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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - wheel arch liners

Hi all,
Have completed all the welding on my midget project, which is currently upside down on a spit.
I have been looking at the wheel arches and worrying about a recurrence of the dreaded tinworm..
So, I am wondering whether to make some wheel arch liners out of fibreglass. This should be easy given that the arches are upside down. I was thinking of making the liners using the arches as templates and then attaching them with selftapers with 1/4 inc spacers to allow air to circulate between the liner and the arch..
What do you think?
tim
T Dafforn

I think it is a good idea.

I made some copper ones, painted black, out of an old hot water cylinder that was no longer required having changed to a combination boiler.

Easy to work with and non rusting.

I wanted to avoid drilling or screwing,(or riveting- ye gods!), to fix them so I made up a set of sliding clamp things to hold them in place along with an existing threaded hole under each wing-I don't know what it's original use was.

Seem to work OK.
JB Anderson


Tim,

My dad made a pair of front wheelarch liners out of flexible black plastic sheet he found - stops all the crud getting up and around the splash shields and stuff at the front. Don't have the car here today, but if I remember, I'll take a pic tomorrow for you...I think it's a good idea, cost next to nothing and does the trick.
MarkH1

I would love to see some pictures of these various creations please. I have liners in my MGB and they are great, but I've never seen them on a Midget. Since I am building one at the moment with a Heritage shell, it would seem the correct thing to do.
Mike Howlett

Agree with Mike. Any pictures warmly welcomed as scrubbing clean the wheel arches is using time which could be spent more effectively - like having a beer!

Jeremy
Jeremy 3

Here's how I did it if you can decypher the pictures.
I used the block and screw approach to prevent the need for drilling, and they have been on for 10 years without any problems.

You put the liners into position then slide the blocks outwards to trap the wing flange, or return edge, between the block and the liner. Then tighten the screw.The other bolt to the existing screwed hole in the body is important.

The rear liner for the front arch is just bolted to the existing mud flap with an extra brace.


JB Anderson

Sorry to be the downer.
But if i ever was to go out and buy a car and found it had liners i'd run away as fast as i can!

It just sounds to much like oversills or what ever.

What is against an extra layer of underseal and a weekly blast with the washer hose ???

Any place you bring in an extra layer is a place crud can and will get traped
Onno Könemann

Sorry onno.

I know you hate this but agian i have to agree with you...i dont like the idea ....id think these covers would act as a.shelve or a crevis for the tin worm to hide and breed....like onno..spray an extra coating of rubber sealer
Prop

I've also thoughts liners would be a great idea. It's not just the mud, but all the stones and chippings which are flung up against the paintwork damaging it, that lets the rust in. As long as they aren't fastened too tight to retain water they should be fine. If they can be removed easily to check whats behind then whats the problem? All modern cars have them.
Tarquin

Agreed, if I was buying a car with them in place, I would take them off to check behind.

However if your car is as perfect as you can get it and fit liners yourself and know what you do with your car and the conditions it has been driven in, then liners are a way of protecting what you have.

I took mine off a few months ago to check underneath, and didn't get round to putting them back but after a few weeks I did put them back on as I felt the car was almost naked without them.

If you have them they are an asset, if you don't like them don't use them.

It seems daft to me to allow all sorts of crud to be thrown up under your nice heritage arches when it can be prevented, and it is only takes minutes to take them off to check behind them if you need to.

Another of those personal choice things.
JB Anderson

What happens if your liners get covered in mud, how do you protect them?! Sounds like an overgrown prophylactic to me. You lot are far too sensible.
S G Macfarlane

Thanks JB,

makes perfect sense. I've been having a good clearout and have discovered the plastic undertray from my (long gone but not forgotten) Alfa 156. It looks ideal material to make a couple of liners from, something for the weekend then.
Jeremy
Jeremy 3

If simply clipped to the radius of the front wheel arch as seems to be described by JB Anderson, I think that there would be real clearance issues with the wheels. Well on my car there would be! The liners would need to be formed to a shape that would fit much higher up into the wheel arch than that.

I wonder if one could find plastic liners in a scrapyard from something like a fiesta that could be modified to fit?
Guy

What's wrong with a good quality stonechip, paint and some waxoyl or equivalent? Don't really get the wheelarch liner thing. I respect people'a own choices however.
Neil K

Some Bs come with them fitted already and I like the idea as they protect stuff such as headlamp bowls, indicator units (and the associated wiring & connections) and stop cr*p splattering all over my nice new paint. I wish they had been fitted to the original shell, it may have lasted that little bit longer (apart from the rusted out floor, sills, A posts, rear wings and valance, spring hangers, doors, bonnet and bootlid of course...)

Jeremy


Jeremy 3

Hi Guys,
Thanks for the input..
I agree, if I was buying a car and there were liners alarm bells would ring! However I like the idea of protecting all the nice welding I have done.
In terms of trapping stuff between the liner and the metal, I plan on spacing one from the other by 3 or 4 mm.
Anyhow, spent yesterday making the liners out of fibreglass. Seems to have worked well.
Tried to take photo's but are not V photogenic..
Cheers
Tim
T Dafforn

Has anyone used truck bedliner in the wheel arches? That seems like it would be a good way to protect those areas from chipping or rusting. That assumes the bedliner is put onto new or perfectly clean paint. It seems that if it holds up in a pickup truck bed it would hold up just as well inside of the wheel wells.
Paul Noeth

Good point about the headlamp bowl etc, for those who use their midget in all weathers and road conditions, there is some serious crap that gets flung up into all those little crevices, never mind the continuous soaking if it is raining when you're driving. I would rather that go onto some liners which could be easily removed for checking behind. As long as they aren't welded on then why would anyone be alarmed at their presence?
Tarquin

Crud will get stuck behind them.

But do what ever you want
I for one will never fit them
Onno Könemann

all modern cars have them, for the obvious benefits of preventing crud being caught anywhere against the body work

minis need them very much (a couple of notorious mud traps in their fenders/a-pillars)

the Midget is pretty good to start with, having the "mud guards" already, left over from the frog eye days

the challenge, since no one has seen fit to make a mold to properly form them (vacuum form polypropylene, very cheap, very slippery material so things don't stick), is that using something that isn't formed to fit our wheel well might cause issues already mentioned: tire clearance, leave gaps that would catch crud, instead of deflecting crud, and stuff like that.

The up side is that if anyone with a vacuum forming machine wanted to, they could make a mold pretty easily, and go into business selling them.

Interestingly, even though doing so would be only a modest investment (I've worked with vacuum forming before - I bet a part could be put into production for less than $5k, for someone who has access to one), no one has seen fit to do so. There were some marketed for the mini, some years ago, but not any more, though folks talk about it frequently (lots of rust drives one's mind to ideas of "prevention of re-occurrence").

Properly done, they would look like they were always there, and other cars, without them, would look, "naked".

Norm
Norm Kerr

They were very popular for MGBs back in the eighties, ISTR.

I think they went under the name of 'Camello' or some such.
Dave O'Neill 2

I have had them on two MGBs and thoroughly recommend them. They are still available for the MGB but not for the Midget. People who say crud will get stuck behind them don't know what they are saying. Installed correctly, there is no way road dirt will get past them.

I took them off after several years use just to see what was happening beneath, and the area above the shield was as clean as the day I installed them. No rubbish piled up on top of the headlamp bowl. No corrosion on the back of the sidelight unit. No crud on top of the "trumpet" section at the back of the MGB wing. No crud means no holding of wetness, which means minimal chance of corrosion.

The part of the Midget front wing area that concerns me is the handy aperture at the rear of the arch which allows rain and mud to be forced into the slot between the front wing and the top of the sill. If I do nothing else I shall find a way to seal that off. But if somebody made a suitable liner I would buy a pair like a shot.
Mike Howlett

This thread was discussed between 25/04/2011 and 28/04/2011

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

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