On Friday I will have owned this heap of shit for a year would you believe. A full year of it cluttering up my drive. Also happens to be the same day as the start of summer this year. Not sure anyone can believe that given how crap the weather is.
I remember when MikeKnight delivered this and he made the remark that it'll take at least a year to finish. I secretly hoped it'd be done much before that and be ready for this summer. Unfortunately with the house purchase problems, I lost a lot of time idling waiting to move. Incidentally that still is being a absolute nightmare. Three houses in the last two week we've managed to loose out on. Part of the reason why Vulgalore got rid of the car was because he was supposed to move - all of which fell through. Maybe the car is cursed?
Now the MGB is (currently) behaving itself, I need to dedicate more time back on this. Metal work is still the number one priority. Literally zero work has been done on the car since my last post here and this one.
So today I went out while it was still dribbling with rain to start on these rear, rear subframe mounts. Drivers side is present and correct, but very weak. Passenger side has a bit of steel roughly welded in the right place that is completely the wrong shape.
Plan of action today was spend an hour or so in trying to remove the drivers side mount. This will be used as a template to fabricate two new ones.
Pretty crusty as you can see.
The otherside of the boot floor has been welded up by Vulgalore. It appears that he did a very good job and it's very watertight. Shame the water ended up on the wrong side!
5 minutes with the wet vac later gives you an idea of this area. As the mount is double thickness on the floor, I didn't want to cut the boot floor out too.
This bit of cleaning and cutting gave me a chance to use my new toy.
Being typical Makita it's a lovely piece of kit. Biggest difference to my 20quid mains grinders is that it's so much quieter and there is far less vibration through the handle. Still noisy, but a much less harsh noise. Apparently sounds like cutting wood according to Mrs SiC inside. Hopefully less offensive to the neighbours too! (Had no complaints about the metal work as of yet though)
I wizzed over with the wire brush to clean off the underseal and rust, so I could see what I was working with.
Then attacked a side plate. Unsurprisingly (on this car) the plate is over a section that has rotted through. No real concern on this though, as the rest of the boot is solid.
After a bit of cutting, I got the rest of the spot welds/puddle welds off by using a wood chisel and a hammer. Brutal on the chisel but effective in cutting through the steel.
The mount in all its glory.
The mounting area doesn't look too bad to be honest. After going over with a flap disc, this will look alright. However I need to mark down where the subframe bolt locations are, otherwise it will be futile trying to get the subframe back on again.
Still a shite load of work left to do but one step closer. I really ought to invest in a metal folder so I can properly fabricate these brackets. Not sure my old workbench can take too much more hammer and metal bending abuse.