Not many updates here for a while, but I have still been working hard trying to get the MG’s bodywork finished. The last few jobs have been doing all the work on the passenger side which I already covered in depth as I did the same on the driver’s side, so I won’t go into too much detail again here.
I always thought of the left hand side of the car as the “good” side since it didn’t need so much work last time I restored it, but in truth it was still pretty bad, and hiding quite a few horrors of its own.
First order of business was to cut out all the rot. I was initially going to try and save the existing floorpan and footwell panel, but decided a while back to bite the bullet and fit new ones as it would save a lot of time, and ultimately be a much better result than patching up the old ones again. So out they came.
The inner sill was just as rotten on this side, so I would be performing the same repair as on the driver’s side.
The new Heritage front footwell panel and inner wing.
Trickiest and most time consuming job again was fully removing and cleaning up the remnants of the old front footwell.
New front footwell panel welded into place.
The side footwell panel on this side actually had much more extensive rust than the driver’s side, so I cut it back further and used the larger Steelcraft repair panel, which also covers the top of the box section. It also includes a top splash panel mounting bracket, but it was a little bit flimsy, so I later removed it and welded on the Heritage one I already had on the shelf.
All the box sections cleaned up and painted ready for the new panels to go on. The jacking point support bracket is in place ready to be welded onto the inner sill repair from the outside again.
The inner sill repair section cut to size and all clamped up ready for welding.
With the inner sill fixed, the new floorpan was screwed into place ready for welding in next.
Here it is all fully welded in and ground back.
Moving back to the front, I cut the remainder of the inner wing out, cleaned and primed all the flanges and prepared the new panel for fitting.
Like the other side, this panel was a really great fit again, so was a nice quick job to get it all welded in.
Final job for this corner was to fit the new Heritage “trumpet” strengthener section, also a perfect fit again, and then replace the splash panel top bracket.
And with all that lot done, I’m dangerously close to finally finishing all the welding on this car!