Spit roast ‘B
Well, the MGB restoration has begun. I decided that it would be a good idea to buy a rotisserie for the shell to go on, to make sorting the underside much easier. There are loads of these available ready-made, on the Internet, for reasonable prices, too. They’re quite simple to bolt together – the tricky part is lifting the car up high enough to mount it to the brackets! Three of us successfully managed to do it in the end, first of all lifting the rear end into place, with the help of some large blocks and a trolley jack. Once that was up, we did the same with the front end, and then raised the legs of the spit so that the car was high enough to be turned completely. While it was still a bit of a faff to get the car into place, it wasn’t as difficult as we envisaged. The bare shell isn’t too heavy and can be lifted with relative ease by four or five people.
With the car mounted safely, the first job was to assess what to do with the underside. The car had been completely painted in primer in the past, and some parts of the underside had been painted in some sort of chassis paint. As I’m restoring the car to use, and not as a show-car, I decided the best stuff to use would be award-winning Rustbuster Epoxy Mastic 121, as featured in CM a little while back. Ideally this should be painted direct to metal, but as the primer had adhered to the metal so well, I decided to leave it as it was, and just go over everything with a wire wheel on a drill to key the surface.
I also decided to remove the front wings to check the condition of the inner wings. The wings are attached with a row of bolts down the bonnet gutter, some at the bottom flange which sits against the sill, some on the leading edge, and five which are accessed from inside the car. It’s a good job I did take the wings off, as I discovered the beginnings of some rot that will have to be
I’ll use a compressor and air gun to fill the inaccessible box sections
sorted out before the car is painted. Thankfully that is genuinely the only area that I’ve found requiring attention due to rot… so far.
Painting the underside is an easy, and almost enjoyable job, with the car mounted on the spit. No paint in the hair, no flakes of rusty metal or dust dropping down into your eyes. It’s definitely the best £150 I’ve spent in a good while. The Epoxy Mastic 121 went on very well, and looks great. I decided to put on a couple of coats, just to make sure that every area was covered well. I will be using a compressor and air gun to fill the inaccessible box sections, to ensure that everywhere is as well protected as possible.
There are a few jobs to do before the car goes away to be painted: cutting the hole for the Britax vinyl roof (gulp!), sorting out the couple of small areas of rot, and a few other odd jobs. Once the shell is away being painted, I will be getting the mechanical side of things sorted out. I’m still undecided what I want to do with the engine – it will almost certainly need a rebore, but I’m not sure what state of tune to build it up to.
A new business venture, along with the need for further funds to get on with this project means that the Hawk, at the very least, is going to have to go. Most people would call me mad for selling a Stratos replica that I’ve put so much time and effort into, to fund an MGB project, but there we go!