On Fri, 23 Feb 1996, R Glenn Stauffer wrote:
> I have a 74 MG Midget - chrome bumpers/round rear wheel arches - that suffers
> from enough rust problems that I am ready to scrap my whole restore project.
> It is probably salvageable, but I don't know where to start.
(stuff deleted)
> BTW, regarding body repair... Does anyone have advice on learning how to
> restore a shell? I have a welder (MIG/no gas bottle) and have a full
> set of air tools (sander/grinder/Binks #7 gun) to prep the metal and repaint.
> I have decent facilities to do the work, but no one to teach me. If I could
> find an individual in the area who would help me do something like a sill
> as a lesson (for money/trade/whatever), that would be great. If there is
> another way to learn that anyone can suggest, that would be great too.
> Reading a book and translating it into doing the work isn't that easy.
> I know mechanicals well and can do most anything there, but the body work
> part is intimidating and it probably doesn't need to be.
You have tools, a place to work, and apparently you are not a complete
mechanical klutz. You have one of the best possible cars to learn body
work on. Parts are cheap, and if you screw up and have to junk it, well,
you were going to junk it anyway. If you succeed, it likely will be
better than anything you could have bought.
Buy a book by Porter, called (something like) Guide to Purchase and DIY
Restoration of the Sprite and Midget. It will tell you most of what you
need to know, and those of us who have been there can tell you the rest
when you need to know it.
You have nothing to fear except fear itself.
Ray Gibbons Dept. of Molecular Physiology & Biophysics
Univ. of Vermont College of Medicine, Burlington, VT
gibbons@northpole.med.uvm.edu (802) 656-8910
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