Friday 27 June 2014

Doors:
The n/s door is in very good condition, but the o/s door, is not only rust but a very bad fit,. it has had a bottom replacement, and skin, but this has rusted out, and I think it was a Roadster door converted for the GT, which is a bad idea, because the latch mounting is recessed on the Roadster, so the latch will never be smooth.
Managed to get a nice second hand drivers door from the MG breakers yard in Chichester.


This is a good technique for removing a siezed hinge bolt.

  

 Rightly or wrongly, I have decided to weld up the door lock holes, to give the car a cleaner look, this will of course mean the fitting of a remote locking kit later on.


In an attempt to get really good door gaps, I intend to build up gaps that are too large with 3mm round steel rod. I have cut away the door edge and will weld in the rod to give me a perfect door gap, this will be repeated in several places around the doors.  

 I was not happy with the fit of the n/s door, it sticks out at the bottom rear corner. It was flush at the front edge and also at the top rear of the door, I tried all the adjustments at the hinges but that only put the problem elsewhere, I also tried to twist the door using some angle iron bolted to the inside of the door, but could not improve it much. So I decided on major surgery!
 I cut a slot in the bottom of the door frame, starting near the front of the door and going just round the rear corner. I then clamped the door to close up the gap.
I welded the join in a few places and test fitted the door, once I was happy I seam welded the join fully. This pulled the bottom of the door in a couple of millimeters, just enough to improve the fit of the door. 
Probably not very clear in this image, but the door gaps are now fairly even.


 My initial hope of keeping the tailgate, didn't happen, as on close inspection it has some rust on the aperture seams and around the edge, once rust gets into these seams you cant really remove it, so I managed to source a rust free used tailgate on ebay.

I test fitted the new tailgate, very happy with it, I also fitted some new telescopic gas struts.

I sent the door latches away to have them re instated with Zinc plating and yellow chromate colouring, as per the original finish.