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Body Sill Replacement - RT-604
The Skeleton and Garage Hangings


This is how I organize a 15-1/2 x 21 foot space to keep the floor clear for work.



Here are some better pictures of the sills and pillars, ground zero of this project.


Until now this was fairly simple disassembly work. Now I get to start breaking welds and removing fixed parts. I intend to take my typical MGA Guru approach and fabricate most of the required new sheet metal parts from flat stock to keep the out of pocket cost to a minimum. I am considering buying new pre-fab'd B-pillars, if I can find quality parts that actually fit. I surely want to avoid the ones that do not have the 4 degree relief angle on the front face. I will start by peeling away the outside sheet from the B-pillars for a good look inside. If it doesn't look too bad I may sand blast it inside and try to save most of the front plate with a small patch at the bottom. A lot will depend on how much of the rear plate needs to be replaced. Wish me luck? (14 Dec 07)

Addendum:
Now there is a bit of curiosity below. Anyone who has had the fenders off of an MGA would likely notice that the inner sill box panel is tapered, about 1-1/4 inches narrower at the back (on each side) than at the front. This is to allow the whole body to be narrower aft of the doors so you can have that nice bulge on the rear fenders without being wider at the back fenders than at the front fenders. The first two bends on top of the sill make the top flange vertical, the top surface slope down 5 degrees, and the side surface slope under about 25 degrees from vertical. Two simple bends there, all very easy. But the surprise comes underneath.


The bottom angled surface is not flat but is twisted form front to back. It slopes up 22 degrees from horizontal at the front and 40 degrees at the back. That allows it to fit inside of the smaller volume of the rear fender dog leg. Unfortunately that makes the box panel difficult to form because the lower two bends are not constant angles. The bend for the bottom flange is 68 degrees at front and 50 degrees at rear. The next bend up is about 43 degrees at front and 25 degrees at rear. I think I know how to form this by hand, buy not sure if it can be done with standard press brake or bending brake tooling. I will consult with a fabricator shop and let you know later how I make out. (18 Dec 07)

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