Resto project: N7

[Rob Bell]

Not much of an update, but a little one

As mentioned above, thanks to Charles I have (most of) the parts needed to retrofit ABS on N7. When I say most, I mean I made the mistake of not thinking about it and not collecting the drive shafts. The ABS reluctor ring is on the stub axle which is connected by a CV joint to the half shaft. D'oh!

Anyhoo... I have made a start cleaning up the parts - particularly the uprights and the ABS sensor cable retainers. They had PLENTY of surface rust. Yuk.

The sensor cable brackets I imagined could take hours and you'd still never get rid of all the rust, so I tried a method that'd I'd tried before: emersing corroded parts in brick acid (HCl) - available pretty cheaply from builder's merchants.

Obviously, it is an acid, so if you're trying this at home, be careful and wear appropriate protection!

I didn't take a before photograph, but they were heavily corroded, caked in layers of surface rust and grime. I submerged them in the brick acid and left them to marinate for a couple of days. I fished them out yesterday, and all the rust just flaked off, leaving these (after a thorough rinse in clean water):

Amazing. All they then needed was a gentle wire-brushing and all the rust was gone: were it not for the pitting left by the rusting, they were as good as new!

They've now been treated to a couple of coats of smoothrite I guess "proper" rust converters would have converted the iron oxide into something that would protect the good metal underneath, but I am very happy with this result

[Rob Bell]

Started the harness removal this afternoon. Rear harness is now in the cabin of the car. However, on removing the boot carpet made a nasty discovery:

Which on further scraping and wire brushing turned into this:

And only a little more work ended up with this:

Nuts. I have an arc welder but might need to experiment with MIG to repair this.

Drat. This project is rapidly escalating...

[mowog73]

If you can do arc welding, you can do MIG welding.

I get quite a bit of use out of my MIG welder. Presently I have the Daytona exhaust off my wife's car, welding some stress cracks in the muffler where the hangers are attached, probably due to Piper using mild steel rod for hangers, rather than SS rod. I bought SS MIG wire to make the repairs. Tonight I'll switch back to mild steel wire and weld a new piece of metal in behind the bumper were a previous collision repair wasn't done properly and letting water into the boot.

[Rob Bell]

If you can do arc welding, you can do MIG welding.

I get quite a bit of use out of my MIG welder. Presently I have the Daytona exhaust off my wife's car, welding some stress cracks in the muffler where the hangers are attached, probably due to Piper using mild steel rod for hangers, rather than SS rod. I bought SS MIG wire to make the repairs. Tonight I'll switch back to mild steel wire and weld a new piece of metal in behind the bumper were a previous collision repair wasn't done properly and letting water into the boot.

Thanks Mark. I was bought a cheap gassless MIG welder some while ago - I can dig this out and have a play with it. If it is rubbish, I'll investigate buying a better quality one!

[Charless]

The difference is in the quality of the gasless wire - get the best, not the cheapest, it makes a world of difference. Mine is Sealy again but I once bought some cheapo stuff from fleabay which was near impossible to make weld.
I still prefer arc welding although in your boot it would probably just blow holes! Spotting with the MIG would give you the best chance in thin damaged areas. LIDL are doing a gasless MIG welder at the moment but probably doesn't qualify as basic necessities!

[Rob Bell]

Thanks Charles - I have some random-brand MIG-less Welder that I've never set up (a birthday present from some while ago, oops ). Good tip regarding the wire - I'll see whether the delivery fairies are SARS-CoV-2 resistant and whether I can order some off the bay of fleas. Sealy is the brand you'd recommend?

Yes, I think you're right: I do have some quite thin arc welding rods, but I would be worried about blowing more holes than laying down useful weld!

[Charless]

Old school wire brush or on a drill, disconnect the battery -ve on the car before starting.
The no-brand technology is probably good enough if you adjust the wire tension after a lead full of wire has passed through it - and ignore the numbers on the current setting. Aim for the frying bacon sizzle sound but spot on thin stuff and practice on some gash bits first!
Good luck with that and the daytime job!

[Rob Bell]

Daytime job is going to keep me extemely busy! Not sure when I'll have time for this, but I hope it'll be a nice relief...

[Rob Bell]

Somewhat inevitably, things have moved on somewhat and I haven't had time to upload pictures or give an update. I will try and bring you all up to date soon.

The long and short is that N7 now has a replacement main body harness, replacement (and uncracked) dashboard, a retrofitted passenger airbag and ECU, the ABS retrofit is half way completed, I've wired the car for fitting Waeco heated seat pads, I've now replaced both front hydragas spheres with Nitrogen re-freshed units, the nearside front wing has been replaced, but there is still a big chunk of work to do.

The to-do list currently stands as:

• Make new brake pipe lines from master cylinder to ABS pump
• Make new brake line to rear pipe line (and deleting pressure bias valve)
• Replace rear brake lines (surface corrosion)
• Replace rear hydragas spheres (swapping over the shortened displacer cones)
• Replace rear hub uprights with ABS versions
• Replace rear drive shafts (the hub spindles are unique to the ABS cars and carry the reluctor rings)
• Replace leaking gearbox/driveshaft output seals both sides (need to remove the originals so as to order correct replacements)
• Clean and service the AP 4-pot front calipers (I'm thinking of a colour change to MG burgundy given that the original red is how very faded)
• Complete full brake service
• Install additional brake servo bracing
• Repair rust holes in boot area
• Prep for complete re-spray and cavity waxing etc.

There's a bunch of things I've left off there: I haven't made definitive decision on what seats to re-fit, or what colour to get the ULW wheels refurbished in (the dark grey is a bit dull looking on a HAM BRG car), but the work continues!

[Rob Bell]

One thing that has come out of all this work is how much I have played with my MGF over the last 24 years! I had to work out how to install the front fog lights (a dealership fitted option), install the one-stop window modification (luckily I detailed this on my website, so worked out super easy), I deleted the EPAS switch (I haven't used it that much to be honest) and the ABS retrofit has been made a smidge more entertaining by the fact that the brake master cylinder has been relocated in front of the driver! All fun and games... And I haven't get delved into the 266mm VHS rear brake rotor upgrade yet... Oh and I am having to swap over the Tech-Speed lowering modification from one set of Hydragas spheres to the other! But at least the Tech-Speed specified Bilstein dampers are easier to remove than the OEM originals.

[mowog73]

Rob,

Did you ever discover the source of the boot leak? I've been trying to figure out where is getting into my F's boot and haven't found the source yet. The usual suspects are all plugged.

My wife's F with the two part centre console is #52 off the assembly line, a very early production car.

[Bigfootmgf]

I always thought gold went well with green cars but that might be to much like the original golden wheels!

[Rob Bell]

Hi Mark

Waster can enter via seams (around boot rubber flange panel) and via rear lamps most commonly. I’ve previously fixed both - the former with a smear of automotive silicone and the latter with later, thicker lamp gaskets.

More recent leaks I think have been via thh hit e boot lid itself: later cars had drain holes in the inner skin plugged up.

[Rob Bell]

I always thought gold went well with green cars but that might be to much like the original golden wheels!

I’ve got a very old picture from the third MGF birthday party at Brooklands with a very early iteration of Gerry’s Golden Wheels - I shall have to upload sometime

[Rob Bell]

This weekend having fun and games with gearbox differential driveshaft seals. The gearbox isn’t original, so had to remove one to correctly identify it and order the correct set.

Fun and games.

Currently 3 of four reconditioned hydragas spheres installed...

[Rob Bell]

About time I added some photos to this thread...

Going back a few steps, I had, thanks to Charles, collected a full set of ABS hubs and uprights from his parts car. That car was the best part of 24 years old too, so predictably, much of the suspension components looked like they'd spent time at the bottom of the harbour - like so:

These couldn't be fitted on my car looking like this, so I spent some time with a wire brush attachment in an electric drill:

Much better. I forgot to take pictures, but these were painted in black smoothrite.

[Rob Bell]

In addition to the rust in the boot floor, there is rust in the rear panel too:

This was attached with rust converter:

The other side had nasty surface rust, but at least it hadn't perforated.

Notice the bubbling paint above (and below the rear lamp)? Yet more surface rust running along the panel seam lines.

Here's a shot from the NSR wheel well - nice view of the inside of the boot compartment!

And inevitably, the subframes on my MG had suffered from 24 years and 115k miles of road grime:

Although, as you can see after a bit of a brush down, not as bad as you might think, still with some original paint in place!

The offside front didn't look quite as good as the driver's side though:

Still, after a splash of paint, thinks are starting to look a bit better:

(I wonder what yellow that is on the Bilstein dampers?)

[Rob Bell]

Thinking of the airbag retrofit, I had thought that there were two different SRS harnesses: one for the version with no passenger airbag, and one for where it is fitted. To my surprise, I found the plugs for the passenger airbag on my car, even though it was never fitted. This was taped up to the main loom:

This is the single airbag ECU. It needs to be swapped out for the dual airbag version.

Things inside starting to look rather untidy, as I get ready to strip out the original wiring loom in preparation to fit the replacement ABS version!

[Rob Bell]

I include the next couple of photos for reference: the dealer-fit front fogs have a connection to the multifunction unit via that red/yellow wire:

This plug therefore needed de-pinning, so that this wire could be fitted into the equivalent plug in the replacement wiring loom.

The remainder of the front fog circuit is pretty much independent of the main loom and draws power from the accessory sockets in the fuse board.

It's "semi-neat" I guess, being reasonably straightforward, but it makes the fuse board look untidy (my OCD again).

[Rob Bell]

Stripping out the original wiring loom took me a couple of days - but suddenly the interior looks a lot tidier!!!

Time to get this bundle of fun installed!

It is less daunting than it looks: I've done this before on Project Shed, and I found that generally the wires want to go where they are supposed to, and connectors in any given area are different shapes according to function, so little chance of messing things up in error.

In fact the hardest thing was making sure that the wires went "just so" - because otherwise wires will be too short, or there is not enough space to re-fit components. Not a concern on Project Shed, so the re-installation took rather longer than it did on the Shed!