Passenger side dogleg

 Repair work to the right-hand side dogleg was virtually the same as the left-hand side.

 Inside rocker looked much the same as the other side. Just needed to be vacuumed out and re-coated.

 

Rusted section cut out and patched.

 

This side has a skim coat of body filler up and around the fender arch. Not sure what's going on with that, but it may be related to past rear-end collision damage.

 

Mystery wheels

The wheels that came with the car weren't meant for an MGB. They had too little offset, causing them to stick out too far.

I had one wheel off and found the manufacturer and specs. It was made by American Eagle Wheels, and the size is 14x6. Appears to have been fitted to Datsun 240Z and the like, back in the day.

Backspacing measures out to 3.675", outside is 3.3", so this makes the offset about 5mm. Less than the recommended offset for a 6" rim, this leaves about 1/4" clearance at the rear fender on the right side, and just about zero on the left side. Maybe this explains why the previous owner was running low and skinny 165/65 tires.

To keep the tire from hitting the wheel arches, a previous owner seemed to have dealt with the problem by jacking up the rear end with huge long spring shackles. 

 

Old hidden hood damage

I spent the morning hammering out dents in the nose of the hood (bonnet). When I got it the paint on the hood was cracking and falling off. Or I should say the bondo that is. I thought I should strip the paint from it and get some primer on it to protect it from rust. That's when I discovered that there was about 1/4" of bondo underneath across the whole front going back about a foot. They had reshaped the whole front profile with a thick layer of bondo rather than smoothing out the fairly minor dents. So I made a couple of thin dollies or 'spoons' that would slip in between the inner and outer panels to reach the backside of the dents. After an hour or so of hammering I got it smooth enough that it will now finish up with only a very thin skim of filler or high-build primer.

Now I see other places where the paint is cracked, and I know that there is bondo lurking underneath...

Surprisingly, the hood finisher strip was present and undamaged. 

Dogleg repairs - 2

 Dogleg repair panel trimed down and welded in. I haven't done one of these before, so I was a bit surprised when I cut the edges off of the Moss repair panel it lost much of the shape. It turns out the pressing process leaves a lot of residual stress, and when you cut the folded edges off it wants to return to its original flat form. So there's a lot of panel beating needed to get it to fit. You can see by the remaining primer spots that my re-bending was not perfect. 

 

Dogleg rust repairs

 Cleaned away the rust from the rocker with a wire wheel, and it revealed some rust through. So this would be cut out and patched. 

 Inner panel is still good. 

While the rocker was opened up, I took the opportunity to inspect the inside of it. Found some sediment and debris in there.

It all cleaned out with a vacuum. No rust in here either.

 

So, to protect it from future rust, I decided to spray the inside with this Eastwood internal frame coating product.

 

It uses a long applicator tube with a multi-pattern spray nozzle at the tip. You can feed this in through the rocker drain holes, and at the opening cut in the back of course.
The spray has a very thin viscosity so that it will seep into the seams. Which means it also runs out though the drain holes, so the floor needs to be well covered.

 

Well coated! Maybe it will last for another 47 years?

 

Rocker patched and sprayed with more of the rust preventative. It takes nearly one can per side of the car.

 

1972 MGB/GT Rescue

 Picked this up last Spring as a project. It wasn't getting much love on the market, probably due to the 'serious rust' issues. We all know that rust is the deal breaker, right?
Well, I went to take a look since it was local. Yep. It had some big ol rust holes in both sides and the back.

But, I knew something about it -- it was a California car for most of its life before being moved here to NC. California cars rust the doglegs because they get full of road dirt and it traps moisture.
The rest of the car showed no other signs of rust underneath, although the rear hatch did have a couple rust holes at the bottom edge. Probably a leaking window seal. The car ran (poorly) and drove and was straight, complete, and fairly unmolested. So I made a deal and brought it home. 

 

I thought I could get this car on the road fairly quickly. So, just now getting around to working on it, starting with that dogleg rust.

As I suspected, the rust was very limited. It hadn't been driven where they salted roads.