1958 MGA Coupe

[bobs77vet]

when momma was out I slipped in a little work in, making an old relay into new style relay. I am following Barneys write up and I used a grinder with a thin cut off wheel.











and the final trial fit

 

[bobs77vet]

good time to post some pictures on todays efforts while the epoxy is drying



cut and stripped to length with a black mark on end that's goes to the base




I cut mine more flush and closer to the plate then Barney did and he used a slot to solder the wire where I used the tab. ( why you ask because I skipped reading his first page, if I were to do it again I would do it his way it makes soldering easier) I did leave in place the bottom of the magnetic coils and just trimmed them, with the grinder




epoxyed in place



sand, prime and paint the top cover in a stainless steel paint







now back to finishing the project

all the soldering is done and now to test the relays to see if they work.....and they do



and done with the hard part now just to clean up the screw in connectors

 

[Sam Cogley]

Any new progress?

 

[bobs77vet]

taking a break for vacation a hot summer, etc etc.....although I am getting the urge to get back out there it will probably after labor day when I will be out there in earnest again.

 

[bobs77vet]

well squeaked out another 1.5 hrs of work tonight painting inner side of boot and bonnet and put seam sealer on rear fender patch





first coat



final coat of paint , clear coat will be done when the I do the last coat of clear on the top side after color sanding.






seam sealer

 

[MYBAD79]

Looking great !!!! Can't wait to work on car projects again .... Working on my house for the past 12 months .... Looking forwsrd to tearing into my Golf and Beetle ..... Looking forward to cutting rusted panels out, isn't that sick ????

 

[bobs77vet]

Looking great !!!! Can't wait to work on car projects again .... Working on my house for the past 12 months .... Looking forwsrd to tearing into my Golf and Beetle ..... Looking forward to cutting rusted panels out, isn't that sick ????

not to the rest of us.......just the Mrs.

 

[bobs77vet]

first for the frightfully sad photos of my buddies engine....and if you have a weak stomach don't look....think of the valve float going on when you do a 7k rpm shift accidentally into a lower gear....

corvette Z 06 race engine



look at 5:30 and 6:30 in the water jacket, along with the piston gouge, that my friends is a cracked water jacket and a $12k boat anchor





ok now to my task at hand, I think every car project should have at least 18 wire wheels.....the sickness must be deep inside of us, to accumulate so many wheels...especially when what I really want is knock off minilights......so the 4 wire wheels that came with the car were nothing more then an enabler for rolling the car around, in fact two of them are loose on the hubs. so I got 14 wire wheels from a couple of forum members in the hopes of mixing and matching to come up with a nice set. PennieH set me up with the wheels that came off of her running car when she upgraded to new wire wheels and new hubs. these wheels with older matching tires will let me adjust the alignment and make the car be able to actually move about which was exactly what I was hoping for, making my chassis drivable around the neighborhood, and was a perfect fit for my need, thanks. so that left me with another 10 wire wheels, so we got out the dial indicator and started measuring all the 18 wheels..... Moss says the run out should be less then .055, well lets just say that between the run out and the splines being good enough to use I may be buying those mininlights sooner then I expected. it just doesn't seem to make any sense to buy spokes to replace missing and bent ones, try to true the wheels, buy tubes and tires and have them mounted and balanced when what I really want is minilights. so the junk wheels are getting sent to the metal recycler and the other wheels that are close enough for someone to make right will get passed along.



now this weekend I am going to try to get the two front fenders painted, the door that needed some more sanding painted and the inner fender splash guards painted

so we are going to sand the door and look for low spots



those red spots in side the gray spots are the low spots and the doors will need more sanding, needless to say I am not sure now I missed those spots but I think the door skin may have been flexing on me when I sanded it before. its no big deal we will just fix it now

 

[bobs77vet]

well I just kept sanding away.....using 220 and 400 paper. the door skin definitely has movement to it so it was a little tricky but I let the different layers of paint/primer filler etc reveal the path, I don't need perfection I just don't want it to be wavy, so I used 220 on a DA and kept looking for the high spots and once I got them down I followed with 400 wet sanding






followed by a coat of self etching primer that I must have forgotten to take a picture of and then gray primer.



this got hit with some 600 grit paper and then wiped down with a cleaner and I only got one coat of top coat on it before the rain came.



this is perfect though it will let me eye ball it really well tomorrow in the sun and see if I improved the situation. last time the unevenness popped right out at after the first coat of paint. This time I cant see any problems

 

[bobs77vet]

that extra sanding last night really paid off, I only had enough time to put two more color coats on but nothing is popping out at me, again I don't need perfection it just cant jump out screaming for attention.


it needs one more top coat and then the clear coats. lacquer can be color sanded in between coats if you want to, that removes all over spray and makes the paint flat for the next coat. I used the small touch up gun on this and the pattern wasn't quite a big as I would have liked it to be.

 

[bobs77vet]

tent city time......



lets take off the fender for all the finish prep work





just more sanding and adding filler where any welding was done that I missed before







prime with self etching primer


and then high build primer




next it will get sanded with 400 wet and then get painted.

 

[bobs77vet]

when in doubt add another tent....



mostly just sanding and priming and sanding





and then finally painting the fender and another coat or two on the door followed by the clear coats, 3 coats of color and 4 coats of clear.






one more fender to go then its to the body., the best part of that is that there really isn't a lot of square footage on the body that has to be sanded.

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

looking good!

 

[SRountree]

Awesome work!

 

[bobs77vet]

thanks guys,

I cant believe it took all day

start some sanding on the car



did I ever mention I hate sanding, after the sanding I hit it with high build primer just so I can sand some more





this got 4 color coats


and 4 gloss coats

 

[bobs77vet]

stole a few minutes this evening to address this area



I used fiberglass on this area since there is a lot going there and I like the water resistance factor of fiber glass

this is really a thin skim coat, sanding will get done later



so far by looking at my notes I have used 2 qts of body filler and 1 qt of fiber glass filler, most of the stuff gets sanded away but my preference is to have less body filler and live with some imperfections.

 

[bobs77vet]

Getting pressure from the next generation to get the wood shop going again......and they added a toy to tool collection, so far he has tuned up the band saw and adjusted the jointer blades and in feed table height....that hasn't been done in at least 15yrs. he keeps looking at the car and says you know if it was all together I sure would have some space......



last night



tonight

 

[bobs77vet]

today was one of those unexpected days, where all of a sudden I had a window of 5hrs open up so I grabbed it by the horns...





the passenger side was in pretty good shape




so I painted everything that needed no more work, just with the base coat after everything is done I will then hit with the gloss coat













I am getting very close to the end of body work!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

[SRountree]

Thats going to be a really nice car!

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

sweetness!!!!