July 2015

Ronstoration

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To those sensitive to marque specific detail I apologise. I suspect there's going to be a bit of this MG nonsense.

The MGA is coming along, but I have had to take a different approach to restoring it, which I have dubbed "Ronstoration".

Ron is one of the Jag Boys. He sold used cars for over 40 years. "Paint it black and put it back" sums up the caryard approach.

So today I took Rob's car up to Jaag Central and loaded it up with bits of MGA..

 

 

Then when I got home I simply painted everything black.

Well not really. Actually yes I did but I did do other stuff..

I stripped and reassembled the steering rack. There is a miniscule bit of play in one of the tie rod end balls but it's tolerable. If this had been a Jag it'd have been a case of new steering rack. But it's the MGA, so it'll do, and I painted it black.

 

I stripped the brake calipers. A tiny bit of surface rust on the pistons but otherwise look good. Jag? New seals new pistons. MGA? Spray can.

 

 

Shock absorbers? I could have stripped then bead blasted all the bits, had the oil seals redone and reassembled them. But they seem to work and don't seem to leak so they got the Full Ronald (paint top and bottom as well). I even wire wheeled the filler bolts, which by the way are 1/4" Whitworth. I did draw the line at painting them with Silver Frost. But only just.

 

 

 

 Total cost today... zero.

 

 

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MGA??!!

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Before his death in 2014 Marty Hawes decided his MGA needed pepping up. So in true style he decided to transplant a 1600 twin cam MX5 engine and gearbox into it.

He got about 75% of the way through but sadly never finished it.

Moving on 18 months the car was still in his shed in pieces. After some discussion the boys decided it would be a good thing to rebuild it, so it has been purchased and moved up to Jag Central. I don't think anyone but Marty actually believed that it would ever get road registration with the MX5 engine so we will put the original engine back in.

Chief engineer and I stripped the B series engine from it today. It's SO TINY!!!

 

 

 

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