Classic cars forum & vehicle restoration.

[smiffy220]

My uncle has a 55 MGA (not twin cam) sitting in his garage looking almost as sorry as those in these early pics! It's been there about 35 years so far, he still reckons he'll get around to it one day!! Shame I think.
Glad to see this one making progress.
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Born to rally, forced to work!

1980 Opel Manta 2.0 SR Berlinetta
1934 Morris Cowley Four (my late fathers)

[ukdave2002]

Well keeping that long will have been a better investment than most, MGA's soome to be fetching high premiums these days, which is also seems to be reflected in the new and used cost of parts, as i have found to my expence!

I'm hoping to get some paint on mine this week end. The body has taken me much longer to get straight than anticipated (like most jobs !!) the wings on the off side of the car just were not the right shape, they had been knocked about so much over the years then crudley roughed out and filled. Its also amazing how many little dents there are all over the body that I had never noticed (The car sat in a scrap yard in the US for a number of years, so I suspect it had stuff plonked on top of it) In a way I'm glad I didn't pay someone to sort it out, as I suspect I would have thought they were ripping me off!

I'll post some pic's of the progress.

Dave

[ukdave2002]

As mentioned the body took much more effort than I had anticipated to get straight, it would have probably have been much quicker to have sprayed a few coats of 2K high build primer and flatten rather than skim. The rear end was the worst, as the boot floor sits about mid way up the metal in the pic , so its difficult to get a dolly or spoon behind the metal to shape it.



I treated the hole car to a coat of phosphoric acid prior to putting any paint on, the "black" shade probably indicates this was a good move!



Finally got a coat of etch primer on the whole body, I have never painted a whole car like his before, its taught me a few lessons, like planning in advance how to paint the area's that it’s physically impossible to get the srpay gun close too!



The body looks good , but then they always do in primer!
next step is a coat of high build, that should fill the pitted areas, then a guide coat.

Dave

[Rick]

Interesting to see the progress Dave I think tackling it in-house was definitely the way to go with this one...

RJ
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[buzzy bee]

Hi

Looking a bit different to when we shifted it from the garden!

Great to see.

Cheers

Dave

[ukdave2002]

And the tub finished in Old English White... getting there slowly!

[buzzy bee]

Looking Grand!

[Rich5ltr]

Watching this with interest, the MGA was my first love having had a ZA Magnette as my first car an A was my first sports car. Would up having 3 of them including a Twin Cam. I rebuilt one in Old English White so I rather like this!

[ukdave2002]

Not posted on this thread for a while things got delayed as I spent a lot of time on the Stag, and brought the Z van back to life

So I have been working on the MGA wings; all 4 of them had minor accident damage and corrosion at the bottom.The MGA had lived in the USA for most of its life, accident repairs over the pond seemed to consist of using a sledge hammer to rough out the dent, then, use the same sledge hammer to knock all the metal back, finally apply as many inches of filler as necessary!!! So much of the time fixing the wings has been heat shrinking the metal and getting it back to the original shape, then applying a skim of filler/ stopper to get it perfect.

The double curves of the MGA lovely as they are, are really difficult to get right, I recon I have spent about 7 days on each wing!!!... anyway today was spent putting the primer on, 2K high build, that will allow me to do a final compound before the top coat goes on.



Fingers crossed I'll get the colour on tomorrow and then just have the doors, bonnet and boot to sort out!

Dave

[hepcat]

[ukdave2002]

Finally got all 4 wings straight and painted...I'm using all the original wings, they all had corrosion damage on the lower, all had had dings that had been fixed in the 60's by hammering all the damage in and filling with filler in one case 2" of the stuff the car had been in a scrap yard for 20 years, all the panels were peppered with small dents. So after a lot of heat shrinking and panel beating I got them straight enough to need just a few thou skim of filler, and a couple of coats of high build primer.

Probably created an extra dent for every 2 dents I fixed!, but I find shaping metal quite therapeutic .

As ever panels look perfect when in primer!



After painting got some very mild orange peel on the vertical parts of the front wing; this will compound out



Rears were pretty much perfect, slight run on the o/s again it will cut out when fully hard. Sneaked them in to the house to speed final curing up!



Looking at the pics the colours look very different when the pics are taken with the florescent lamps in the workshop, hope it is just the florescent lamps!

Next week end I'll get them on the car, and start to paint the doors , bonet & boot.

[JC T ONE]

Looking GOOD some progress you made.

be sure to get plenty of wax oil into all cavaties / beams / hidden space / and seams / etc ,
as the acid dipping has removed all the original factory paint/primer.
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[ukdave2002]

[ukdave2002]

Finally got some etch primer on the doors. They were a real pig to strip and de rust the frames, the skins are aluminium so they couldn't be dipped at the same time I had the other panels pickled.



The mottling is filler on the skins where I brought them up as they were low, I don't have the confidence to heat shrink aluminium !! so most of the high spots that had stretched the metal became low spots!

Plan is to get some high build 2k primer on tomorrow.

Dave

[ukdave2002]

All panels are now painted, so today I began reassembly, MGA's are renown to be a pig when it come's to getting panel gap and alignment right, and this car is no exception!...I managed to pretty good gaps prior to painting, perhaps painting the panels off the car was not the correct approach ? That said I was able to get waxoyl into places that would have been difficult with the panels fitted.



The seats have just been rebuilt by a local firm, I only had the frames!, upholstery is one of the few things that I wont tackle!!



Dave