Friday 29 December 2017

Left Hand Rear Wheel Arch Repairs

Determined to keep progressing with the car, I spent some time today in the garage continuing to repair the rear of the MG Midget in preparation for the new boot floor panel. Today I focused on the left hand side rear wheel arch. This side is certainly not as bad as the right, but does have a few issues that need to be sorted out.



On first inspection I thought this would be a quick repair, but through the hole created by the rust I could see some surface rust in the tubular section behind, so I cut out more than I originally planned.



So with rust converter and paint brush in hand I coated the inside as best as I could.



Once it was all dry I added a top coat of chassis paint to hopefully seal it for many years to come. Once that had dried I could cut out a template and weld a new piece in.



Came out pretty good too! Next up was reinforcement arch which was slightly worse than the right hand side. The metal was very thin and rust and needed to be cut out and replaced.



The new strip fitted well and I have found welding upside down has become much easier since I cleaned the wire feeding spindle in the welder, so I now get a much more consistent flow of wire.


  
The final job for the day was another section of the wheel arch.


This didn't take long and within 15 minutes was all fixed up.



I think the next job will be to fix the curved inner wheel arch that I was so happy with on the right hand side.