Picking the best bits

John was out of town last weekend, so I played it conservative.  I did a little wire brush grinding on the rust.  I also made use of my new bench grinder to clean some parts.  It takes the surface rust and paint off nicely.  A little spray paint and parts look new.   Below is an air filter housing before anything was done, after being cleaned with the wire wheel, and after one coat of paint.   The final product looks better in person than it does in the third picture. 

I also cleaned the rails for the seats.  Not sure the pictures below (one already cleaned, one not cleaned) show the full before and after effect, but they cleaned up nicely. 

I also went over to Grafton on Tuesday evening to work on the trunk of the primer car.  We had cut a rusty section out of the trunk of the white car, so I needed that same bit from the primer car.  We also need to get everything we need from the primer car so we can get rid of it ASAP.  (Sorry Eliz.)  Below is the hole in the trunk of the white car, then the hole covered by the piece from the primer car.  I gashed it a bit, but it will be an improvement over the rusty section that was there. 

This weekend we spent several hours working here on the white car.  The original goal was to try to put in the motor, but we didn't quite get that done.  John did get the new mounts attached, but that required removing the carburetors. That needed to happen anyway and John is a pro at that job by now.

While he did that, I installed some new hoses.  It is kind of funny to see shinny new hoses in this car.  I also cleaned MANY bolts, washers, and nuts.  After cleaning bolts and nuts I chased the threads to clean them up.  All of the hardware going back on will be clean and easy to work with. 

John also replaced the worn out bushings on the transmission mount.  Apparently MG engineers decided there should be many options for the way it goes together, but John prevailed.  Another key piece is now ready to go.  

We then spent some time disassembling the front suspension.  Every rubber bit is worn out or gone.

Once we got it all apart, we found the shocks weren't working.  Might be a bad shock or might just be out of oil.  The kingpins also move which will cause a clunk when driving.  Given the rust underside of this car, it is hard to know how far to go with repairs.

We initially decided to see what parts of the suspension are good on the primer car and put the best bits on the white car.  Since what we have seen on the white car's suspension so far is not so good, we decided to just use the primer car's suspension as a whole.  Today, we took the suspension off the primer car.  Since it was already unbolted, removal consisted of lowering the floor jack that was holding it up.  We put it in my car and took it to a car wash.  Today it was about 34 degrees and snowing, so it was no shock that we had the wash to ourselves.  A combination of degreaser, simple green cleaner, brushes, high pressure soap, and finally high pressure rinse, and I have a relatively clean (it is an over forty year old car) front suspension. 

We brought the suspension to my house, and loosely attached it to the white car.  It will need to come off again, so loosely attached is good enough for now.  Hopefully shocks and kingpins will be good on this one.  I will start disassembling as time allows this week.  We took the other suspension back to the primer car and called it a day. 

Next weekend will probably be about getting the boat winterized and put away, but I will find some time for MG work.  I am enjoying the process and learning a lot.  The amount of work seems monumental, but it is a project, so I am going to take it one step at a time and enjoy the activity.