mgb side trims

12 April 2020 What a nut

A couple of hours on the MG this beautiful sunny and warm Easter Sunday and I was focussed entirely on one task and one task only. This was to get a nut onto the threaded trim connector which was poking through the front o/s wing right on a seam which prevented me getting the nut onto the thread. I jacked up the front, placed an axle stand under the car and removed the front wheel to get better access to the thread. I then spent about an hour using including a hammer and dremmel cutting wheel to slowly but surely make space for the nut to fit on. It sounds easy now as I write it, but it was blooming difficult. Ideally, I would have turned the whole car upside down and sideways as this would have made the whole job easier, or at least ‘put it on a ramp’ as my Dad sometimes says (that fully equipped workshop being someway down our family list of priorities). One of the issues was that surprisingly the deep recesses of the front wing are a little dark and so I had to improvise a lighting solution. See pictures below for reference. I finally got the nut to bite on the thread (Halleluiah!) and from then on it was simply a case of tightening up the nut until the trim sat snuggly on the front wing. I had read in my restoration book that it was possible to snap these threads so I was very cautious in tightening it up and decided against jumping up and down on an extension bar which I am not sure is ever a good idea. A satisfying time overcoming a problem while I listened on Radio 4 to a profile of the new Labour leader Keir Starmer and some other analysis of the Coronavirus pandemic.

  • This is where I spent about two hours
  • My innovative lighting solution
  • Only one item on the list for today

6 Apr 2020 External trim

I am writing this a week later that it was done, so apologies for my tardiness. I spent a lot of time on this long weekend (Monday off) working on the MG, mainly fixing the external trims. The MGB is blessed with a striking stainless steel trim which runs down both sides, made up on three pieces, front wing, door and rear wing. Each trim snap fits onto a number of round fittings which are pop rivetted into the bodywork plus one screw plate per panel. The pop riveting went reasonably well, except that a couple of holes were too big for the pop rivet to take and so I had to miss these out. The o/s rear had a mislaigned hole so I had to miss that one out too. The front wing screw fittings needed to be drilled and I had a mixed experience with this. The n/s wing drilling went reasonably well – aligned well on the horizontal plane, I didn’t really get it far enough forward to completely pull the trim in. So learning this lesson on the o/s wing, I drilled further forward and although perfectly aligned for the trim, the thread came through next to a seam on the inner wing so I couldn’t fit the washed and nut. Annoyingly I had to leave the job partly done. Worth mentioning that the trims snap on nicely if you smack them sharply with the heel of your palm. Okay for the first couple of trims, but a bit painful by the end of the day.

  • My weekend office
  • These trims went back in easily enough
  • The door trim went on easily enough
  • Not all the holes were in the right place
  • Pop rivets going in…
  • and on snaps the trim
  • It does look rather smart with the new trims

As an aside, I had planned a load of jobs for this weekend, but was frustrated by lack of parts, particularly the seats which are frustrating me with a lack of clear information on how they are fitted and not having all the parts I need [sigh]. I did manage to fit the crush washer to the Oil Cooler pipes. This joint had been leaking oil and then I found the washer in a parts bag. Not doing much good there was it! Now its fitted I no longer have the oil leak, just the stain on the driveway to remind me of my error. Onwards and upwards

My list of jobs – I didn’t get too far!