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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Fitting wishbones & a rust hole

Hi all.

Am slowly continuing my semi-rebuild, and have a couple more questions:
1. I have new rubber bushes in the wishbones, but they are being a bit of a pig to fit, I suspect due to the newness of the bushes. Is there any specific technique to doing this that I am missing, or is it down to pure grunt?
2. I found a rust hole. Well actually I made the hole when I poked it with my finger! I don't _think_ it is in a critical area, though it is hard to tell with these monocoque things, so thought I'd best check - see images. What is my best course of action with this?
3. I dropped the fuel tank and attacked it with the wire brush. It's not as bad as I feared in the main, but the seam around the top of the filler side is not great. Opinions on what to do with it are appreciated... image to follow in subsequent posts.

Thanks in advance,
Dave
www.davidhackett.me.uk/midget


DH2

Next photo showing location of rust hole (pointed to by arrow)


DH2

Fuel tank with dubious seam...


DH2

if that rust hole is in the offside rear arch then it's within 30 cm of a suspension pickup point and therefore is an MOT fail so needs fixing.
The tank looks as if it'll be OK once cleaned up and painted. Try to find an industrial black bitumen-based paint.
David Smith

the trick that I found to fitting the wishbones with new rubber onto the chassis was to use a pair of paint scrapers/putty knives/etc and use them to 'shoe-horn' the wishbone in. the rubber can slip on the shiny metal of the scrapers much more easily than the chassis. so you end up with chassis mount, scraper, bubber, wishbone, rubber, scraper and finally chassis again. get one end in first and pop a nail.rod/pen through to stop it falling out and then get the other wishbone arm in. Still needs a fair bit of elbow grease, i seem to recall!

-Craig
C Robertson

Seems a hard work way of doing it. I put just one of each pair of rubber bushes (actually they were Polybushes) into the hole in the wishbone. That is the ones that face up against the small hole in each bracket; from memory that is the rear for the front pivot and the front of the rear pivot. Offer the wishbone up to the bracket and with a slight twisting it slots into place. The second of each pair of bushes just inserts through the larger bracket hole, followed by the stepped washer and pivot pin.
Guy

I have just got the inner (small hole) of the pairs of bushes in place, but it's still a damn tight fit, and I've not managed to get both lined up yet... I even used lube.
I expect that once in and bolted up, they will be a nice fit, but getting over that first hurdle...

Dave
DH2

Guy - I found even with just the two inner bushes in I still struggled to get the wishbone into place - so still needed paint scrapers....see attached pic or

http://www.eatworms.org.uk/mg-midget/projects/74-midget-frontsuspension






Dean Smith ('73 RWA)

Dean,
I think that is a good idea, and next time -if I remember- I will add the paint scrapers. My comment related to Craig's description which implied that he was fitting a pair of bushes into each lug of the A-frame, and then inserting into the chassis bracket.
<<chassis mount, scraper, rubber, wishbone, rubber, scraper and finally chassis again>>
The second of each pair is more easily added later, through the big hole, which I presume from the photo, is how you proceeded.
Guy

Absolutely. Clearly designed to allow you to add the outer bush of each pair through the mount.

Funny, I've never managed to get them out that way though ;-)
Dean Smith ('73 RWA)

I'll give the scraper tip a go - need to go and buy another scraper first!

Any further thoughts on my rust hole greatly appreciated... I'll get my MOT man to pop over and have a look. If it does need to be repaired, is it ok to just weld a patch panel over the top? Anything more than that is going to be major surgery!?

Dave
DH2

you need to get the wire brush and the old screwdriver out and have a real good clean and dig; where there's a bit of rust there will be more. If you ignore it this year then by next year it will be twice as bad (at least).
David Smith

Hi all.

Well I've done some more investigations with my screwdriver - scraping off old underseal is such fun - which has revealed a few more holes, unfortunately :-(

A couple of small ones in the leaf spring front mount boxes, fairly common I expect. I think the most concerning one is up at the top of the triangular shaped box section which you can reach into via the hole next to the spring box - does that make sense?

I'm not sure which repair panels I will need to resolve this one? Is it an entire rear bulkhead?

There are some photos on my website, if anyone has time to take a look, I'd be really grateful (it's not so easy to post multiple photos as attachments): http://www.davidhackett.me.uk/midget

Thanks in advance of further wisdom :-)
Dave
DH2

The hole in the arch is a clean up and weld over, ditto the holes in the section behind the seats (its only a single skin, peel back the carpet to view from above).

Holes in the spring hangers look more like corners in the welded assembly and probably OK.

The hole in your original post is a pig, but mostly because of the access, get a carbide burr in a drill (or better a die grinder) and grind it out before making a small repair panel in a vice.

The US Moss site has a full breakdown of the car which is essential reading (Moss UK used to send this out by mail for free if you asked - worth getting)
Will Munns

e.g. Page 224
http://www.moss-europe.co.uk/SM.aspx
From Sprite and midget Late restoration
Will Munns

Thanks Will.

I don't know why I hadn't thought to look under the carpet on the inside - that would make the job alot easier!

The original hole (now known as "pig") I agree can hopefully be patched, as I discovered that the other side has already had a patch applied many years ago, revealed from beneath the underseal.

I remember the old Moss catalogue from when my dad had one years ago... he may even still have it. Have downloaded it for reference, thanks.

Actually I am local to you, if you have any recommendations for where to take the car for repairs? I've got to get the back onto wheels so it can be moved and taken to be repaired. Have got one friendly garage lined up to take a look.

Dave
DH2

No sign of the rust on the inside of the car - except a new bit found on the floor panel near the seat belt mount on the tunnel on drivers side. In fact, it doesn't appear to be single-skinned here? Though it has clearly had repair panels to the spring boxes before (I knew that anyway).

Once I can win the battle to get it onto its wheels, I can get it down to my friendly garage for them to cut and weld.

Dave


DH2

This thread was discussed between 07/06/2011 and 04/07/2011

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG Midget and Sprite Technical BBS is active now.