/crbugs143/MG/
But will post some in the thread.
i looked at pics in the gallery and several thru searches. Whoever the builder originally was? I would guess can’t read instructions. (No I won’t insert the typical female comment about men refusing to read instructions
) Anyways, what’s wrong~
well, the gas tank has a side fill on the drivers side, ok,,, no biggie, But the hood opens from the passenger side. In pics I see the hood opens from the drivers side. We’re thinking of turning the tank around with fill neck under front and actually make the ‘radiator cap’ useable to fill the gas. But we’ll leave it opening to the pass side but with more stylish clasps.
Grill, I assume the flange on it is supposed to go under the side pieces with the ‘engine vents’, it doesn’t. Builder cut off the top piece, did not file it smooth and it is forward by a good 1/2 – 3/4″. It doesn’t even sit next to the shell. So the lights will come off, the shell, refill the holes, and reinstall it flush as it should be.The frame under it appears to be off a beetle that has been seriously beaten. We’ll clean the edge up again and block it off for a clean solid look.
On the rear deck lid. Not sure, but the builder may have not built up the frame work or something. There are 2 big notches cut so it will sit over a piece of 2×4 wood attached to the bumper bracket. I guess they started to rot or vibrate loose and my uncle wrapped alot of electrical tape around them and the cover sits tight over that. Not his fault, he admitts he doesn’t fix cars
Haven’t removed the package tray yet nor the carpet or any interior . But we are thinking of just lifting the body off the frame, fix and clean it up then set it back down.
Will get some pics after we break the wheels off and I can get good shots of the ‘frame’ under rear fender, somehow I just don’t think it’s correct.
That’s what we see while it sits. Towing it home last night, stopped at a church’s chicken, had one guy ask me if that’s my bradley out there on the trailer, I replied no, the bradely is at home , that’s an MG
The builder paid no mind to details on this thing, and I can see how fresh paint and a unique ride caught my aunt & uncle’s eye. But I know details make the car.
Haven’t gotten a name on it yet, right now it’s just an ugly duckling. Hubby will do all the mechanical and any metal work. I get to do the paint & body. I have ideas and it will definatly be a bit old but with some added style. So far really liking the white with black fenders . But I don’t expect it to be ready for paint this year.
Hubby just came in and said engine turns over smoothly and has good compression by hand, so we hope it will fire up with a good tune up and some fresh gas. Aunt lived down a 2 mile dirt rd, and ga redclay will clog up everything! Time to unload it!
Will add pics as I can.
later~ 🙂3 hrs. 100* but I wanted to get started. Washed and scrubbed it, removed the spare tire, and then gutted it.
Nothing more than a fiberglass sheet on the passenger floor, on the driver side, a trimmed to fit piece of plywood. All the carpet is out, dry rotted so it basically just crumbled. Have everything piled up, will keep the seat for a pattern only. I’m sure if one sat on it it would crack apart.
Battery box is not attached, but that area is usually shot in most bugs. Will have to do a lil clean up around the shifter.Was reading a thread by fareoh, he ridid the grill. So I assume, this is not right either? This shell doesn’t belong on this car?
I’ll pull the lights off and look this over.
Tomorrow all the wiring comes out And then I’ll clean up the engine. We have rewired several bugs so this will be just as easy. Won’t happen til the body goes back on anyways.
All for now.Hi Myth, I took a look at my car ,same body as yours, I think,and mine has what looks like a shell specially made to fit over the fiberglass nosepiece that fits between the two sides of the hood. Your grille shell looks like a real MG and looks like it is not deep enough to reach the hood and side panels.Faraoh bought a MG shell but I think he decided to go a different route, seems like he had the MG shell for sale a while back. Perhaps he or someone else on the forum can help you with this.Look in my photo gallary at the yellow car at the top and then look at the red car at the bottom of the page and I think you can see the difference between the two. Welcome to the best MG replica forom in the world. I borrowed that phrase from Pink MG.
Was wondering if it was real/repo MG. Fixing to remove the headlights in a few to get it off.
I have the floors all swept out, I hate rust in the yard. And the engine is degreased. Found the two idle stop screws laying in oil, plus dozen nuts. Found a handful of bolts, nuts, and screws under a piece of plywood on the drivers side. 3 of those are the funky bit bolts for the door hinges, and one is missing on the catch plate dr door.
No matter, going with all SS when we go back together.
I’m taking pics of everything so as I take things off I can see where they go back, but not much is going to be kept right now. Even the 2 fg boxes the seat sat on, We’ve already discussed building a proper metal frame. Might go small low back buckets from early style beetle if we can figure how to make the dr side slide. I’m only 5’2″, Hubby is 6’2″. Sitting in the seat as is? I look the part of a ‘lil ole lady from pasadena’! RIGHT thru the steering wheel! I like open view, and don’t want a booster seat lol! He looked at the front beam, PO cut the tube, pointed the adjuster dow, and there is almost no travel on the front. So we’ll be replacing that too. I have an adjustable with drop spindles and a heavy sway bar on my 74 beetle, and it’s a go-kart, but rides nice, may go that way again.
Have looked over some old porsche wheels we have, will get them cleaned and painted later.
Lots of other things we see can be made, a package shelf under the dash, flove box to house the radio, shelf over gas tank for spare tire and tools. It’s still a vw, never go anywhere without tools!
And close up the area behind the seats too for storage.
Oh so many ideas!I’m glad I found some place I can ask and get feed back on this lil toy. I’m in the volksrods site,
A few of the guys there are cool with it but I don’t have a build thread for comments. I’ve always wanted a 32 ford coupe, can’t afford one, so this is the next best thing for me . Thanks for comments and all the info tucked here. Excellent pics too!
well, back to work, sorry if I talk too much, but sometimes I just do. I’m just another car nut.Purplemyth;
Welcome to the group, as far as car nuts go, if you shook this forum hard you’d get a whole tree full of nuts coming down.
I got pretty lucky with my Duchess but other cars in the past have often left me wondering what the hell the previous owner was thinking. At least parts are available, so have fun and post more pics.
Ringo
Very cool Ringo!
I’ll be making a chiropractor appt early this month, and I’m sure he’ll ask, ‘ ok. what are you doing now you are really tweaked’ um,,, just cleaning, I swear!!!!
He knows better. Took the grillS, both of them off. Going to use the original one, it just won’t look right with no chrome on the bottom. So we’ll paint it with the car, but after I do some realistic effects to the ‘bars’. I read the part on the BBQ paint, and I think my paints will be ok on it, will test it first. I use just base coat automotive in my airbrush. But I think I can give them some dimension.
Took a cap off and found the steering adjuster screw, will clean that boogered up hole too. Maybe can put a cross bar there to cover it .
But I can officailly say it is red. Scrapped off the step strips and the white paint flakes off around those. I’ve had a red car before, and got tired of waxing once a month, I know new paints won’t fade as fast, but it’ll get something else.I have some more pics of today’s destruction, will get those loaded in as soon as I clean up my mess and take the umbrella down. I’m out side in the yard while hubby is in the garage with his bikes, and a fan, but it’s been breezy so not too bad , still freaking hot!
Pics later~
purplemyth39994.3727430556
(fixed my spelling, I scrapped off the strips, old keyboard)
Here’s a few pics. More loaded in the photobucket though.
will leave it this way.
it looks so bare now.
today would be a good day to work on it, won’t be as hot, but I’m to the point it needs stronger backs than me. I will get it up on blocks though just to have it level and get the rotted wheels off. Then I’ll get all the body bolts out so the body can be lifted.
Will be doing some photoshopping now, no danger of heat stroke there~
Later folks~
purplemyth39994.4047106481
purplemyth
GOOD LORD!!! Now that’s a project! Reminds me of when I started my ’53 F100. Holes in the floor? Ha! What floor! Is that wiring or some science experiment gone wrong? Afraid to remove too much rust in case its what ‘s holding it together? Now that’s fun! (like I’ve said elsewhere on this forum, I am a twisted individual when it comes to my definition of fun)
I’m glad the car ended up with someone who knows what they’re doing. I could see it going bye bye if it were someones first project.
Have fun, and keep us posted as it goes along.
RingoYeah, around here, there are alot of ‘oh I wish I had this at home instead of it wasting away in the junkyard/back fields’ cars. But we have way too many as it is. Can’t afford to do them big projects anyways. This one though is doable fairly easy. Would be much easier if the almost new frame with new pans under a dune buggy had a current title. But he doesn’t want to mess with moving the shifter on it . So I told him to just leave the pans in it too. Would rather have nice solid flat steel floors.
Old ford trucks, sigh~ I won’t go there~I have 2 trucks, 62 & a 79 bronco, both work hard when needed.
But yep, this thing could have easliy been filled up with sand , gutted for a kids play yard or hauled to a dump to just crumble. But it’s still very solid. Only found a few minor repairs needed, the rear deck lid, top of the passenger door, and a bunch of holes, like the 2 drywall screws thru the driver side to hold the carpet up.
Hubby says he’ll get into it more after he finishes a bike, but I know if I keep tinkering with it, he’ll get bugged
I’m so tempted to drag the airline out there with the d/a with some 200 and start removing the white, but I’ll wait til I can have the shop.
I just can’t wait to drive it!
back to my imaginary shop.twisted, sounds interesting, I’ve been called worse!
Purplemyth ; So you have a project, look how much fun you are going to have. I had just as much fun rebuilding mine as I do driving her . some time I think I had more fun , each time I solved a proublem I felt good and looked foward to the next . 6 mo. of trying to get it the way it should have been when built, mine sat for 22 years in a barn after the builder started and never finished her she went to 3 owners each one knew less than the last on how things should work . but now I have her done . so there is light at the end of the tunnel just don’t get discouraged . AND HAVE FUN Dan R
Oh I’m not in a hurry . If this were my only car, I might be. If anything I have more patience than hubby does.
It’s not all that big a project really, not like a metal body in the same shape would be. We have plenty of spare parts out back, we sorta collect bugs lol!
But no, no discouragement here. He’s said he’ll get the engine running this weekend. That’s the biggest part, if the engine is junk, we’ll have to build another. But I can still tinker along on other parts. There are pics in the main photobucket of the other things we’ve tinkered with.
BTW~ has anyone prepped and painted a fg body before? Hubby works at a NAPA with paint supplies available. We know how to do metal, but not fg. I want to make sure we get the right stuff for it, mainly proper sanding grits and the primers to make sure the paint will stay on the car. I know gel coat is tough, dealt with it long time ago and the paint on a boat after a few years in the water would start flaking off. Don’t want that to happen. Any tips greatly appreciated.
Time to get moving, later friends 🙂
Purplemyth : Paint, try any body shop most cars today have a lot of fiberglass parts so I don.t think it would be a problem. Dan R
IT LIVES!!!!!
he finally got away from the bikes, put in a charged battery, a fuel can on top of the lid, adjusted the elec dist (it was tight against the shaft) hooked up a quick start switch, and fired it up!
It has 60lbs of oil pres, and idles at 40!I am STOKED!!!!!
The car has a heart beat, That’s one giant step forward. Keep us informed as your progress. luvmytd40029.2949074074
well it had a heartbeat.
Took it out and installed it in my car. It’s engine was dieing fast, bent ex valve, possibly eaten valve seatt and so much end play the clutch and flywheel looked like new from all the oil nice and shiney, , luckily though the disc has stayed dry, somehow.
On the MG engine, The oil screen was clean and the oil was like maple syrup, only slightly dark.it won’t be driven much til winter when he puts the bike away. Hoping to get started now on more tear down . Will take the gauges out carefully and pack them ,he was shocked they still worked, so why buy new if I don’t have to.
will post when it begins~ maybe when temps begin to drop a bit.
purplemyth40043.224837963
Hi fellas~
haven’t done anything more with this, summer was just too much and his bike has taken center stage.
We’ve decided to start reducing some of the projects we’ve accumulated in the past few years. This is one, I really want to go camping and have gotten an atv and looking for another. Also trying to fix up my bay/bus for traveling and the camping.Soon as I get an est of what it might be worth, I’d like to sell it.
It’s still pretty solid for its age and assuming it’s one of the early versions.
Just decided, it’s better to let it go than to watch it degrade~
it will be fun for someone~
Any ideas, let me know~
thanks for having a site though, it was great surfing around and gathering info~
- You must be logged in to reply to this topic.