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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Rust again!!

Hi,

Decided to have a good poke around my midget yesterday. A few nasties I'm afraid. The bottom 1.5 inches of the driver's side A post is rusted out, there is a hole in the sill bottom just to the front of the rear mud guard and a rusted out gash beside one of the rear bumper mounts. everything else seems okay but I know the old story about what lurks beneath.

If I want to repair the A post, do I have to remove the wing and where can I find directions on how to do it? I can't weld so could I get a repair section and use metal bonding agent or is welding the only option for all these problems?

Would it be better to just enjoy driving the car and get things done bit by bit as I can afford them. I mean if the car has lasted 30 years surely it will last a few more!

Thanks for any advise
W Headon

As long as it's roadworthy I would use it for the Spring/Summer and Autumn, do any repairs when you can't use the car.

All repair panels are available.

Mark.
M T Boldry

Agree with Mark, if you start pulling it apart now you'll spend al the good weather time working on it and then have it ready for the winter!
The Moss catalogue is a useful place to start for seeing how thigs are attached and I think it's free?

Jeremy
Jeremy 3

ignorance is bliss
never start messing with it right before driving season
Onno Könemann

Onno. Quite true.

This car belongs to my neighbour. 2 days of work just to do this one bit of "light surface rust".


rob thomas

.then......


rob thomas

.....followed by bending and hammering this lot....


rob thomas

....and welding it all in (plus a few minutes of careful filling and painting.)

The car looked absolutely fine until he decided to poke around with a screwdriver to see just how well it was restored by the previous owner.


rob thomas

yup and i dont think i would stick it together with anything but welding. Buy a wee mig welder, go to your local college for a lesson in welding. did and have since restored a VW camper and my Midget. Save a fortune too.
I Hamilton

I dont know...Rob seems to have done a pretty good job with a dozen self tappers there....


(joke!)
Dean Smith ('73 RWA)

Yeah, grind the heads down and stuff a layer of filler over 'em to stop the screws winding out!




Bonding agent it fine for anything not structural ( However, I bonded the Lenham body onto my Midget with Sikaflex) but you need weld if there will be any stresses. The hinge panel gets a lot of wobble over the years. Get the wing off during the winter and clean off the grot. A competent welder ought to have a new skin and bottom hinge on in a couple of hours, although, ususally these jobs turn into a jumbo rust-a-thon as you keep having to cut back to good steel.
rob thomas

Thanks to everyone for your replies. I decided today that I would rather know what I'm up against so I went around the car tapping everywhere with a flat head screwdriver. I looked everywhere I could for rot and I'm happy to say I found nothing else. The rest of the sills seemed very strong and I was able to jack up the car under the sills with no worries what so ever so hopefully it's not too bad in there. The weak point on one of the sills is to the front of the rear wheel arch which itself seems solid. This particular area has a drain hole and the area around the hole is weak.
So hopefully there's no emergency case here and maybe just a bit of replacement metal in this area would do the trick.
I think I'll drive the car for the summer and maybe deal with what ever nasties are there during the winter.
W Headon

Compared to my car you have essentially nothing to worry about. If i were to get all the rust off of my car id have to do a complete tear down and restoration.
feel lucky.
Seth Brecklin

This thread was discussed between 18/04/2010 and 19/04/2010

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