1958 MGA Coupe

[SRountree]

Cant wait to see it on the frame! Nice work!

 

[bobs77vet]

so it occurred to me once the body polishing is done I could put the doors and fenders on.....but not until I paint the door hinges and spacers, I cleaned them last week so they are ready to get primed and painted, used self etching primer

its a 65* night and humidity is within tolerances



base coat



clear coat

 

[JPhil]

Golly Bob the attention to detail you have is way beyond my caveman basic function focus. Isn't hardware like this what POR15 is made for? Just bust the loose rust with a quick sandblast or a wire wheel, brush on the acid primer, brush on the color and be done with it.....
I admire you, and I know I will love that little car when we see the video of it pulling out the driveway and zipping up the street under it's own power again!
(Although one question that I have often thought of while monitoring your projects, how in the hell did you ever find time to make two sons?)

 

[bobs77vet]

(Although one question that I have often thought of while monitoring your projects, how in the hell did you ever find time to make two sons?)

and two daughters too...I balance my time

the goal is to finish the out side of the body buffing so I can put the doors and fenders on

so after all the work sanding and buffing the car had great reflectivity but that was only about 60% of where we can go....look at the first pictures closely, the dull areas were present in those pictures with the great reflectivity. so the idea is to bring those up to the same level of the shiney spots. great terminology....

so 3 hours tonight with the DA, this is a Harbor Freight DA for $45. I have an expensive Griots Garage DA but I wanted to try the inexpensive one and let it do all the hard work and save my good one for the easy polishing jobs.

so tonight #84 with orange hard cutting pad, 2 passes , #84 with the white light cutting pad 2 passes, and #83 with yellow buffing pad. tomorrow night will finish it with the #82 swirl remover with a finishing pad. I am sure the professional compress this time but since I do this not as regularly as them I just go slower so I don't screw up the work I have done



its the haziness under the window and to the right of the window



and after buffing and polishing





same spot after the work

 

[Red77]

Thank you again for the amazing amount of detail you are recording here Bob. While paint and body is still several years away for me, planting the seeds of how to do it right and having such a detailed tutorial to follow is at least a million times better than any of the books and articles I have read on the subject thus far. Just another reason I love this forum!

 

[bobs77vet]

I am glad its helping.

i had to break out the 3" DA tonight just too many small spots that interfere with buffing

its really good for the small curved areas





and I now know why the one side of the top pillar posts are pushed down.....its the only way to buff that angle




I also got one complete polishing in with the softest pad....just need to repeat it one more time to make sure I didn't miss anything then the doors go on.

 

[bobs77vet]

busy day today...

painted boot prop rod black



my son and I made end caps, mine will be removable for inspection purposes, I also made my internal inner sill supports be parallel to the frame so you can look from one end to the other. still need to be painted












tried my hand at making a rivet split tool....I am not sure I was successful....








these are a PITA to do.....this will be done during the week one panel at time with a brewski

polished the car for the last time


lets get the doors on

I am not going to sand the rocker sill to much scuffing so I am going to leave all the clear coat on it

lets buff it before the door rough fit

 

[bobs77vet]

boot prop rod installed





boot installed...you can tighten the bolts from the inside, so aligning is easier





final buffing




I may be able to close this up some more


how I finally did the split rivets


a shaft for under the rivets held in the vise

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

It's a trunk, not a boot.... just like it's football, not girly-soccer.

 

[bobs77vet]

bonnet, boot, hood, spanner, whitworth its just all part of the charm.....

goal for this weekend is to have all fenders on......so i need to wrap up some loose ends

so lets paint the end caps and while i am at it the hand crank



it was strange i wiped down the hand crank with lacquer thinner to see it had been painted with some thing else over the last 50 years and no lacquer paint color came off, which is usually a sign it has some other paint on it....lacquer paint is temperamental this way and it prefers to only go over lacquer or a good primer sealer ..so i sanded/scuffed it primed it then used a primer sealer and took a chance i wouldn't have a paint incompatibility issue





it doesn't look like i have any issues with paint incompatibility on the hand crank. i am pleasantly surprised.

 

[bobs77vet]

my son and I popped the door off and swapped the hinges and it made all the differences, I did stamp the hinges for P and D , but forgot to stamp a top and bottom mark.
if you look closely you can see the difference in the two halves of the same hinge



the one on the left has a slight twist in it



and the alignment with out us trying to do anything to improve it.

 

[bobs77vet]

some quick work this am in preparation for putting fenders on

drill out a hole



drilled and touched up


end caps drill holes touched up, drill shavings vacuumed out




end caps in place

 

[bobs77vet]

fender install day

mark fender piping for holes





started out with a gasket punch but by the end I was using the box cutter only



I am not sure who that old man is but that's what I was doing fitting the piping. on a coupe it changes direction there and is horizontal




it is good to have sons



so all fenders and piping is in, need to tune up the doors and the right front fender fit









and all tucked in for the night

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

looking good, when is the body/frame marriage happening?

 

[bobs77vet]

looking good, when is the body/frame marriage happening?

well on this car the interior headliner has to go in first, then the vinyl for the dash board then the windows, and the dash, and main wiring harness.......then it can go on the frame


so that should take me a little while to get it right, there is not much to the interior, but it has to be done right, so maybe early next calendar year.

 

[bobs77vet]

today was as big of a day......we collapsed tent city frame and I cleaned up and packed away all the painting gear.

well we did all that after I painted the shut face panel and the front parking light backing rings. the backing rings will get epoxy glued in place.. just didn't get the ordering sequence right on that one. I was thinking of making my own but when I ordered the seat belt install kit it was so easy to hit the easy button on that one,

 

[SuperBuickGuy]

looking good, when is the body/frame marriage happening?

well on this car the interior headliner has to go in first, then the vinyl for the dash board then the windows, and the dash, and main wiring harness.......then it can go on the frame


so that should take me a little while to get it right, there is not much to the interior, but it has to be done right, so maybe early next calendar year.

I've been in the process on my FJ40 to determine when, in the order of events, the body should be mounted to the frame; so it was more then just idle curiosity

 

[bobs77vet]

I've been in the process on my FJ40 to determine when, in the order of events, the body should be mounted to the frame; so it was more then just idle curiosity

the trick is to try and find how the factory did it. and follow their lead

 

[bobs77vet]

well had a quick 30 mins before dinner to do some work, not really enough time to address this but its moving it in the right direction

the radiator duct panel does not really have good access to buff and that raised X is just asking to get too much attention



sanded by hand lightly, this area got lots of over spray from the engine bay and from the front shroud, probably needs to be sanded again



and a quick buffing with an orange cutting pad and 85 and then followed with 84 and a softer pad.....still needs some more love




I don't need perfection but it needs to be a bit smoother

 

[bobs77vet]

spent some more time on the radiator duct valance






I have a bag of new nuts and bolts for the frame and trying to figure out where everything goes is giving me ahead ache

so lets start putting them where they belong



assembled front extension