A Mostly British Obsession
Valuable, if hard, lessons learned
I got the rear bumper and a few other gubbons on the car today. The bumper doesn’t fit as well as I would hope, but my car did have a fender-bender on the driver’s side in the back at some point in its life. That’s the corner that is being recalcitrant, so it’s probably a mix of slightly wonky bumper and slightly wonky car. The owner is beyond slightly wonky, of course.
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Not much to report–I got the side moldings on, and they look pretty good. As I add pieces to the car I discover all of the places I missed while hand-buffing, so I get to do those, too.
Hope to fettle the front bumper mounting to get it a bit tidier, while adding the overriders back (I’ve decided to go with them) tomorrow, as well as installing the rear bumper. I also hope to get the dash top out (and recover it at home on Saturday). I’m planning on trying my hand installing the windshield on Sunday–the MGB GT windshield is supposed to be extra-fun to install, so I’m looking forward to that!
With or without overriders on the front bumper? Trying to decide, not that it’s a permanent decision.
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Seeing as tomorrow is the monthly Whidbey get-together, and it’s going to be a nice day, I went and got the MGB out of storage and stuck the Miata in for a day or so. The fuel pump on the MGB is sticky, so it took awhile to get it going. I’ll put a new pump on later this year. (Famous last words!)
Just some Photoshop foolin’-around…but this is what I’m thinking of going with. I have roughly 24 MGB wire wheels, including a complete decent set of five in addition to the good ones on this car. I’d keep the standard silver wheels, but paint up a set dark red, which I think looks pretty sharp and will match the interior. (Click image to see the photo at a larger size.) Thoughts?
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Doors are on, hand buffing is about half done, car is on its own wheels again. Not much more to say other than hand-buffing an entire car would really, really suck.
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The paintwork is mostly buffed out; there is some hand buffing left to do where the machine couldn’t get to, like the headlight recesses. But I can finally see the end of the road! And this will possibly be the last version of this same paint booth photo you’ll be subjected to!
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The final coats of clear went on the GT today, and it looks great. I need to flat it out with 1500 paper and polish it to get out the few nibs, and there is one run which needs to shrink for a few days and then get sanded out. Many thanks to Jim for his efforts in getting the car to this stage!
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By this time tomorrow, the painting of the GT will be done, unless the red gods decide something needs to go haywire. (I will still need to flat it out and polish it up.) Here you can see it in the first of its two final color coats, before any clear goes on.
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We’ve gone through and fixed most of the minor problems…the car has been completely wet-sanded with 600 in prep for another color coat. We’ll have to do a little spot-priming, first. (The bonnet is just casually thrown on the car here as we needed the workspace, hence the poor appearance!)
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