1975 MGB GTV8 Special

New jacking point fitted to the offside 



Nearside also needs one and I have ordered it today 



With the bracing removed I dressed back the welds at the front of the floorpan - the joints will be seam sealed on both sides once I get to that stage - decision is yet to be made on the type of sound deadening that will be fitted once the inside of the bodyshell is painted but its going to need something to soften the cockpit noise to an acceptable level - several other minor areas of welding were undertaken such as blanking the holes that I drilled for bolting the temporary bracing up to 



Defective area of the front inner wing removed 



Fresh steel fabricated & welded in 



Then dressed back 



Inner wing reinforcement / trumpet panel would not line up at first (or so I thought) 



But then checked the alignment on the removed section only to find out that I have it in the same position as the original - for some reason it dips down on the offside rather running in line with the top edge of the inner wing like it does on the nearside 



So in it went 



I managed to salvage the cage nuts from old section of the inner wing and transfer them over to the freshly repaired section 



All looks neat enough for something that no one will ever see once the outer wing is fitted 



That just left a few set nuts to fit to the vertical edge 



Which the inner wing splash guard fastens up to 



That's all the important structural side of the things sorted - now on to a few conversion related matters then then the external panel work  

And less like a polo mint at that 

I think its purposely designed that way - the front nose of the trumpet is pretty narrow at the point that retains 2 captive nuts for some type of mounting to the inner wing - so it looks like the trumpet panel is lowered slightly so it doesn't foul the captive nuts or the studs travelling through nuts 



Just checked from some reference images on other cars - it looks like some type of a relay box - but this maybe / maybe not be required - anyhow I'm happy if you are happy with it   

Great thing about using a late rubber bumper bodyshell is that some of the hard work is already done if you are going down the V8 engine route - these rebates between the chassis legs and the bulkhead give that all important additional space factor that allows you to shoehorn the V8 into the bay - earlier cars require modification in this area 



Engine mountings are in the correct place too so that's another tick in the box 



Now the bad news the bodyshell for the rubber bumper car carries quite different bumper mounting points with revisions to the front of the chassis legs - there are conversion brackets available if you want a rubber to chrome bumper conversion and its sort of ok - but given the standards that this car is being built to we wont be using conversion brackets 



Instead we will be modifying the the front of the chassis legs to accept the original type of chrome bumper mounting on original bumper irons 



Which requires the installation of captive nuts into the chassis legs (not the 2 that you see in the image)



Which requires the removal of both the upper & lower bumper brackets on the chassis legs - its fairly thick steel and care is required in order not create damage to the surrounding panels whilst removing the unwanted brackets - Nothing easy here a good number of the spotwelds cant be drilled out easily due to lack of access for the drill - even with my right angle drill I still struggled 



Fortunately I have this in my collection of kit - Plasma cutter - I don't use it often but its a very handy piece of kit for jobs like this 



And some time later 



The brackets were reduced to a pile of scrap 



Then the area cleaned up 



Radiator mounting panel brackets need to come off the inner wings too - the V8 rad sits much further forward than the original B series 1800 engine 





End of the chassis legs gets trimmed back and eventually blanked off with plates 



Not sure what bolts up here on the underside of the chassis leg but I managed to get the sheared stud out once I had the nut glowing red with heat - not easy when the nut is captive and its 200mm down inside the chassis rail 



I then welded up the areas has required along the sides of the chassis legs / inner wings - these I will clean / dress back in the morning 



And corrected some of the abysmal factory welds that had virtually missed the target completely 

 

These reinforcing rings 



Fit here 



And here 



And once the centres are cut out of the inner wings as marked provide the exits on each side for the exhaust headers 



New radiator mounting panels - I'm going to leave them off for now - we will dry fit the engine first to confirm the clearances before welding them in 



I think that's enough for one day - more tomorrow 

Front tray flange edge repairs - the front valance fastens up to this 



Drilled & the set nuts welded in 



Front valance trial fitted & the the front bumper irons checked for clearance around the bumper iron apertures in the valance 



Jacking point arrived so that got fitted on the nearside - both jacking points require a little reinforcement but I'll wait until the bodyshell returns to the workshop after the dry fit - It will be going onto my roll over jig for the underside to be refinished and I'll undertake any minor welding to areas that I cant currently access easily at that point  



Rear closing plate for the offside sill fabricated & welded in - just needs dressing back 



Exhaust header aperture trimmed back on the nearside inner wing - my spot welder is playing up and I need to sort a part for it hence I'll weld this in once I have the welder sorted 



Door frame bottom repair sections have also arrived - just in time has I'm now commencing the external panelling of shell 

Nice job Chris. I fitted an engine stabiliser bar to the front wing as the engine rotated a fair bit. Does the transmission tunnel require modification? I fitted an LT77 and that needed a slightly higher tunnel. You are right about the rubber to chrome bumper brackets. These are crap.

Peter

Its good to see the face of the MGB with just those 3 panels bolted up 

That wing to door edge gap is the same sort of issue with pattern wings for mk2 Granadas. Only on them its the wing that isnt correctly shaped 

Will the door skin replacement get reformed at that portion to reduce the gap?

I haven't logged in for a few days and you have practically finsihed the front end !! Great work Chris, a MGB GT is my next car of choice so really interesting to see what you are letting yourself in for. !!