Howdy all,
Today I discovered what might have been one of the greatest DPO
cover-ups in MG history. The bad news is, it's my car. Even worse,
I should have seen it before.
But, I digress.
After school today, I noticed that my muffler had picked up a
chunk of grass - no doubt from driving down a dirt road here in NC.
Being the picky owner, I crawled under the car to remove it. (OK, I
also wanted to see if driving through all those puddles got the salt
off my undercarriage.) As I looked at the one rear crossmember, I
saw a glint of gold.
Without going into details, the underbody of this car was never
perfect. There was a small hole about the size of a dime in the
previously mentioned crossmember, but the car passed inspection
anyway. I had planned on welding this little problem up this summer
when I fixed the crack of doom. But, what I found makes me change
all my MG plans.
At first, I wondered what kind of strange animal had shiny gold
blood, or where I hit fool's gold. I grabbed a screwdriver and
began to poke around at the gold, chipping off years of
undercoating. To my general horror, I found the entire crossmember
covered in braze! I don't know if the crossmember could be 'built'
from brazing rods or if it's real metal covered in braze, but I do
know one thing - I don't like it! I checked around and found a few
repairs done in braze - many years ago, before the last owner had
the car, I'm sure. There was evidence of his welding over and
through some of the braze - how he didn't see it or fix it is beyond
me. All of the joints were brazed - I could claw a mark in them
with my screwdriver.
So, to my terror, the frame of my car is brass. I put the top
down, then jumped up and down vigorously to be sure the car wouldn't
collapse! After driving back to campus and calming myself down, I
went out to look again. I saw no visible cracks, but I'm still not
too fond of having structural components bonded together with brass.
I also took out my hand drill to be certain that the DPO hadn't
simply covered the repaired areas in brass to prevent them from
rusting. I drilled a few different areas with a very small bit and
found brass as far as I could drill.
So, right now, I'm not liking this very much. Quite frankly,
I'm pissed. I should have seen it sooner, but if I and a whole slew
of others didn't notice it, there mustn't have been much of a
problem caused by the whole affair. Don't get me wrong, something
will be done about this mess, but not right now. I can't take the
car off the road, but I can do weekly checks to see that the joints
are holding.
Right now, I'm faced with a few possibilities. I could spend
all summer trying to fix the repairs only to find out that the
bodyshell is shot; I could sell my soul and buy a heritage
bodyshell; or I could rejuvenate the old blue MG bodyshell.
Right now, I'm liking the last option best. I have a '77
bodyshell that is just sitting. It needs new rockers, a paint job,
and all the trim and running gear from my '74, but that's it! 8-)
There are a few pro's and con's to this job. First, the bad news -
I'd probably shaft the chrome bumpers for the rubber ones. I'd be
busy enough with getting the car running without having to buy more
conversion parts. Next would be the welding of the rockers and
touching up the fenders and hood with some new metal to repair the
rust. I've never done it before, but I guess there's no time like
the present. The good news is that I won't have to rely on my MGB
as a daily driver after this summer, so I could take my time on the
project. Second, I could take my time and do the job right - have
somebody spray the bodyshell after the body work is done and redo
the engine while it's out. Not only that, I think I've turned just
about every nut and bolt on the car, so removal shouldn't be that
hard!
What does anyone think? Anyone who has done this - how long
does it take to swap parts from one car to another, keeping in mind
that the '77 is stripped? I'm interested to hear what the list says
on this topic. Meanwhile, I'll keep looking for stress cracks.
Michael S. Lishego
http://www.geocities.com/MotorCity/Speedway/3706/
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