Royce Burnett's Journal

Progress continues between Christmas preparations and other distractions.. I finished the dogleg repairs the other day which turned out well I think, the panel I spliced together looks really good and the other side needed much less massaging to put on the car. Quite happy with the results.

I turned my mind towards the DS front fender.. it is truly in sad shape but I cannot bring myself to buy new fenders.. it's just too costly by the time they get shipped here and if I buy one, I'd feel stupid for not buying the other side as well, since it's nearly as bad. Oh well, just have to do the best I can.

Dad has once again proven to be a metal working genius.. he's doing a bangup job on the repairs to the trumpet section so far and has just a couple more pieces to make and fit to the car.

Well as one can see by the pictures the journey continues... we've begun fixing the PS trumpet area and things sort of extended from there.

On a different area, I've got the repair panel almost ready to go in on the PS dogleg, took a bunch of messing around and more to come to get the panel to fit correctly.. it's not bent properly at the bottom edge as it turns out. I'll have to cut it just below the body curve where it turns north towards the membrane and splice a small strip in. Actually I think it is the fault of the Steelcraft rocker panel, I noticed after I had everything welded up that the bottom side is deeper than the rocker on the driver's side ( approx 1/4 inch difference in the depth). This is about how much I'm going to have to splice into the dogleg patch.

Well ,we've managed to get a bit more done between work and family things. Mainly dismantling and cleaning; finally removed the wiring harness completely, all of the bits on the firewall (including the thrice-damned heater) and a lot of undercoating under the front section. We have some serious trumpet section fixing to do as well as the dash side panel on the passenger side. Other bits that need attention is the shelf the master cylinder and the evaporative cannister sits on, and of course the inner engine bay by the trumpet section.

Today I managed to get the passenger side inner sill in where I want it, the rest of the passenger side parts will go in tomorrow. Christmas season is here and the first of many dinners/parties is tonight so I've run out of time today.

Well, had to go back to work this week dang it, so didn't progress too much this week.

Got the rest of the PS floor panels out and started working on the front sidemember which needs a few patches here and there.. Dad's been busy while I'm away working on various things. He's 80 years old, so doesn't work too hard, just smart.

Been lazy about updating this.. progress continues. Got the outer sill on the DS and it looks fine. Bit more gap at the bottom of the door than I want but I have a lot of adjustment left. I think it will be fine with a bit of adjustment. Have to finish the rear dogleg repair yet, after we patch up the inner fender well.

Got busy on the PS tearing brake lines and wiring off the bottom of the car yesterday and started removing floor panels. It amazes me to see the amount of work done by the PO in a failed attempt to fix the floors. He must have spent at least as much time banging up some replacement panels out of 12 gauge galvanized and getting them to fit as I have trying to things right with the correct parts. Oh well, maybe they weren't available.

Spent today yanking the back 1/2 of the sill out, quite a bit of work but eventually got the thing out. I'm just having a celebratory cup of tea, knowing that the worst of this dismantling job is done... a bit more work tomorrow taking the front 1/2 off but should go pretty easy since the bottom of the dash side panel is pretty corrupted.. a quick gash around the A post and cut away up to the front bulkhead. No need to mess with any spot welds except on the A post, yay! pretty tired of drilling those out.

Spent yesterday fixing up a few patches on the front bulkhead and playing with my stretcher shrinker making a piece to fix up the rear wheelwell.

Today was productive! Got the inner sill, castle rail, and membrane in. Used the spacer blocks mentioned on Lee Miller's site. Everything lines up good, and the outer rocker will go on tomorrow with very little fuss (if there is an MG God!) Dad came out and helped me, he sure likes my new Lincoln 140.