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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - How high is the tide on your underseal?!

Evening all, hope you are all well.

Again making good progress on my shell, wifey to be is away this weekend so spent the whole day in the garage, working away with Test Match Special on in the background :-D

I am almost reaching a point where I will be able to start putting underseal on large portions of the underneath. I was wondering how far up I should go with the underseal. I thought I would paint the floor and wheel arches (obviously)... then maybe the chassis legs too just for extra protection... then the gear box tunnel... but if I am going that far I may as well do all the "unseen" areas...

Where do people draw the line? Does it look crap if you paint all the under bonnet black?! I don't want it to look crap (obv.) but I don't want to skimp on rust protection either!

Cheers for your opinions everyone,

Malcolm.
Malcolm Le Chevalier

Malcolm, it gets runny again if it gets warm or oil or petrol get on it so be careful how far you go. (My oily underside is rather messily black when working underneath like at the moment.
I have done all as you have done plus chassis rails. My remaining front and rear skirt and nearside sill are undersealed as PO did it. Remember MoT man cannot scrape off underseal to inspect further so that could explain some peoples love affair with it.

Planning to waxoyl all cavities this summer and it would be easy if my body was stripped like yours so suggest you do that as well now.
Dave Squire (1500)

what underseal are you planning to use? If you spray it with professional bodyshutz you can spray body colour on top of it (and it won't melt or run). You definitely don't want anything other than body paint in the engine bay.
David Smith

If undersealing, do make sure you have a really good waterproof paint finish on first, to protect the metal. If you don't, then rust will spread and the underseal will just serve to trap the damp. My preference would be to colour coat the whole of the underside with stone chip first. And then just underseal the wheel arches.
Guy W

Times two Guy.

The midget I bought was covered head to toe in ziebart underseal, including the inside of the bonnet, the entire boot AND the insides of the floor pans - front to back. This didn't stop the rust in ALL the usual places. Where there were splits/cracks/gaps in the ziebart, the water got below it and happily rusted the surface of the metal. In fact the underseal probably made it worse, because the surface couldn't dry out so easily.
Lawrence Slater

Yeah, I have had similar issues with everything covered in a semi-dry gunky black horrid stuff!

I have a couple of tins of Eastwood rubberised rust encapsulator. It costs a few bob, stinks to high heaven and is full of epoxy goodness so hoping it works well.

Done fuel tank in it already and it dries without staying sticky and seems pretty tough. Bit of a prop moment but might do the boot etc in it....

Malcolm
Malcolm Le Chevalier

Hmmm..

Rhino linner !!!

If I ever redo my car... id do the inside of.the tunnel, the engine bay, the wheel wells the tranny tunnel, the boot, the entire bottom and all the rest of the hidden areas

I just love the stuff...seals it, and protects it and acts as a sound deadner....you can have water sitting on the foot wells for 5 years and not a lick of rust....just make sure its rust free before you spray the rhino linner on

Prop
Prop and the Blackhole Midget

This thread was discussed between 10/08/2013 and 12/08/2013

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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