MG Sports Cars

So I did some measuring today and I can't fit both the frame and the body in my garage at the same time as I previously thought...

I am going to be doing a swap with a 2.3 Ford duratec motor and a T9 trans into a 1960 MGA. I have some body work that needs doing, mainly re-welding in door sills (part 12 in the picture) on both sides, welding in new floor board frames, and welding in a new radiator pan (part 46 in the picture).

How much more difficult is it going to be to weld in those parts with the body still attached to the frame? More importantly, how much more difficult is it going to be to put the motor and transmission in? Anyone have any helpful suggestions? I'm really stuck on this one

Having not seen your garage is it feasible to suspend the body above the car supported by the rafters or beams running from wall to wall??

I was thinking the same thing -- the A body is pretty light.

Unfortunatly I live at an apartment complex that I am renting a garage from. There arent any obvious beams on the roof and I don't think they would appreciate me drilling into it, I think that might be out. Any other ideas?

Use a studfinder and screw in eyescrews in a few judicious locations?

Jim

John, when replacing the sills it's best to leave the body on the frame. This acts as a jig to insure that the door openings stay in alignment. With the body off it's really hard to keep the alignment correct. I did mine that way, then removed the body for futher work in other areas where having it on my rotisserie was much easier. You can get pretty good access to the sills by just jacking up one side of the car, at least it gets things up to a pretty comfortable working height.

Ok, cool, thanks Bill for the advice

About how difficult will it be to reweld in that radiator pan thought? If I remove the front suspension I dont think it will be too bad but maybe you have some more insight into this

John, the radiator pan should be pretty accessable with the front frame extension removed and it unbolts from the main part of the frame. For a really good idea of how the MGA body is put together and how each part is repaired by the pros take a look through the pages and pages of photos on the Eclectic Motor Works web site. [www.eclecticmotorworks.com]
Carl did a huge favor for all MGA owners when he posted such detailed shots of their restoration work. They also show good details of how to repair the usual frame and floor board support damage. Their jigs have now been sold to a company in Colorado so the work will continue and Carl and his crew will focus more on the mechanical end I guess. I'm guessing your front pan has the usual bend from a nose hit somewhere in the car's past. Most of them do it seems. Unless it's too bad and you can't get the sheet metal of the nose pulled back out to a reasonable contour you might consider just leaving it alone with some simple straightening. You'll probably have to trim the rear edge quite a bit for radiator clearance anyway. The stock MGA radiator is fairly small, and quite shallow. For a larger engine you'll probably have to extend the radiator down several inches to get enough capacity and move it forward as well to clear the steering rack. There's not much room to increase the width. As you can see from the photo of my car, I removed almost half the pan to increase airflow to the radiator and for clearance. The remaining fold in the front I'm trying to pull up using my stud welder and slide hammer with pretty good results. For me it doesn't have to be perfect, but it's not a terribly difficult panel to replace if you want.

Thanks for that website Bill, it has a lot of useful pictures. I do have one more question though. I am a bit new at this restoration thing, how do you remove the sills? I saw that you did it and I was hoping you could be specific. Did you use any kid of cutting torch or just a cutting wheel, or any cutting at all. Any advice you have would be greatly appreciated

John

John, breaking spot welds isn't too difficult. There are several different methods you can use but I prefer for most of them to use an angle grinder with a hard disc and grind down the outer layer of metal. As you get it thin the areas around the weld will start to glow red while the thicker area where the weld is will stay dark. You can use this color clue to only grind at the weld areas and save some time. If you're careful you can grind it all clean and leave a nice smooth surface to weld to when you attach your new panel. In some areas where a grinder won't reach, then you can drill them with either a spot weld cutter which is a specal tool designed for this work or just a regular drill bit. You only want to cut through the outer layer of metal if you can, but if you're using a standard drill you can usually fill the holes pretty easily when you weld the new panel on. On panels such as the rockers I cut away the majority of the un needed sheet metal with a cut off tool and a sawzall then used the grinder to finish up the weld strips. A good metal chisel will also come in handy in some places to split the old metal away from the base area. I have some more detailed photos up on Snapfish that I can share with you if you want. You'll have to log in to gain access but then you should be able to check out my photos. [www2.snapfish.co.uk]
If that link doesn't get you there look for my name and project PMH.
A cheap spot weld cutter is available from Harbor Freight, but I can't say if they will stay sharp or not, I got mine from Eastwood if I remember correctly. Link to HF item [www.harborfreight.com]




Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/29/2009 02:51PM by Bill Young.

RE: cheap sot weld cutter from harbor freight.. can't say if they stay sharp or not.

I bought 2 of them when i started the metal work on my car. they're double sided so if they get dull, you can flip to the other blade... After at least a couple hundred spot welds I'm still working on the first side of the first bit. The only thing I don't like is that the spring on the center pin is very weak so the pin doesn't do anything to help keep the bit centered. If you don't drill a small pilot hole for the pin, the bit will want to wander all over the place. Never used any others so don't know if that's normal or not.