New Seat, What a Treat - Part 3

Today, I'll complete the story of getting the driver seat stripped, recovered and installed. When we left off (See New Seat, What a Treat - Part 1 and Part 2) , the old covers had been removed and set aside with the old padding, hog rings and ratty hard-back. The upper seat had been re-foamed with a heat unit, and recovered with a new hard-back. Now held in place with hog rings, it is a completed unit.

Back to One Frame
Before getting to the lower seat, the upper and lower halves need to be put back together. This is quick work with a couple of 1/2" spanners per side. Over each of the hinge points, a plastic protective cover is installed. These keep fingers, cover material and grime from getting into the hinges. They are held on with a single Phillips screw each and are side specific. I had washed these with dish soap, removing 30 years of gross beforehand. At this point, I tested the action of the seat release lever and the movement of the hinge to make sure nothing was binding and that it had a smooth movement. Check.

Lower Seat - Webbing
The upper cover was similar to a pillowcase, with an opening at one end (the bottom). The lower cover only has 4 sides: top, front, left and right. So, it is more like a fitted table cloth. No forceful stuffing to get everything to fit this time. While that sounds easier, the material does not stay put as easily, so I found myself double and triple checking everything at each step.

First, we start with the webbing. I found little advice for how to do this, and based my entire plan on pictures I found on the internet (like this one on the right from MGExperience). The webbing has 4 straps which run left-right and 2 straps which run front to back. These straps are loosely threaded onto a thin, 3-sided, u-shaped metal bar (I'll refer to as the U-bar). The replacement kit arrives with 12 little hooks which hold the webbing contraption to the lower seat frame. The frame has 16 little holes: 2 along the front, 2 along the rear, 5 along each side... and one in each front corner. Apparently, those corner 2 are unnecessary and there is an extra pair along the sides for personal comfort configuration. The bottom of the "U" faces the front of the seat, so the 2 holes in the rear of the frame are for floppy straps that are not dire-connected to the thin metal U-bar. I started at the front, threading one hook each through the gap at the end of the strap, around the U-bar and then into the hole in the frame. With the front done, I worked my way down to the rear, doing holes a strap at a time, one side, then the other. I left the last pair, closest to the rear unused, choosing for the more forward pair thinking it would be more supportive. Last, the rear-end of the straps are hooked into the frame. To help prevent the straps from cutting through the foam, I put a small thin white hand towel on top of the webbing. Others use burlap or canvas. The hand towel was available, free, fit, and will do the job at least as well. There was nothing between the foam and the webbing when I tore the seats down.

Foaming
Unlike the upper seat covers, the lower seat covers and foams are side specific. On the underside of the foam, you will find either LH or RH embossed into the foam. This is because the little notch-outs nearest the seat hinge are not the same. Also, the seat edge along the transmission tunnel is more straight and narrow than the seat edge which runs along the door sill. This allows the seat to move forward and aft on the seat guides much more easily, without hanging up on the transmission tunnel. Since your backside sits in the wide center anyway, you may not really notice. The covers are cut differently, just as the foams are, so match them carefully or you'll be re-doing part of the job. Ask me how I know :)

Lower Seat - Covering
With the webbing in, I pushed the lower seat foam onto the frame and took a seat. Wow. It was like the difference between an old saggy couch and a nice new desk chair. Firm, but totally comfortable; I felt I could sit in it for hours. Those few minutes were inspiring. I pulled the foam and attached the other seat heat unit to it. Similar to the upper, I didn't cut the heater. Instead, I ran it from just behind the front edge all the way to the front edge of the upper cushion. I'll have warmth from the back of my knees to the top of my shoulders. Ha! Once I got the double-sided tape figured out, it attached and held well through the process. For more wiggle room, I tilted the seat upper slightly forward. I took out the new cover, oriented it where it belonged on the foam/heat unit pair and pressed it onto the frame. I say "pressed" because with the seat upper, it took more than just setting it. There was resistance to my getting it all the way back in place. Again, there were many cycles of fitting, adjusting and re-fitting to get the foam aligned with the seams. Minutes taken here are where you'll see the difference in the finished product.

Ring It Up
With the seat bottom where I wanted it, I tested it again (Ohh.. soo nice). If you are following this as a how-to, I strongly encourage you to try this in-the-car! You may find the seat too high. I, regrettably, didn't do this test. Instead, I started on the hog rings. I made sure the heat unit wiring was on the transmission tunnel side, like the upper. With the seat upper helping hold the rear in place, I started there (along the rear) with the rings. Like the upper, I pulled the material until it was well aligned and put 2 rings about a fist apart in the center. Again, following the pattern from before, I did each side of the rear, checking for alignment. Then, I switched to the front, and followed the same pattern: center first, then outer edge, checking for alignment, no wrinkles, etc. Last, I did the rings along the sides, starting with the edge nearest the transmission tunnel. Since the hog ring pliers I got at Harbor Freight were useless, I used my fingers to get them in place (not easy) and channel-lock pliers to snug them down.

Install
So, there were things I did, and things I would encourage others to do differently. I changed my disposable gloves often so I would keep the seat clean. I covered the seat with a large trash bag for the same purpose. One of the things I had failed to do was test out the seat in the car before hog-ringing the lower cushion. Had I done that, perhaps I may have omitted one or more of the webbing straps. I say that because with all of the straps in, and the seat tilted fairly straight up, my line-of-sight out the windscreen is too high. Since the straps are what hold the foam up, I could have tested, removed one, tested again, etc before putting on the cover.

Instead, I carried the finished light-cream-colored seat into my cramped, filthy garage. I held it overhead and found that getting it into the car with the top up was simply frustrating. So, the seat went onto the dinner table while I lowered the top. Take 2: carry the seat high overhead, lowering into the cockpit. For some reason, all of the challenges I expected when I put in the old seats on top of the new carpet happened this time. I couldn't find the holes, then, when I found them, I couldn't get the bolts to thread. Then, once they were finally threaded, I realized that the seat runner was oriented incorrectly.... Last, one of the worst things happened: the front outer bolt and captive nut pairing got stripped.

Fix It

The bolt wouldn't come out of the captive nut, so the captive nut had to be separated from the new floor.... while holding my light-cream-colored seat loosely on top of it. I went the brute-strength method and used a pry bar. In retrospect, this was a great test of the welding of the floor we had done; the welds held better than the sheet metal. The nut released from the floor, the seat was returned to the table and I went looking for a replacement nut. I found one, and, with the welder I had used 18 months earlier to install the floor, I welded that nut into the hole created by the removal of the old one. I covered everything with canvas painting tarps before I welded so any possible errant spark would not land on my new top or new carpet. Since the top of the new nut didn't sit exactly flush with the floor, I slid a washer on top of the other front seat-mount hole to level the front of the seat. I left it alone overnight and the next day the seat went in easily.

I fiddled with the seat incline and found a spot that, while tilted a little further back than I usually drive other cars, the angle totally suits the MGB. This little car has a deep foot well and a short reach of the steering wheel, so it is almost designed for someone who has long legs and a short torso and arms... until you tilt the seat back a little bit. Now, instead of having the steering wheel nearly against your chest, you have some living space... and the angle lowers your line-of-sight through the windscreen such that your eyes are below the sun visors.

That's it for today. I will wrap up with a post about the head rests. Thanks, as always, for following along-

New Year, New Tools

Over the course of the last 6 months or so, we've picked up some new skills and a couple new bigger shop tools to power them. Today's post goes over some.

Power-Washer

Boo power washing back deck

About a year ago, Boo wanted to power-wash our concrete. You read that right: she wanted to. She was not asking me to do it nor solve for it; she wanted to be the person doing the washing. She looked at renting one, and they run around $300 per day. On a whim, she looked at the Bi-Mart mailer, and they were selling them for, get this, $295. So, she went and got it, got a 2-gallon of gasoline and power washed the rear deck, the back patio, the front side walk and some of the driveway. She has since used it on the back patio again, and I'll be washing the siding when the weather warms back up. I've thought about how I could use this tool on the cars, but figured it would probably do more damage than anything. I've read about folks using a power washer to strip paint. I may experiment with that when I re-paint the bumpers on Hapy.

MIG

Set for floor, I think

If you've been reading this blog, you know that over the Summer of 2017 (read: MGB - floor pans 1, 2, and 3), we played with a MIG. It all started when we discovered floor-rot in the MGB. To resolve, we borrowed a MIG from our good friend Travis. He is a welder by trade and has a few of them at his disposal. Truth-be-told, he'd rather have a TIG welder, but the MIG is so handy (or appropriate) for some jobs, that it will soon be back in his shop. We really had fun, and have used it on a few smaller things since the floors. While we don't expect to use it on the Z or again on the MGB, there's always a use for a welder. Once it goes back to Travis, I'll be adding it to my list of tools to add once i have space.

Soda Blaster
C wanted to get the paint off the Z. He started with a grinder. That's dirty, but dry. And loud. And slow. Then, he tried Airplane Paint Stripper. Still dirty, but wet. And nasty-stinky. But a little faster. We have watched videos and television shows on Velocity where the project car rolls in, gets taken apart and then "sent off to blasting". After the commercial, the car comes back completely stripped of paint and rust. Sometimes the body is in pretty good shape, but usually the blasting exposes all of the history: old dents which were "cave and paved", rust that ate through and interesting cheap body shop repairs. Seeing that magic, we figured we wanted to get some of that.

HF Soda Blaster

First, we looked at renting one. These run at $325US a day, and the only outfit around here is an hour across town. So, we could get up at 6:AM, pick it up at 7:AM, be home by 8:AM and then blast until 3:30 when we tear the machine down, pack it up and haul back over to the rental shop which closes promptly at 5:PM. Arriving after 5 means you pay an additional day. So for 7.5 hours, the rental runs at around $46.50 an hour, and that assumes you don't stop for lunch. AND, you need to buy your own soda (at $40US per 50# bag). Blasting an entire car would probably take 3 bags, so at this point, one fun day of soda blasting (plus 4 hours of combined travel time) is just under $450US.

When we bought the power washer, it was virtually the same thing as what we would have rented. Clearly, that was a good move. The soda blaster, however, is a little different. The fancy rental was almost 3 times what a Harbor Freight blaster cost ($135US), so we bought one, with a dead-man valve and some extra nozzles. And a 50# bag of large soda.

The nozzle on our blaster is really small, and while it does effectively remove paint or grime from metal, it is much slower than I expected. In doing research, I've learned that these are much slower than sand-blasting, and that's by design: the soda is much less harsh both on the environment and on the target material. We have decided that the soda blaster is probably best suited for sensitive areas where you can't get after the paint with a grinder. We may circle-back and try the power washer too, to see if we get better results in shorter time with that. One last concern is the need to properly treat the metal which was stripped by the soda. The soda changes the surface pH, which helps prevent rust, but also gets in the way of paint or primer adhering to it. There are a few different ways to solve for this, but first pressure wash the soda-blasted areas to get all of the residue off. Then, it is recommended to use something like HoldTight 102 to address the pH shift.

Capacity Reached
I've mentioned our limited space, and while it's a "first-world problem", it's still a problem. We are now leveraging a small garden shed for storing thing, like the power washer and the soda blaster. I think the acquisition of any new large tools will need to wait at least until we are down to one car in the garage. We may need to consider a larger shop somehow.

That's it for this week. Thanks as always for following along. I think I'll have made sufficient traction on one or more of the projects to be able to get back to posting on them.

Capturing an Escaped Captive... Nut

Rain. and cold. and blustery wind. All of my projects except one are sitting in the driveway under tarps held down with whatever I could get my hands on. My new-ish job has a policy about how much paid-time-off you can carry forward into the next year, so I find myself with days at home. So... what to do? Work on the one project that's sitting in the garage so one day it too can sit in the driveway under a tarp while one of his brothers are in the garage getting worked on. Today covers one of the final steps to achieving that goal.

Captive Nut

test fitting a panel

On the convertible MG, the top fabric is attached to a steel frame. Depending upon the year, the frame could take on one of a few forms. Mine is the last style, which folds straight back with large scissor-style hinges. These hinges mount to the sides of the car just behind the door latch. The steel inner body panel has a flat surface into which 3 holes were drilled at the factory. Inside the panel a nut was welded behind each hole. These nuts are what holds the convertible frame to the car, and therefore hold the top onto the car. Yes, there are clasps along the top of the windscreen and there are little hold-downs along the rear deck, but most of the work is handled by these 6 bolt-nut combinations.

The Escape
With any car, rust and wear take a toll. On the MGB, the little captive nuts (1/4 - 28) can detach from the inner body panel. Once separated, the frame can be attached, but the person doing the attaching must hold the nut with a wrench or pliers or something. Since the entire inner steel skin is usually covered with a vinyl panel (on top of which the convertible frame is usually attached), the owner has a choice: no more panels, no more top or re-capture the nuts. The PO had decided to select multiple options: no more panels and no more top, leaving the frame stripped of canvas and disconnected, but sitting behind the seats after discarding the vinyl cards prior to selling it to me.

Alternatives
I've driven around in plenty of cars which didn't have all of their inner panels. The operation of the car is in no way negatively impacted. It just looks trash. So, I decided I would get the nuts re-captured. There are a few ways to go after it.

Go Crazy, Tear down and Weld - Since these were originally welded into place at the factory before the body was assembled, getting them welded back in the same way is virtually impossible. I imagine someone industrious enough could take enough of the car apart to get access to the nuts. I don't see the value. Maybe if you have dreams of showing your car at concours or something, this would be the most-like-original path. Or maybe you're just sadistic. Either way, rock on.

Ugliest welds ever

Get a Repair Panel - Moss has a repair kit (link here) that could be used to fix this, so clearly this happens often. They run $18 each, which isn't bad, but as I noted at the beginning, I have some time, and I don't want to wait for shipping. I imagine the kit is a pretty easy solution though: set it so it is aligned with the holes, mark the mounting spot with a pen, drill, install. Easy peasy.

Make your Own Panel - While not necessarily the easiest, if you have some time and either don't have the money for the Moss panel, or don't want to wait for it, it's not that hard. I chose this path and I detailed steps below.

Recapture
I have the nuts in hand and plenty of super-thin scrap steel lying around. I considered that the steel to which the nuts were attached did not need to be terribly stout. It just needed to be strong enough to hold the nuts in place against some modest pressure during installation. Once the bolts seat into the nuts, the plate doesn't contribute to holding the top on: its still the bolt-nut combination. With this in mind, I cut a couple (one per side) small pieces of HVAC sheet metal with tin shears to they fit in the hole, around the nut(s) which were still clinging to the inner body panel. I held them in place, marked the nut-holes with a pen and step-drilled holes large enough for the bolt to easily pass. I then sanded the steel to get any zinc coating off. This is important as the off-gassing from welding a zinc coating is really bad.

For some reason, my top had an extra bracket that looked like this, but not chromed. I think it is for a wind blocker (like this) that wasn't with the car when I bought it. Love that. Anyway, I took that bracket thing and used it to provide more meat for the next steps (see the top picture). I aligned the HVAC sheet with the holes in the bracket and then threaded the bolt through, tightening the nut against the HVAC sheet.  Next came some of the worst looking welds I have ever produced (see middle picture). That is saying something, because my welding skills are pretty bad. Still, I was able to get the nuts to hold to the sheet and hold well enough for me to remove and re-insert the bolts multiple times.

"Pop" goes the Rivet

Install
Whether you did the Moss repair panel or you made your own, the mounting to the car is very similar. The panel sits flush against the outer-side of the inner wall (inside the cavity) with the nuts pointing out (away from the cabin). With the Moss panel, you can hold the thing on from the inside and see where the hole will be because it's symmetrical. Must be nice. With the home-made job, its not. Instead, I made judgments based on where the holes in the body were, and where the panel was as I held it up against the wall from inside the cavity. I marked 2 holes on the inner wall, pulled the panel aside and step-drilled to 13/32". This is just a hair larger than 3/8" so a 3/8" pop rivet will fit snug without binding as it goes in. To make sure I got the holes in exactly the right spots on the panel, I bolted it into place and drilled through the holes I'd just made in the body and then through the panel. With the panel still bolted on, I pop-riveted the panels in. I was still able to easily remove the bolts from the nuts (without touching the nuts), so the convertible top frame should now be capable of being installed after the interior cards are in place.

That's it for today's post. Yes, I could have simply ordered panels and this would have taken far less time. Instead, I got to play with my MIG and save myself about $40US. Thanks, as always for following along, and I hope you're having a wonderful holiday season. Hapy NewYear!

MGB - floor pans (Part 3)

Continuing the effort of replacing the floor pans. In Part 1, I talked through decisions about parts and methods. In Part 2, we removed the old pans. Today, we focus on prepping the new pans and getting them welded in.

Context

paint from below, p-side

Remember that the original pans were spot-welded to the rails. This was done at the factory where very long spot-welder arms are available and things like the doors, dashboard, etc aren't yet installed, so there are fewer obstacles. Even with some crazy-long spot welder extension arms, you will not be able to avoid another solution for some of the mounting locations. Your options: seam weld from below or plug weld from above. At least on the right side, the wires, tubes and cable make a seam-weld from below option very difficult. Most do-at-home folks go the plug-weld route. The folks at British Auto Works in North Plains run seam welds around the outer edge from above, but plug weld the inner frame rails. If you're going to do this, they recommend running beads that are about an inch long and space them every couple of inches to prevent warping. It will hold at least as well, if not better, than plug welding the whole thing.

Fitment

p-side pan prep

The passenger floor fit like it was supposed to fit. It literally dropped right into place. It wouldn't shift too much side to side or front to back, but my hammer/chisel work bent some of the edge along the transmission tunnel, so I had to work the metal back into shape. Once the floor was stable (no wobble or weird clunks from my stepping on it), it was ready to go. The driver (left) side, however, did not fit right. The front right corner on the pan assumed the floor had a squared-off point to it, but my floor had a rounded edge. I had to bend the corner of the pan to test fit and then cut it off with my grinder for welding it in. It would not naturally sit flat either, so I had to be extra careful as I did my first few welds to get the floor to hold flat. You may experience a similar situation, even with the OEM pans. We know the aftermarket ones don't fit without cutting, so be advised.

What's a "Plug Weld"?
A plug weld is performed by drilling a hole through one material, setting that on top of a second piece of material and welding the two pieces together through the hole. In our case, we are making 1/4" holes in the new flooring. The weld is formed by setting the MIG wire into the center of the plug hole, pulling the trigger to start forming a puddle and then extending the puddle into the floor after the puddle has started to grab into the frame rail. Before we can weld, we need to poke holes in the floor, but where? I tried 2 methods. I'll explain them next.

Option 1 - Paint and Measure
Once the frame rails are clean, you just can't help yourself. You just have to drop the new floor on there and admire how nice it looks. It looks so pretty. Looking at the passenger-side pan sitting there, I wanted an easy way to spot the holes. I fiddled with the pan to make sure it was exactly where I wanted it and then set some tool boxes on top so it held still and firm on the rails. Then, I grabbed a can of white spray paint, slid underneath and spray-painted the edges of the frame rails where they met the underside of the new pan. When I lifted the pan off the rails, there were clear white lines showing where the frame rails were. I ran blue tape along those edges and marked drill holes every inch or so with a sharpie. The p-side prep picture on the right shows what the prepared pan looked like.

Option 2 - Use Old Flooring

using old floor, d-side

When I removed the driver (left) side floor pan edges, I didn't crumple them up as I went. Instead, I would separate a section and then cut it free with tin-snips when the trim started getting in the way. Once all of them were free, I arranged them on the ground with the larger sections I had cut out earlier. With the puzzle so completed, I could see where the old spot welds were. So, I arranged the puzzle onto the bottom of the new pan, and shot spray-paint through the taped-on floor-pan edges. When I removed the old edges, I had dots showing me where to drill the plug-weld holes.

Drill Baby Drill
Regardless of which method you choose, drilling the plug holes is a two-step process. First you drill a pilot hole and then you drill out to 1/4". I suppose a step-bit would work so that would be only one drill effort. Similar to cutting out the spot welds, this is time consuming. I understand why British Auto Works (and probably most other shops) reduce costs by seam welding the outer edges. For that reason, I drilled plug welds into the floor to correspond to the inner frame rails, and only a few around the outer edge of the p-side pan. My paint-from-below method worked pretty well, though my alignment slipped a little bit and I had a few holes that didn't align with the rail.

On the driver (left) side, I chose to plug weld the whole thing, so that meant more drilling on that pan. The holes I produced with Option 2 were an exact match. They aligned on the rails perfectly. Unfortunately, the holes that cut all the way through the frame rail were now completely exposed as well. The drilling out of a single pan took me 2-3 hours and overall there really wasn't that much of a difference in time between the two sides, even though there were far fewer holes on the p-side. That doesn't math-out logically, but that's what happened. The all-in time at this point is over 14 hours and no pans are welded in yet.

Plug Welding

If the grinding was the best part of Part 2, then the welding was the best part of Part 3. I borrowed a 110V Lincoln MIG welder from my wife's sister's boyfriend, and bought a small 20# tank of "steel mix" gas for the project (cost me $100 for the tank plus gas-fill on craigslist). I've heard these small tanks have 6-8 hours of gas in them, so that should be enough for multiple pan replacement projects. Once I had the passenger side ready to weld, I hosted my wife's sister and her boyfriend for a welding party. The plan was simple: he shows us how to weld, and I keep a fresh beer in his hand. It worked out well for everyone. While he got the welder set up, he taught us with welding scraps from the old torn-out floor. This gave us opportunity to work on pieces that didn't matter, but were the right thickness and material. We ran the temp / voltage as high as it would go (D) and the feed set pretty fast too (just below 9). Because if the thickness of the rails, the high-voltage setting makes sense. For other work, like repairing the rear bulkhead the previous owner cut a big hole in, I'll need to bring the temp way down. Before we were done for the evening, the passenger pan was in, and 3 of us learned how to MIG weld, including my wife's sister. Very fun.

During the actual weld-in, we had setbacks, of course, like some burn-through of the pan when we novices tried to run a bead, or small fires from grease or paint catching fire from the welding. Not to worry, though, they were small enough to blow out. Still, the decision to weld on the driveway rather than the standard low-ceiling garage turned out to be a good idea. We tested a few of the welds just for curiosity sake by banging on them with a hammer and trying to separate the panel with pressure from below. No dice.

I've gone back and forth about grinding down the plug-weld humps. I know the floor is going to be covered with sound reducer, a carpet pad and then carpeting, so no one would ever really see them. At this point, though, I'm trying to get the car on the road before the weather turns, so maybe I'll grind the humps down under a canopy once the weather changes this fall. Or I may just leave them alone, and focus energy on value-adding efforts, which grinding down weld-humps in an area no one will ever see... frankly isn't.

That's it for today. My final steps are seam-sealing the floor edges, and getting some paint or undercoating on the steel pans. That work may not be interesting enough to warrant a post. After that's done, I am going to focus on getting the fuel system and master cylinders re-installed. Expect posts on those efforts soon. As always, thanks for following along.

MGB - floor pans (Part 2)

Today we continue the saga of replacing the floor pans in the MGB. In Part 1 (See MGB - floor pans Part 1), we identified the issue, and made decisions on parts and a method. Today, we get into removing the old pans.

Get Safe

$15 at Harbor Freight

This could be a euphemism for something else, but in this case, it is exactly what it says: safety first. You are going to be cutting and then welding steel. This throws lots of sparks. Your car runs on gasoline which is designed to explode when a vapor meets a spark. When you put these together, my best advice is to remove the fuel system entirely and then wait a couple of days to let the fumes leave the remaining lines. That's what I did, and I'll post on that later. Consider too, that the cutoff wheel throws dirt and dust everywhere so wear eye protection at least. I use a face shield, long sleeves, and denim pants to protest myself. And yes that gets hot in the summer when you're working in the sun on your driveway.

Clear Your Paths
Under the right (passenger in the US) side floor, there are small pipes and cables that you don't want to set your cutoff wheel into. These pipes and cables are held to the floor underside with nuts and brackets, and further held into place with some rubber bits. Remove the nuts and the brackets and pull the rubber bits out. Toss all of it into a ziplock and mark it as part of the right floor. You'll want them later. Let the cables and pipes hang as far out of the way as possible. Among these is the fuel feed line, the vapor line and the main power supply from the battery. All super important.

blue tape the cut lines

I had the brake and clutch pedals already removed from my efforts on the master cylinders (post on that coming). I chose to remove the accelerator pedal as well to improve my access. Since it is held on with a bolt and the cable is held on with a pin, this removal is very easy. Now that my floor has been removed, I couldn't imagine how much harder this would have been with them still in place. Mental picture: you're lying down on the door frame, hips-to-feet sprawled out through the driver-door, with your arms extended into the foot-well with a grinder spinning a cut-off wheel at 11,000 RPM. Getting the cuts right without accidentally catching the underside of the brake pedal sounds virtually impossible. I highly recommend removing the pedals, if you can.

Mark the Spot
Before you grab your grinder, you need to find the frame sections underneath. On the right (passenger) side, I followed instructions I found online, where I drilled holes at the corners of various support structures. I then connected those dots with blue painters tape and then drew on those lines with a sharpie so I had clear lines to follow. This did work, but for the left (driver in the US) side, I thought I could do it with fewer steps. The first step is the same: with one had under the car and the other resting on the top of the floor, tap with your bottom hand at the corners of the beams. Feel for the tapping with your top hand, and keep circling in on the spot by tapping until you know exactly where the spot is. Mark it with a sharpie. On the right side, I drilled a hole. On the left, I just marked it and moved on. I ultimately found that the drilling was unnecessary. There are 2 main under-floor rails, one runs from the transmission hump to the edge under the front seat mounts. The other runs from that cross rail between the legs to the front. In the US model, imagine a rail running straight at the brake pedal. These rails are about 2 inches wide, but there is only about 1/2" lip that it spot-welded to.

not-so-fun part

Measure Twice, Cut Once
This phrase has been made famous by arm-chair trades-persons dating back to the stone cutters in Egypt. Still, its a good practice. Double check your marked lines to make sure that you didn't draw a line through a section of frame. Also consider if your cut-path will send you through any of the cables or pipes you moved aside earlier. Cutting through a fuel line, even if it's empty, really sucks. Yes, I did and I'll explain how I fixed it later. Along the rear edge, there are two heavier sections in the corners that are not to be cut out. They create structural stability and should only be removed it they are not doing that job. My bar had a pretty rusty floor, but those sections were fine. Make sure your cut lines take these sections into account.

The Fun Part
The floor is cut out in 3 or 4 sections, separated by the frame rails. Cut the rear out first. The rear section comes out as one large, nearly square piece, and the steel cuts pretty quickly once you get started. With the rear cut and pulled out of the way, you can see the cable, etc on the right side. Next, I cut the outer of the two forward sections. Again, this allowed me to avoid the cables, etc on the right (passenger) side. Last, I cut the inner section, and it was all pretty clean except I nicked the fuel line for about an inch, leaving a nice gash in the metal fuel line. At this point, I was glad I'd pulled the fuel tank, and let the system sit for a week or so.

The Bit

spot weld cutter

With the main sections of the floor out of the way, it feels like you're really on your way. That's until you start to understand what comes next. The floor was attached to the rails at the factory with a big spot-welder, placing a weld every inch or so along both rails and around the outer edge. Those spot welds are what is holding that last inch of steel to the car. I have read where some folks (who are far more skilled with a grinder than I) were able to cut these sections off without any other tool. High praise to them. I am no way skilled enough for that, so I went the more labor-intensive route.

Hit Harbor Freight and buy at least 2 spot-weld cutting bits. They are small, fit in your drill, like a regular drill bit, but they are designed to cut spot welds. The shiny, silver point in the center of the bit is set into the center of the weld, and then you run the drill at a slow speed to cut the sheet metal around the weld. This allows the rest of the sheet metal to rise from the rail. Each bit is reverse-able, so as you burn out the teeth, you can pop it into a vice, loosen it with a 1/4" spanner, flip the bit and tighten. One bit lasts twice as long... which still isn't that long if you run your drill too fast.

So, now that you understand the weld-cutter, slap a grinding wheel or wire wheel onto your grinder and grind on the remaining bits of floor so you can find the spot welds. Between rust, paint and black-tar seam-sealer, you may have to grind a bit to find the spot welds. If you can't find them all or you don't want to grind to find them, there is an alternative; you just need to be willing to use a framing hammer and chisel.

The Not-So-Fun Part

cleaned up

With your spot weld cutter in your drill, and a framing hammer / chisel nearby, pick a spot to start. I went with the easiest to get to: the rear section. The spot welds are easier to find back here too. Pick a spot weld, cut it out (slowly on the drill!). If the metal didn't make a "ting" noise while cutting, it may not be completely free. Given time you'll get the hang of it where you're not cutting too deep (through the frame) nor too shallow (and leaving the metal well attached). If the metal didn't separate, get under the metal edge with your chisel and give it a couple of smacks with the hammer. Eventually, the floor and rail will separate. Now do that about 120 times. Per side. I spent about 4 hours per side doing this, so be prepared. Now, I do things slower than lots of people, so maybe you'll be a lot faster.

As you remove flooring, the remnant will start to flop around. On my first (right/passenger) side, I just crumpled the metal out of my way. While this worked, I found that by cutting strips in straight sections (using tin snips) was more effective. And, ff you set them aside with the larger sections of floor you cut out, you can re-create the shape of the floor later.

Clean It Up

temporary protective paint

Once all of the spot-welded in bits of floor have been removed from the rails, you're ready to clean up. First, look at what you've done. There is a pile of twisted sheet metal lying on the ground next to your car. The rails have some holes drilled through (I know mine sure did). The rails have like 100 little circles of flooring still attached, there's some rusty spots, some paint, and probably some seam sealer. All of that needs to be taken down to bare metal for welding. Grab your grinder, put in a good grinding wheel and get after it. To me, this was the most satisfying part of the process to this point: Simply grinding away the ugly and leaving a nice clean shiny rail. Once the weld points are nice and clean, I switched over to a wire wheel and removed all of the surface rust I could find in the foot well, along the transmission tunnel and the rear, effectively grinding away all of the rust in the seating tub.

Since I was not going to be working on the project for a while, I shot the cleaned up space (including the rails) with primer and some orange Rustoleum so I wouldn't have new rust appear while I was away. This meant I got to grind that paint off later, but if you're not going to jump right into welding, I'd encourage you to consider the same.

That's it for today. More next time. Thanks, as always, for following along-

MGB - floor pans (Part 1)

Today's post is the first of a series dedicated to the removal and replacement of the floor pans in my MGB. This process would be the same for any car whose floors are not a critical part of the structure. I believe most cars fit that description, but I'm sure there are some unibody cars out there which have particular demands on the floors requiring a little more expertise. On that note, let's be very clear: I have zero prior welding experience. Nada. Zip. I've tried to play with a stick welder and was unable to strike a spark without getting the stick stuck to the target material. After a few hours of that frustration, I gave up, put the welder under my workbench and moved on. Until now.

The Patient

right side floor - before

I have posted quite a bit about the journey with this little British car since I acquired it late last Summer. After a spirited drive home with no seatbelts, no brake lights and little understanding of how it operated, I've made many improvements:

• brakes (link)
• fuse box (link)
• master cylinder / pedal box removal (link)
• engine mounts (link)
• rebuilt the front suspension (link 1, 2, 3, 4) including front wheel bearings, etc
• new seat belts, rear suspension rebound straps, fixed the brake lights (no links)

While working on the front suspension, I had a volunteer in K2 ask if he could help out. I wasn't in a spot where unskilled hands were really a help, so I asked him to start removing the interior. The carpets smelled bad and were pretty worn, so I'd intended on at least getting the smelly stuff out and putting in a temporary solution until I had the cash to do the interior well. That is where this story begins.

Discoveries

left side floor - before

With a 1/2" spanner and a small ratchet, K2 was able to remove the 4 bolts which hold in the passenger seat and pop them into a ziplock baggie. We pulled the seat, and set it on the floor. I left K2 to the carpet and I returned to the suspension. K2 did a great job pulling the carpet free from the floor, and the transmission tunnel. The floor looked fair, with surface rust, but half of it was covered by the original sound deadener. We split the task of hammering that out with a chisel so we could evaluate what lay beneath. There were some rusty spots as you can see in the upper picture, but only pin-holes through.
Prognosis: fair, but will require some work to have them sealed up. Replacement suggested.

With the limited space in the garage, K2 had to perform some gymnastics to get after the bolts holding the driver seat in, but once removed, he made quick work of the carpet and we cleared the sound deadener much faster as well. Unfortunately, as "okay-ish" as the passenger floor was, the driver floor was pretty bad. There were multiple small holes and the sound deadener came out so easily because of the heavy rust underneath it. Upon further examination, the floor around one of the nuts for the seat had cracks in it.
Prognosis: This floor was toast. Replacement required.

Decision made: we'll replace both pans, one at a time, and hopefully have the MG road-able before the next rainy season starts.

Pans

aftermarket pan

When it comes to the floor, there are OEM and aftermarket floor pans. The OEM cost about twice as much, but they have all of the little things that make them easier to work with. They have the nuts for the seat-bolts already installed, and the reinforcements to the floor around them. There are various little threaded studs on the underside that are on the OEM pans. Last, of course, they are heavy British steel. The aftermarket pans do not have most of the fasteners attached, are made with thinner (not British) steel and they reportedly have an extra lip around the edge that needs to be cut off. Based on the pictures, it looks like the aftermarket pans also lack the drains. neat. I chose the OEM pans, and ordered a set through my local MG specialty shop: British Auto Works in North Plains.

Weld or Glue

OEM pan

There is a whole religious war about using a structural glue to attach floors, or other "non-structural" panels. The glue argument goes "modern cars are glued together, and the new glues are far better than anything they had back then so the manufacturers would have used them if they'd had them". Sounds reasonable. The weld counter-argument goes "modern cars are CAD designed with things like cost of materials and time/effort factored into the engineering so the glue is part of the engineering work, the crash testing, etc so gluing anything that isn't purely cosmetic on a non-glue car is a bad idea". This also sounds reasonable. I decided that I'd err on the side of caution and learn how to MIG weld on these floors. I have always wanted to learn how and while floors may not be structural, my seat is bolted to it, so it feels a little more important than, say, a rear spoiler. With this in mind, I reached out to my wife's sister's boyfriend to borrow a welder, and some welding instruction. But, before we get too far down that path, we need to remove the old. We'll get to that next time.

That's it for today's appetizer of a post. More to come on this topic for sure. Thanks for following along.

Fuel Tank solved

Progress! I have a fuel tank in the bus and the engine has been re-installed. Hapy is ready for Hal's welding work to resume on Sunday, and I'm able to move off of the fuel system for a while and focus on some other things.

Tank modification design
After proving that the below-deck boat tank wouldn't git in the fuel tank bay, I went looking for other alternatives. I heard and tried suggestions ranging from putting the boat tank under the rock-n-roll bed to hammering the original tank. I had marks on the tank from where the vacuum pump hit during install attempts and I had marked where the water flange was hitting the horizontal seam. I extended out from those end points a few inches to provide room for coolant lines and drew vertical lines on the tank. At the top, I measured a 45* angle towards the center for 5" and then drew a straight line across the top (parallel to the rear lip of the tank) for the top cut. This extra space would provide room for the vacuum pump for sure, but it also provides space for my hand to go in front of the pump and/or flange if I need to fix something later. The pictures should help illustrate this. Please contact me if you want/need more detailed measurements.

Finding a Welder
After exhausting what I felt were all other options, I found and hired a welder off of craigslist. I wasn't sure Hal wanted the work with the exploding fumes potential. Brad (the CL guy) has done other automotive welding and fabrication and wasn't at all concerned about welding on my tank. The finished job is exactly what I wanted, right down to the vent line included in the new material. I was very stoked.

Painted and Ready
I thoguht about running some Bondo onto the seams to smooth them out, but I figured I'd probably just dork it up somehow and they would eventually become rust spots instead. So, I just shot the rear of the tank with Eastwood's Tank Tone. I re-mounted the fuel level sender, soldered a ground lead with a couple of eyehooks, and it was ready for install.


Fuel Tank Install
Actually getting the tank in and out of a bus with a TDI in the engine compartment isn't brain-hard, but its body-hard. The engine needs to be lowered all the way to the ground. Then, the vacuum pump needs to be removed as it interferes with the tank install. Then, put your bus jack into the right-side (passenger) rear jack mount and raise the bus to the highest the BusDepot jack will go. The tank will slide in through the rear engine hatch from the right side, glide over the top of the engine and get rotated into the fuel tank bay. The fuel fill line took some muscling, but the vent lines were easy. Mount the ground wire to the body and then the hold down straps. I did not wire-in the level sender lead because I'm not sure how that will integrate into the main wiring. That should be easy to reach, especially now that the front edge of the tank is a few inches closer to the sender.

Engine In
Once the tank was in place, it was time to get the engine back in. Now, I still have to tighten down the fuel tank hold down straps, but getting the engine in was a bear. A few posts ago, I mentioned that I wasn't careful enough on my jack adapter alignment, so the engine came down a little crooked. This made the re-install almost as bad as the first time without the adapter. I finally got the rear transaxle bolts in though - driver side first. Now, we're ready to finish out the engine mounts come Sunday.

What's Next
I expect Hal around 5 on Sunday. With the shortening of the days, we won't have much time, but I'm optimistic that he'll be able to get the rear mount finished on Sunday. We still have the dog-bone to integrate, but there may not be enough time before darkness falls. While he works on the rear mount, I'll be getting the starter back in, and the vacuum ball installed. If time allows, I'll get the exhaust manifold/turbo re-installed and tie-in the waste-gate actuator into the vacuum system (as well as the vacuum pump). If I still have time, I'll start working on the induction side of the engine. I don't have enough detail to work on the radiator stuff yet.

I'll post after Sunday's work is done.

mount re-started

Hal (the VW friend I mentioned in the last post) get a big jump on the rear engine mount last night. Here's a picture of him working the hand-grinder. His design is really very nice. There's a rectangular bar running across the rear of the engine bay from frame rail to frame rail. That mother is heavy. It is welded to 2" angles that were cut and drilled to re-use the bolt-holes that the bumper bracket threads through. As a result, there are no new holes, no cutting of the bus. The mounting bar has slots instead of round holes so there is some flexibility for mounting. The bar floats about an inch in front of the rear apron. This weekend, he'll finish by fab'ing a tower on the bar to get up to the stock TDI engine mount.

I pretty much stayed out of the way, and held stuff when an extra hand was needed. Otherwise, I popped a rivet onto the triangular pop-out driver's window, and messed with the luggage rack. Like I said before, that thing was dirty, and the bars nasty. They all had some surface rust, so I sanded them down, did a Naval Jelly treatment and shot them with Eastwood's Tank Tone product. It was the only gray or silver paint I had, and I figured the high zinc content wouldn't hurt. I'll push a picture of the painted bars, but in the meantime, here's a picture of a pre-sanded (the 2 on the left) and a post sanded bar (the one on the right).

I don't expect to make any additional headway until Friday. I still have a garage full of stuff that didn't go during the garage sale. Apparently, the Salvation Army won't tell you when they're coming, and so unless you wait around all day, you miss them. Great. I guess I'll be hauling that stuff down to Goodwill so I can get to my ATV Jack. I need / want to get the fuel tank in and he engine back in place before we finish the mount work, but I'm starting to think that may not happen. More next time,

WALSTIB - 2

Pics from the lot, inside the venue, as promised. Oh, the setlist:
Set 1:
Help on the Way >
Slipknot >
Franklin's
Good Lovin
Cassidy
Bird Song (ended reservations about JG-less Jerry tunes)
Uncle John's Band (with a smokin' kybd solo)

Set 2:
Unbroken Chain >
The Other One
Drums of Fire (fire dancers during drums) >
Space
Sugaree
Gimme Shelter (reference to Altamont?)
Sugar Mag

Encores:
St. Steven >
The 11 >
Hendrix (Foxy Lady?) tease >
The 11
Touch of Grey



picture contents.....
top - Bell enjoying the lot. Green '78 Westy was parked 2 cars to her left. Mid-80's Vanagon was about 8 cars down to the right. Overall, there were very few bay window or vanagons in Mt. View / Shoreline.

next from top - Dwayne-o. Old friend of mine from my Las Vegas days. He came down from Florence OR (didn't realize he was a fellow Oregonian) to meet up with a few of us old Shwaggtown-ers.

next from bottom - Entry to Shoreline. That's Ed, lead singer and driver of the Winnebago (or '73 bus in our case).

Bottom - inside Shoreline as the Dead start filering onstage. That was our view - pretty darn good.

On the bus work.... I have given up on brazing, and I'm back to welding again. After reading the fine print on the HTS-2000 website, it looks like the kind of fabrication I'm doing is with tubing that is too thick to get up to temperature. Basically, the website says something about 12" x 12" x 1" in size, or something like that. I think the heat dissipates so fast, that a torch can't keep the tubes hot enough long enough to braze well.

So, I'll be buying a welding helmet at Harbor Freight, and some steel bars at Home Despot (or The Steel Yard on Columbia Blvd), and re-starting my welding efforts. I have reached out to a few friends that have welding on their resume's, but this is a hard time of year to get time from folks - they have their own delayed projects that need their spare hours. Before I break into the welding, I'll be rust-treating the underside of the bus with Eastwood's Rust Encapsulator. That shouldn't take more than an hour, but its necessary before welding in a radiator mount under there.

I'll have pics of the return drive, and from the Gorge show (May 16, 2009) in follow-up posts.

mounts fab'd

It took a few hours, but Ed the welder knocked out a set of serviceable mounts for Hapy today. After a quick consultation, he took off to Home Depot for steel stock and assorted supplies. I, then, took the boys and a friend to the local Easter Egg hunt, with the dog. Unfortunately, the dog gets very excited around big groups of kids all hopped-up on sugar, so we had to stay off to the side. Shortly after we returned, Ed got back from Home Depot, and we (well, he, really) got to work.

I just realized I didn't finish the engine extraction story all the way. I left off last Saturday with uncertainty about jamming the new engine in, or fitting in the faux one. I chose the faux one after double checking measurements, and figuring that I was very close if not spot-on. We'll know when the engine install happens in a few weeks. I attached the adapter plate to the transaxle, and fitted the engine to the adapter, aligning it at the 15* angle mostly by eye. I knew where the driveshaft was supposed to go, so centering it was pretty straightforward. The challenge was figuring out where the block-to-adapter points were. I was able to identify one on the bottom and used that to align the rest. A little bailing wire to hold it in place, and the bus was ready for mount fabrication.

The how and the why:
First, we took an old moustache bar from a 72-79 bus, and cut out the middle section. It was then bolted into the stock frame mounts. Starting from the left (driver's) side, a down piece was fitted. Ed worked his way across, then constructed an engine tie-in for each side. On each end of the new moustache bar he attached a mount-point out of basic flat stock. He then welded up a bar from the side of the faux engine to the frame in front of the stock mount. There's an extra plate of flat stock welded in there too, to help support. Between the new bar and the mount-point on the moustache bar, an additional connection was made. At each end is flat stock that will require a bolt-hole boring when the engine is fitted. This design provides a triangular support on each side, connecting the side of the engine to the moustache bar and the frame. Once fitted, there should be "about an inch" of adjust-ability in all directions. The bolt holes will be drilled once the engine is set right, so it is torqued down solid. The picture here shows how they looked when he was finished, and before I metal etched and painted them.

The design did not include a vibration isolator, and we talked about that directly. It was his opinion that, since the transaxle was direct-mounted, any isolation effort would be wasted. We'll feel the vibration because of the direct transaxle-to-frame connections. If this proves to me incorrect, there is opportunity to adjust the design to incorporate an isolation solution later.


While Ed did all of the welding work, I set to work on the fuel tank. He only had the one shield anyway. The tank really wasn't that bad. I found that it had a very clean VDO fuel level sensor that I'll be reusing. The inside of the tank had some light rust, but it was all on the bottom. There wasn't any above the seam, which made my efforts much easier than other folks. The process is pretty straightforward and well-documented on the web: hot water & soap, metal clean, rust treat, metal etch, new tank seal. I was able to get as far as metal etch when the rain and hail began. While the metal etch dries completely overnight, the harsh weather should move out. I'll spread the new liquid seal tomorrow morning and spray-paint the outside shortly thereafter. The tank should be ready for re-install next weekend. Before then, I need to clean, noise-suppress and insulate the fuel tank bay. I'll be doing that next week at some point, work schedule willing.

Lots of progress, and more to come. It feels like this project is starting to gain some momentum. All the prep-work is starting to pay off. More later--

Happy Holidays

Well... I meant to post something closer to Christmas, but time seems fleeting this time of year. Nearly another month has passed and the TDI -> bus effort has really stalled. I added a few squirts of oil into each of the cylinders again, and I pushed the bus a few feet from under the basketball hoop, but otherwise, nothing big has happened. I have, however, moved closer to just doing the welding myself. I have email threaded with the cat that I mentioned in an earlier post that did his own work, and I think I'm ready to take the plunge.

Cost / benefit:
Sears sells a pretty decent 110-volt arc welder for $140. This comes with a face shield, a wire brush and a cheepy hammer. The reviews on the Sears website are positive. You can't weld without a grinder and leathers, so off to Harbor Freight we go. Angle grinder $15, leather apron, gloves, etc for $20. Those numbers don't seem right, but that's what the website says. Add a small propane torch, a table vice and a small sledgehammer. Figure the total cost, with some raw steel is around $225. Add to that the isolators (I'm thinking Ford Ranger ones as they are the right size, and handle that much torque and weight) for another $60. I was going to pay someone $300-$400 to do it, so this looks like a money savings, plus I get tools at the other end.... and a new skill.

Pro / Con:
On the plus side, I'll learn something new. I should be able to fix this mounting system if something goes awry. I'll be able to use this skill for other projects, like bodywork, or someone else's stuff. Besides, there's this whole bonding steel together thing that's kinda cool.
On the con side, I don't know what I'm doing, and we're talking about the thing that holds the engine off the ground and in the bus. If I don't do it right, and the engine isn't balanced correctly or positioned right, I could really damage the engine-to-transaxle connection or someting. Heck, the whole thing could shake loose and fall out. Well.. it could.

Basically, I'm running out of time for this portion of the project. I had initially planned to have the engine mounts constructed and the engine in-place by the end of February. This, I thought, gave me time to do the electrical, radiator, airbox, etc. by the end of June. I have sent out my last set of feelers. If I don't get a good connection from these by next weekend, I'll be buying some new tools.

I'll post my Christmas presents and the resolution to this next week--

engine mounting again

Not much headway, unfortunately, since the last post. I found a guy that is in the process of putting a Quantum diesel engine into his '73 bus, though. I had forgotten about his efforts completely, even though it was corresponding with him that gave me that extra push to do this. swiss-cheese brain. Anyway, he solved his mounting problem pretty simply: reuse the existing bar from the old air-cooled engine. Here's a picture of what he built.

That's what I wanted to do. He even welded his own, and has been encouraging me to do the same. Considering the last thing I welded was in 5th grade as a part of an industrial arts project, I'm not sure that's such a hot idea. What I did get out of this, though, was a general design that I can take to someone else. The key, again, is finding a non-flakey fabricator. I did order and receive a used engine bar so we can do the work without having to drop the existing engine and reuse that bar. The more I look at the pictures of the work my friend did, the less difficult this should really be. I just need someone with a welder, some skills with it, some steel stock and a few hours.
Hopefully, my next post will have some good news.