MG-Cars.net

Welcome to our resource for MG Car Information.

Recommendations

Parts

MG parts spares and accessories are available for MG T Series (TA, MG TB, MG TC, MG TD, MG TF), Magnette, MGA, Twin cam, MGB, MGBGT, MGC, MGC GT, MG Midget, Sprite and other MG models from British car spares company LBCarCo.

MG MGB Technical - About to cut it in half

O.k. by now many know that my 79 is not salvagable as is. My plan is to shorten it by the amount that exists behind the seats. The result will be that the seats will reside as far back as possible. The doors will be welded shut and the tops of the doors sealed instead of the windows. The will be no roof.
Now my question.. where to make the cut. I have looked it over a few times. Measure twice, cut once. Someone cut and extended a B once. So it can be done.
kids1

An interesting idea!! However, be aware that you will be playing havoc with steering and the handling will probably be wicked and vicious to say the least (shortened wheelbase etc)!! Don't know about where you are but in Australia this would never be allowed to be registered on the road! Personally I don't think you will appreciate the end result once you try and use it!
regards
mark
mark

I'm presuming the problem you're refering to is rust in the rockers, perhaps in the floor and tunnel as well.
If you're going to go to all that trouble, almost seems like you could just get the patch panels and fix it up. It's actually not too bad a job, and if you do it one bit at a time, you don't have to worry about ending up with a car out of square. And the new panels are very reasonable compared to comparable parts for a new car.

The trick is that if you're going to cut to shorten, you'd want to do it in the front below the door hinges. If you look where the seats normally are relative to the door opening, that space behind the seats is inside the rear pillar, which presumably you'd want to keep. So you need to take the piece in the middle, and be prepared to shorten the driveshaft, patch or redo the wiring, and rerun the brake lines.

Steve

Steve Aichele

I want the seats to be back as far as possible. In fact, I want to move them to where the battery compartment area is. I will simply remove the cross piece and the rear deck. Then I would extend the floor and seats back. Shortening the car would bring the dash back to the correct distance from the new seat location.

I understand the handling thing but.. I also plan to remove the front end body completely (including bumper) and support the radiator in a shell like a deuce. It should become a blast for short sprints to the grocery etc. It may be hard to explain the new look but once finished I plan to post pics.

kids1

You'll do irreparable harm to the strength of the body by 'simply' removing the cross piece and rear deck. Those 2 'simple' parts give much of the strength to the body, especially torsional strength. It'll be a flexi flyer with atrocious if not dangerous handling because of the very short wheelbase. Put your time and energy and money into some other ideas or simply do what is necessary to restore the car. All those hot rods had frames under them unlike the MGB. You simply can't cut off major sections of a car and expect it to be safe.
Mike MaGee

Look at the front hangars for the rear leaf spring. That would be the ultimate limit for shortening the car. The drive shaft as it gets shorter exagerates the angles - even with careful alignment etc, the u-joint life would be quite limited and could cause vibration. The battery boxes could be removed or you could put the seats up high on top of the battery boxes. The distance occupied by the batteries is the max length that could be deleted -- 10" ??
Barry
Barry Parkinson

ASking so many questions you seem unsure of how to proceed. This being the case don't do it, lengthening is quite different from shortening and the dangers of this have been well detailed above.
Save your time and don't waste your money, either restore the car to its original condition with proper parts which are freely available, break it up and sell the spares or put the whole lot in the crusher. I can hear the moans but that would be a far more dignified death than converting it into something more resembling a roller skate.
Iain MacKintosh

Does anybody remeber the fad from the sixties and early seventies, where a VW van was separated and shortened by the width of it's side door? Now there was a vehicle with extremely poor handling and a CG that was downright frightening. They were popular, though, because they made a statement. The owner was following the "different drummer" coolness route, while most of us who had to share the road's statement was "(expletive deleted) what was he thinking?" A few of these automotive abortions survive to this day, because most states have very lenient, or no requirements that severely modified vehicles meet some sort of safety criteria. In this vein, I would suggest that the shortened MGB project be shelved indefinitely. There have been some interesting MGB modifications done and exhibited on these pages, but they appear to be well thought out and for the most part, quite a bit more costly to achieve than a normal refurbishemnt. My feeling is that Kids1 has a car he'd like to do something with, without spending much money, yet end up with a roadable and unique vehicle. Can't really have it both ways.
R. L Carleen

It would help to know where your rust is - that is, what you want to cut out. However, from a layman's point of view, the most important structural members seem to be the sills, front and rear bulkheads and (two) crossmembers under the transmission.

From that standpoint, your shortening would want to be outside the bulkheads. Either that or do the old Meyers' Manx thing. Cut out a strip of floor (and sill and side panels) about 12" front to back, wide as the entire width of the car, and weld the rest back together. I wonder if you could strip out the section between the back of the seat rails and the front of the bulkhead that way. You'd have sort of the worst of both worlds between B and midget, wouldn't you?

Matt Kulka

You may want to consider dropping in a supercharged 454 chevy motor with a narrowed 9 inch Ford positraction rearend and a set of the widest slicks you can fit. Steering wouldn't really be an issue as the front wheels would be off the ground most of the time the car is in motion. Downside is that you could only drive it on very straight roads.
Tony

Kids, despite the comments above, it is yours do with as you wish, but perhaps a cheaper alternative that retains the look your after would be to place the entire chopped MGB tub onto one of the many custom hot rod chassis that are available in the USA. Or even just make a fibreglass skin using your existing MGB tub as a mold then go the way of the f/glass chopped model T hotroders and use proprietry hot rod suspension and drive gear available everywhere,
regards
mark
mark

What I have is not a rusted B but a B that has wrecked panels. How long (how many miles) the car lasts is not the point of the project. I think it will last long enough if done correctly to enjoy for awhile. And isn't the work the point, not the result?
I think I will retain as much floor as possible and cut the rest. This would leave floor material attached to the front which can slide back into the area currently under the battery boxes. Then the rest of the rear can be enclosed from floor to rear bulk with a vertical panel. I will avoid the area where the leaf springs attach as noted before. I agree that structure is priority one.
Thanks for the notes, encouraging or not; both are helpful before starting. Once I make the cut, there is no looking back.
kids1

Tony, I enjoyed your sarcastic sinicizm (sp?) but truth be told, my plan is to run a custom header and exhaust out the side and back on the left side to give the exhaust the look of the track roadster. Since it currently has a weber progressive, I will put an agressive looking scoop filter on top and dress the motor. Slicks? Not in FL with the rain slick roads we get. I do plan on tires as wide as possible in the rear and have not decided on the front tires.

Fenders of fenderless? Undecided. I think that decision will be last on the list.
kids1

This thread was discussed between 05/02/2004 and 10/02/2004

MG MGB Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG MGB Technical BBS is active now.