At 02:57 PM 5/15/2001 -0800, Gregg Baker (gbaker@customcpu.com) wrote:
>Have any of you purchased the patterns that I think someone offers for
sale to reproduce the floorboards of an MGA. ....
No. Why waste your money? Use heavy brown paper and a pencil to trace out
the pattern directly from the frame of your car. Doesn't have to be
particularly accurate, as the edges will be hidden inside of the frame from
below, and all will be covered with carpet from above. Use 1/2" plywood
rather than the original 3/8" thickness, and it be strong as an ox and last
forever. You can make all the pieces from one 4'x8' sheet. When you have
a panel cut to fit, hold it in place and poke through the bolt hole from
below with a pointed awl to mark the location on the wood, then drill the
holes. The only panel with an open edge is the vertical board behind the
seats, where the battery cover sits on the top edge with a thick rubber seal.
Soak the finished panels in Penta wood preservative (or such), several
coats until they won't take any more. Especially do the best you can to
saturate the edge grain. After that is all dry, paint with a couple coats
of black enamel. When that's dry install with paintable siliconized latex
caulk in the joints to make it water tight. Use caulk to completely fill
the gap around the edges, especially along the sides of the horizontal
panels, so it can't trap water there to rust the frame.
I did mine with the restoration work, finished and on the road 15 years
ago. Have since put 163,000 miles on it on all kinds of roads in all kinds
of weather, including lots of rain, lots of gravel roads, some winter
driving and plenty of salt laden mud (Alaska and such). Did new carpet
again a few years ago, had to scrape off the adhesive and glue the new
carpet in place. To date those floorboards look almost exactly like the
day they were installed and will likely outlive me.
Screws are 1/4-28, fine thread interchangeable with UNF or SAE. They were
originally PosiDrive flat heads with stamped finishing washers. When I did
mine I used hex socket flat head machine screws. I also used 3/8" plain
flat washers and hit the center hole with a countersink tool to make the
screw heads sit flush. Use antisieze on the screws, just in case you may
ever want to remove them again (not very likely).
Regards,
Barney Gaylord
1958 MGA with an attitude (and a cheap floor)
http://www.ntsource.com/~barneymg
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