Project excessive bran flakes, Oscar the MG......

[Marina door handles]

Whilst trying to finish the Rover project, I have been eyeballing both of my other project cars especially when I get stuck as I am now, waiting for parts to arrive in the post...

I have decided to turn my attentions to my 1976 MG - Oscar. It has an interesting-ish back story.

Several years ago there was a post on Piston Heads, Oscar (named by the owner after the end of its reg OKU) needed rescuing from being scrapped and was being offered free to a good home if you could collect before a set date.

Its owner had been storing it at a local air field for some time and had then moved to Australia. The owners of said air field eventually decided they needed more space for gliders or Cesnas or F16s ... They gave the owner an ultimatum, move it or lose it!  I foolishly agreed to take it on, I couldn't resist a free car!  Also I had owned a BGT previously, I quite like them, they are fun in a slightly old fashioned way. 

Not being a total optimist, instead of turning up with a fresh battery and a can of super, I played safe and had it beaver tailed back to my house.

The car is a kind of good and bad example of everything that could happen to a rubber bumper B.

When I first clapped eyes on it, it really had the feel of a student special (run on a shoe string by a enthusiastic younger person) It had rattle can 69s on the doors and a wobbly stripe in primer up the bonnet and across the roof!

Positives its been sympathetically converted to chrome bumpers, it appears to have been done using some panels of a 1970 B, its even got an alloy bonnet and the love it or loath it insert grille. It has a red carpet set.... Well I like it!

Bad points its properly rusty in all sorts of places, boot floor, main floors, front double skin bulkhead area, passenger door, tailgate, drivers sill, drivers A pillar, rear wheel arch were the seat belt mounts........   🙃

 

Over the years I have sort of done little bits, chopped bits out, messed up bits on it, poked it prodded and moved house with it. I even bought a rotisserie for it.....

Well maybe its time has finally come, I am slowly stripping it to go on the rotisserie......

 

[Marina door handles]

So far in my renewed efforts I have got one rear window out.....

Some trim and the passenger seat and all the lovely but sadly quite rogered carpet.... 

 

The floor pans just look so good dont they......

That's all for now! 

[fatharris]

Good luck, I'll be following this project with interest

[Bmwdumptruck]

Ive got a 78 rubber bumper in a lock up. Been there since 07 when my other half sold her old house, where I’d kept it the previous 6 or so years.  One day…..maybe…… I hope to get it up here, sooner the better as the lock up is getting costly at £70 a month.  When it was put away it only needed a bit of attention to 3 of the cill ends and ideally a bare metal respray, no idea how its fared in the years since I last looked at it.  

[High Jetter]

Might need some welding, methinks. Good luck!

[Peter C]

I have competition!

I suspect that mine will be on the road sooner than yours but I’m only planning a light refresh for my B.

I’m jealous of your steering wheel.

[somewhatfoolish]

MGBs are the new Renner Safrane.

[Marina door handles]

18 hours ago, High Jetter said:

Might need some welding, methinks. Good luck!

Welding Mwhahahahahahaha, I have lots of chicken wire, a bucket of glass fiber reinforced filler, old tea towels, lots of old news papers and empty cereal packets, I am going to do this properly!! 

[Marina door handles]

19 hours ago, Bmwdumptruck said:

Ive got a 78 rubber bumper in a lock up. Been there since 07 when my other half sold her old house, where I’d kept it the previous 6 or so years.  One day…..maybe…… I hope to get it up here, sooner the better as the lock up is getting costly at £70 a month.  When it was put away it only needed a bit of attention to 3 of the cill ends and ideally a bare metal respray, no idea how its fared in the years since I last looked at it.  

Fingers crossed for you, if the lock up was reasonably well ventilated , it should be alright......

[Bmwdumptruck]

13 hours ago, Marina door handles said:

Fingers crossed for you, if the lock up was reasonably well ventilated , it should be alright......

It’s not too bad, I’m more worried what mice might have done to it over the years.  The last two summers I’ve had the plan to sell a couple of bikes and have a good clear out in my garage and workshop and get it back up here. But summers come and go, offers of rideouts and trips on the bikes happen and so another year goes by and nothing other than maintaining the roadworthy ones gets done. 

[Marina door handles]

13 hours ago, Bmwdumptruck said:

It’s not too bad, I’m more worried what mice might have done to it over the years.  The last two summers I’ve had the plan to sell a couple of bikes and have a good clear out in my garage and workshop and get it back up here. But summers come and go, offers of rideouts and trips on the bikes happen and so another year goes by and nothing other than maintaining the roadworthy ones gets done. 

I have  to admit mice are an ongoing concern in my garage, I might fit a cat flap in the hope that the local farm cats take an interest and deal with squeaky issue.... 

Anyway the stripping is continuing, off with the bonnet....

Err I may have already removed a few bits like the engine, gearbox, pedal box, heater, most of the wiring loom some time ago.....

Then off with the lower valance...

One of the little clues that this car is a bit of a fake.. Note the raised chassis rail, these would have hooked up to a the back of the big rubber bumper 

And the OS wing

Started on the NS wing but ran out of time, does look rather naked doesn't it, maybe slightly beach buggy-ish?

I do like taking things apart, this is my idea of fun! 

 

[fatharris]

The stripping is the fun and fast bit, it's remembering where all the bolts go on it six months later that's the shite part 🤣

[Peter C]

I thought about taking the front wings off my B to see what’s going on underneath but the joints between the tops of the wings and the scuttle have been painted and separating the panels is likely to result in very unsightly paint damage. My B’s paint is already bad, I don’t need to make it any worse.

Did you find anything nasty when you removed the wing?

Looks like you are planning a more thorough restoration than what is my recommissioning project.

[Peter C]

10 hours ago, fatharris said:

The stripping is the fun and fast bit, it's remembering where all the bolts go on it six months later that's the shite part 🤣

Pack everything into separate envelopes, scribble on the envelopes what the bits are for and take plenty of photos. Simples, everything goes back in the right place.

[fatharris]

Hindsight is always 20/20

[320touring]

I'd love a BGT.

 

Good work do far, keep it up!

[bunglebus]

13 hours ago, fatharris said:

The stripping is the fun and fast bit, it's remembering where all the bolts go on it six  m̶o̶n̶t̶h̶s̶ years later that's the shite part 🤣

EFA

[Surface Rust]

15 hours ago, fatharris said:

The stripping is the fun and fast bit, it's remembering where all the bolts go on it  are six months years and two house moves later that's the shite part 🤣

EFA

[Marina door handles]

15 hours ago, Peter C said:

I thought about taking the front wings off my B to see what’s going on underneath but the joints between the tops of the wings and the scuttle have been painted and separating the panels is likely to result in very unsightly paint damage. My B’s paint is already bad, I don’t need to make it any worse.

Did you find anything nasty when you removed the wing?

Looks like you are planning a more thorough restoration than what is my recommissioning project.

Did I find anything nasty under the wing? Well yes sort of, that wing has been off before and underneath is some of my previous repair work which was frankly a bit crap! My welding and fabrication has improved a great deal since my early attempts on the B! So unfortunately some of this work will be correcting my previous attempts at repair..... 🙄

Also to finish doing the sills properly, you need the front wings off. 

Mine really does need a lot of work, yours looks really solid by comparison. 

[High Jetter]

9 hours ago, Surface Rust said:

EFA

@Peter C has envelopes for this 🤣

[Peter C]

7 hours ago, Marina door handles said:

Mine really does need a lot of work, yours looks really solid by comparison. 

Just as well as I don’t have the welding skills that you do. 

I wish you the best of luck with your project. If I found my B to be significantly more rusty I would have thrown the towel in and looked for another project.

We are heading in different directions and I suspect the final products will reflect your perseverance and my time and cost cutting abilities.

[Matty]

20 hours ago, 320touring said:

I'd love a BGT.

 

Good work do far, keep it up!

Stick an 1800 in yours and you've got one. OK a B Sportback or summat but you get the idea 😁

[somewhatfoolish]

22 hours ago, 320touring said:

I'd love a BGT.

 

Good work do far, keep it up!

You have an MGB station wagon. 😁

[Marina door handles]

The strip show continues - slowly....

The NS wing hasn't been off under my ownership, a little prodding and poking revealed that someone has had the wing off before, I know this because they have riveted the lower edge back on (were it meets the sill) this should be self tapping screws not rivets.

I drilled them out and ended up cutting off one bolt head that was under the dash, then after removing all of the other bolts in a more conventional anti clockwise way, the wing came off.... Oh yes and Henry has been enjoying him self snorting up lines of rusty flakes! 

And then the wing became part of a temporary art installation.....

The condition of the body work under that wing is a bit frilly.....

The sill end looks surprisingly good, the rest though, not so much.... The other side is a bit of a mess were as I said, I made a start, chopped bits out and left the rest till later...

  

Here's a bonus shot for anyone wanting to perve at some dirty lever arm, double wishbone action!

That's all for now, might get a bit more done over the weekend.

Thanks for reading.

 

[fatharris]

That's not as horrendous as I feared, so that's a promising sign

[2flags]

So another weldathon begins. I look forward to seeing the progress of this one. It looks an honest one though, not one that has been 'restored' with fiberglass, chicken wire and wob. 

[Marina door handles]

Small update, I have been busy this weekend but did manage to spend some time on door removal.

On the one had this shouldn't be a bad gig, no check strap and no wiring loom to worry about but the choice of fixings used by MG make this one of the less fun jobs. They use large cross head set screws and they are crap.. Inevitably one will round off and need drilling out.....I hate cross head screws, I might see if I can replace them all with Allen headed screws. 

The drill holes either side of the knackered screw head are a vague attempt to give me a reference when I come to re fit the door as lining the doors up is a bit of a faff and there is lots of adjustment. Mind you having done that I might actually replace this door as its pretty rotten. 

Whilst I was faffing with the doors I had to test the quarter lights.

They work!  Obviously a very important feature to test if only I actually smoked.....

Anyway after a short bit of faffage both doors are off. 

Its all getting very Superleggera.... 

Next  item...

I have been fiddling with the tailgate, figuring out how to best detach it. This is possibly going to be a 2 person job, or I might possibly knock together a temporary gantry to take the weight, its heavier than I expected and I really don't want to end up dropping it..... I will figure something out! 

Anyway, that's all for now! 

 

[2flags]

Those screw heads were crap when new! Had to get the snap-on screwdriver head to have any chance of even adjusting the door striker plates! [For an impoverished 16 yr old apprentice, the cost of those tools was very noticeable!

[Marina door handles]

Update, a thing arrived in the post.....

It was £6.95 off ebay, I couldn't resist, you might be thinking I am getting a tad ahead of myself considering the state of the car and you would be correct!

If you are wondering about the quality of articles and advice in this tome of marvel, wonder no longer.......

Fed up with people in low flying air craft looking into to your hatchback? Fit Louvres!

Bored of listening to the same cassette over and over and over again, how about a cassette holder?

 

Awesome eh?!

 

 

[High Jetter]

1 hour ago, Marina door handles said:

Update, a thing arrived in the post.....

It was £6.95 off ebay, I couldn't resist, you might be thinking I am getting a tad ahead of myself considering the state of the car and you would be correct!

If you are wondering about the quality of articles and advice in this tome of marvel, wonder no longer.......

Fed up with people in low flying air craft looking into to your hatchback? Fit Louvres!

Bored of listening to the same cassette over and over and over again, how about a cassette holder?

 

Awesome eh?!

 

 

Autoplas accessories, mentioned recently?