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MG MGA - Panel fit advice

I have now closed (tacked only) the LH B pillar and trying the fit of the rear fender and the shut face panel. I attach a pic of the bottom of the pillar showing SFP and the fender. They are not pushed in tight (have not drilled the holes for the retaining screws yet). what concerns me is the fender seems to be hanging too low. Note the vertical gap between the bottom of the SFP(where it goes horizontal) and the bottom of the fender flange, The flange was rebuilt, but to the correct original contour. Does this look normal ? Also the fender is just about touching the sill beam. Would appreciate some help!

Art Pearse

Art, I am by no means an expert but I think that some repro parts are not quite right, in fact some new MGB panels that I bought in the UK (supposedly made with the "factory" tooling) were also a bit "out". I have been told that the tooling can wear, causing small differences. The factory people got to know this and were experts at getting things to fit. For us amateurs the main thing is that everything must fit and I would not hesitate to modify whatever is necessary to achieve this. Don't forget that your doors must have consistent gaps (especially the vertical ones, front and rear). My main tip is not to do what I did and screw the mudguard mounting bolts too tight. MGA body panels are only light gauge and will distort near the mounting bolts if you do them up too tight!
Barry Bahnisch

Hi Art,
From the picture the fender bottom does look low, and you still have the outer sill (rocker) panel to attach. Set the SFP aside for a while. The way to tell is to hang the door and the front fender also. The door top should line up with the top of the front fender and rear fender. Then you can tell by the fit around the door whether the rear fender is correct. You may find that the rear fender has to be raised, which will make the fender bottom correct. If everything looks good then clamp the outer sill in place also, to see if it can all be made to fit. This is the way I did it, and it worked out. In the end, my purchased shut face panels were not made correctly and I had to cut, re-shape and weld that exact area of the bottom radius that has the gap in the photo. Also if your other side is still together, you can take measurements and/or cardboard templates (you have to make reverse copies for the opposite side). Others will probably have a better procedure of the process. Are you in Port Carling Ontario? We have a place on Skeleton Lake, not far from PC. Maybe we could get together some time for a brew... Good Luck!

Ralph

Ralph

Barry's advise on hanging the doors first and then fitting the fenders is right on. Almost all the reproduction shut face panels are a very poor fit and will take some work to get them right.
David Werblow

I should say that I have just been through the process of joining front and rear halves via the sill beam. in this process I did fit the doors first. All the parts are as I received the car, except the SFPs which were bought second hand. It was all complicated by the DPO brazing parts to the pillars and frame to disguise the rotted sill beams.So that is why I had to cut and remake the fender flanges.
Art Pearse

Art, your SFP seems to be missing part of its flange. My car still has its original SFPs.

Lindsay Sampford

Lindsay, I see what you mean. I can easily fix that. Your pic is a great help. I see there is a bit of a horizontal gap between the inside SFP flange and the body. Mine has too - is this normal?
Art Pearse

Not too sure what you mean Art, do you mean where the SFP doesn't completely cover the fender flange? You mentioned in your first post that the fender was very close to the sill beam, I found that there was very little clearance between the inner surface of the outer sill (rocker) and the sill beam on mine.
Lindsay Sampford

I had the same problem when I came to join the front and back halves with the front of the rear wing coming too low on the sill. In the end I decided to raise the front of the rear clip 1/2" to 3/4" by inserting a pair of wooden blocks between the frame and the body roughly in line with the vertical boot bulkhead panel. This did the trick.....................Mike
m.j. moore

Art

Do you mean the gap shown on the picture below. These are original SFPs but not the ones that came with the car. This one has quite a big gap 3mm N/S and the O/S one is about 1.5mm. I have had the flange on this one moved to close the gap.


John Francis

I just went thru the same process. The above advice is excellent. Forget the shut face panel for now. Get the fenders doors and gaps the best you can. After all that "customize" the shut face panel as need be to fit. I hope you have a welder or access to one. I had a fair amount of rework to make it look proper.
Lmazoway

Another thing I forgot to mention. The new bottom sills I bought were quite a bit too short (about 20mm or so?), another instance of "after-market" items not fitting properly? I altered the "joggle" by strapping on some suitable thickness (flexible) plywood with the edge in the "correct" place and lead-loading the gap. Might sound a bit fiddly but really fairly simple. For those without "oxy" or not game, set them up and take to a competent panel shop. Many restored MGA's get around with large gaps, usually between the sill and the rear mudguard, whereas the factory got quite a close fit at both ends.
Barry Bahnisch

John, no, I mean the horizontal gap at the bottom centre of your pic. I see also you have to pack out the door catch about 1/8".
Art Pearse

well, I mounted the fenders and the gaps and heights look good

Art Pearse

But I need to get the rear fender closer to the pillar. Door is flush with fr. fender but the rear sticks out about 1/8. Maybe the screws will pull it in. I feel a lot better now, just have to fettle the SFP, maybe shorten my rear fender repair panel.

Art Pearse

Out of interest, what amount of packers under the door hinges and door catch is normal?

To date I've completed the nearside and aligned the doors, sill and wings (fenders) reasonably well, to achieve a standard gap of around 3/16th, with about 1/8" under the hinges but like John I need a large packer under the catch as well (probably 3/16th).

As I've used the original A posts, this suggests the new B post needs to be further forward but even in its current position I have had to cut 3/8" off of the bottom edge of the (repro) SFP to make it fit the sill. If I move the B post forward it would mean cutting over 1/2" off of the SFP!

Chris.
Chris Bond

Chris, to throw some light on your question, I inserted a loose door catch into the lock, then took a free shut face panel and held it over the base of the catch, with the base in the SFP recess. result is that there is about zero clearance at the outer edge of the SFP - it grazes the door face. So it looks like it is normal to require some packing under the catch. Also without packing, the rear edge of the door will go back almost 3/4" behind the SFP face, which is longer than the fender flange. so it looks to me like a 3/16 packing must be normal. Which begs the question - why is the face of the B pillar recessed ? You could pack behind the SFP and have a flat SFP panel, much easier to fabricate at home.
Art Pearse

It is "traditional" to use exactly one fairly thick soft paperboard shim behind each door hinge. The 1500 SPL and teh Twin Cam call for exactly 4 shims for 4 hinges. Reason is because there are a few nifty tricks allowed with this piece when aligning the door to the body. Find details on my web site. The 1600 SPL numbers the hinge shims "A/R" (As Required).

None of the SPLs shows any shim or part number for a shim for the striker plate. Duh? I'm pretty sure the factory must have used shims there. Seems like they would like at least one card piece there just to prevent chipping the paint.

While door posts would have been fixtured during body welding, there was still significant variation in spacing between the posts. My MGA as original had as much as 1/4 inch difference in post spacing between left and right side. The doors also varied somewhat in length. The 3/16 inch of shims at the striker plate is not uncommon. I believe it would be rare to have no shims or just a single card type shim there.

On the flip side, I'm sure the body assembly workers had a few tricks for mixing and matching doors and hinges to fit the situation at hand. I suspect (but can't prove it yet) that there were assorted hinges of slightly different thickness available. There was only one part number for a given hinge during a production period, but I suspect they figured out how to intentionally bend some to be thicker or thinner when closed. I've done it myself on occasion. In fact I have a web page with notes on how to make a hinge thicker in a flash without loosening the screws. To make it thinner just squeeze it in a vice.
Barney Gaylord

This thread was discussed between 04/04/2011 and 09/04/2011

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