Michael Todd Thorpe's Journal

Got a quote back today for blasting and powder coating the seats for the B. 165 for both frames. A doable price, and it doesn’t involve me stripping, prepping and then painting the frames.

I pulled the driver side seat out of the car this afternoon and stripped it down to the frame, removing as many of the bits and bobs as possible and bagging it all. It now joins the passenger seat I’d done previously. Tomorrow I’ll drop it off at the shop for processing. They said they’d need it for five days. That works just fine for me.

Yesterday I worked on the electrics a little, tracking down a problem with the hazard light relay. Replaced with a new one rated for LED’s, and ran a ground wire back to the spot where the old relay was mounted and used that screw for ground. Parked like a charm. Now I need to keep tracking down those other electrical problems. Not all the lights are working now. But I have a good idea what’s going on.

I got the seat frames back last week from being blasted and powder coated and they came out great. So nice I almost don’t want to recover them...

This morning I worked on cleaning up the seat rails and the rest of the seat hardware. I also installed the new webbing. After reading about how much of a pita the webbing is supposed to be, I was pleasantly surprised at how easy the job was.

This afternoon I added the new seat backer boards and placed the foam to see how it all fit...

Tomorrow, the new covers.

More photos from today...

Yesterday morning I slipped the new covers onto the seat backs and foams. I let them rest over night and thought over and over again about whether to use adhesive for the final assembly. By this morning I decided to forgo the glue.

I got an early start, and by lunch time I had both seats covered in their new vinyl. I tried to stay focused and work slowly. I reused all of the original clip hardware as well as the original headrest grommets. I started with the seat bottoms, setting clips in the front first and then working down both sides. I then moved on to the seat backs. That took a while because I was reusing the headrest grommets and I had to take those apart to reuse them. I put the headrests in place before moving on with the clips on the backs and I think that helped keep things aligned. The little flaps on either side of the backs aren’t secured as of yet. I didn’t have any of the original small screws or cup washers and need to see if I can source those. And the flaps don’t quite stretch down as far as the original covers, so I may not secure them at all.

It’s a good thing I took lots of photos when I disassembled the seats because I reviewed those constantly. I also see why there is ample advice about keeping one seat together while working so you can use it as a reference. Though, in my case, that wasn’t an option as I needed to get the frames cleaned and coated.

Is the fit perfect? No. But considering that it’s the first time I’ve ever done anything like this, they didn’t turn out bad at all.

The next job is to install the seats back in the car, and make a decision on what seat belts I want. I’m almost certain I will go with aviation style buckles... I think they look far sharper than the more modern look.

There they are. I’m pretty happy with them, though even without the wood strips I sit pretty high. May have to do something about that.

Afterwards, I traced down an electrical problem and found that the hazard switch is not passing juice on to the turn signal flasher. I need to replace the switch, and heck, might as well also replace the headlight switch...

Interior door pulls

I’ve known for some time that I didn’t want to put the original foam door pulls back into the MG. Not only were they in very bad shape, but I’ve always liked the chrome pulls better.

So I bought some chrome door pulls and then realized, how the heck will I mount them to the doors? The ‘76 pulls had screws and plastic nuts set at a further distance and at an upward angle... but I thought there might be a chance that the door still had stamped holes from the original builds... I was right.

The holes are shaped differently from each other and I looked and looked for nylon nuts that would fit and still accept the #10 screws, and fit tightly. I went about that for months, trying different things, looking for just the right thing. I even considered drilling new holes, or modifying the existing holes. But I wanted to be a good steward and not do anything that wasn’t reversible.

I finally tried a different idea, using a strip of aluminum flashing bent to fit the inside of the door, folded over at the edges to hold it in place, and then speed nuts clipped in place to accept the #10 stainless screws.

A word of caution: be careful with the flashing when you’re working with it, the edges can be sharp!

I think it turned out well.