Iain's 1970 MG BGT
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Door ReplacementThe drivers door on the B has been on the way out for some time. The bottom edge is rusting fast as can be seen in the picture below.
After pricing up new door I decided it would be a fun project to refurbish a used one. As ever eBay was the answer, and a second hand door was secured for £60 (including P&P). This compares favourably with the well over £200 for a new door, that I'd still need to prep and paint anyway. The door did have a bit of surface rust. but seemed solid in all the right places!
The new door as it arrived - click here for more pics. The first job was to wash the door. I used a scrubbing pad and washing up liquid in hot water. No need to worry about small scratches in the paint!! I also have to use a bit of petrol where there were particularly greasy bits. I drilled out the remaining clips for the trim using a 3mm drill bit, and then attacked the rusty parts of the door with a wire brush on a drill, a paint stripper wheel on an angle grinder and some coarse sand paper. After a further wash I treated the exposed areas to some Loctite rust converter. The door was then washed (again!) and given a rub down with 240 grit paper, which left it looking a bit better!
The chap that sold me the rust converter told me I should spray primer immediately after using the treatment, and then fill on top. This I did. Then it was grit 240 sand paper again which left hte door as shown below.
While it looked good there were still several marks, especially in the large areas of filler (it is all very thin!!). A couple more repetitions of filling and sanding improved matters. I then sanded with 600 and finally 800 grit paper to leave the door as shown below. It now felt totally smooth, but it was difficult to tell what would show up when painted!
The door was hung on the wall and sprayed with primer.
It looks good in the picture, but in reality there are quite a few marks that weren't apparent when the door was multi colour. So I had another couple of rounds of filler, sanding and primer, before I got to the point where I had had enough! I think there must be a real skill to subtle use of filler! I then had the door painted at Entune when they were doing some accident repairs to the back of the car. It looks great from a distance, but up close you can see where the filler has been used over the surface rust at the top. None the less, it is solid and will look a lot better than the current door! |
