MG Car Club of South Australia
vinyl I had—got lucky with the match—
could,t tell the difference.
Right hand side window glass scratched
badly—I reckon that the window runner
channels weren,t adjusted properly, and
the window was rubbing on the outer
seal mounting rivets.
New rubbers around the ¼ vent win-
dows, as well as new ¼ vent hinges and
clasps and brackets.
Any chrome work that was replaced was
due to pitting and bubbles beginning to
appear, due to old age.
I guess chrome work doesn,t last for-
ever, but at least it lasted for it,s first fifty
years!!.
Bought new head lamps—upped the
wattage a bit hope it doesn,t overpower
the electrical system….
Also had to buy new headlamp “ buck-
ets”—they weren,t the same for both
sides, and were rusty. Also had to buy
new headlamp mounting rings—also
rusty and bent out of shape. New mount-
ing screws as well and new headlamp
wiring looms.
New tail light rims. Chrome work dull,
pitted and falling off.
New front indicator surrounds and
lenses—all rusty—I,m surprised that they
worked at all!!
New front mudguard splashguard seals,
loose and falling apart.
“ We “ had a small backing up accident
sometime in the past, which caused the
rear bumper to distort and damage the
rear panel under the boot lid. Backed
into another “ modern” car in a car park,
reported it to the other car owner who
claimed damages to have his car re-
paired. All ok, except when the claim
was ok,d and went through the R * *,we
found that they had revalued our little
Emmy down to about ½ what we had
insured the car for, so now we insure it
with Shannons!!
So—I took the rear bumper off—no dam-
age to that, and proceeded to repair the
dents in the back of the car. A little bit of
dent knocking, a little bit of bog to level
off, some filler, undercoat, base coat
and clear top finish made it look like new
again—but not before discovering that
someone else had done the exact same
thing, sometime in the past!!
Cleaned up the inside of the bumper,
painter it with aluminium rust preventa-
tive paint, and put it back on again—did
the same with the front bumper. New
bumper overrider rubbers on both
bumpers as well.
The paint work on the car didn,t look
too bad, but there were some stone
chips in the obvious places, like the bon-
net and along the side sills, so I decided
to give it a paint job, with acrylic liqueur.
Off I went to get some Champion red,
but found it difficult to acquire, so I
bought 4 litres of Holden Sting Red, and
added a darker shade of red to it to
bring the brightness down a bit—
somewhere near the original colour—a
bit brighter, but looks pretty good, now
that it,s finished. Must admit that I had
some problems with the paint not adher-
ing in some places. On one spot I found
that I had to rub the paintwork way down
to below the original paint job, It seemed
that the under coat that they used had
deteriated, which caused the original top
coat to lift off the undercoat. I had to fill
over the top of the undercoat with a filler
putty, then undercoat again, before
starting the process of base coating,
which took several rub downs and re-
coats, until the funny paint difference
rings disappeared.
Now that the car restoration process has
finished, it does look very nice—all new
and shiny again, maybe not to con-
course standards, but will do us.
Chris and Sue Thomson
MGB Mk 1 RMW-789.
36
05/10/2019.