5/22 - my new MIG arrives. It's a Clarke 130EN. Got it from TP Tools & Equpment - $400 for the MIG, regulator, cart and hood.

Seems like a nice piece of equipment. Very basic manual, not much use. I've spent a lot of time learning about MIG on the web, that's more useful than the manual. And the school intro was very helpful as well.

My biggest problem is trying to weld blind, which is how I feel wearing a welding hood with a #10 shade - I can't see a thing.

5/23 - went to the local welding supply store and got a tank of AR/CO2 and a auto darkening helmet. Tried them out that night and over the holiday weekend. What a difference the helmet makes - you can see exactly what you're doing, and the transition is imperceptible. Highly recommended.

With the shielding gas, the Clarke works very well. I followed the recommendations on the machine for 20 gauage, and it works great. Very clean welds. Just have to take it slow and steady, and I should be able to do everything I need to do.

I'm spending some time practicing with the welder. I can fill holes and plug weld fairly well. Practicing on butt welds, that will come in handy when I patch the DS rear fender and do the dogleg panel for the PS sill.

Over the next week I went after the DS front fender. I used my 4.5" angle grinder with a cutoff blade to chop off most of the rear/lower section with the rust damage. Then a grinder to remove the remaining flange. Mini-grinder to trim it up and prep it for the patch panel. Drilled 3/16" holes every 1.5" on the patch panel flange. Coated the flange with weld-thru primer. Then used 4-5 vice grip clamps, fixed the patch to the fender, and welded it up. Hemmed over the rear portion, put a few spot welds from the inner support to the patch, and the patch hem to the inner support. Welded in the leading edge of the patch to the fender, and the trailing edge. Looks great. Gave it a coat of self-etching rattle can primer. Next step is to begin filling the rough spots.

The Mar-Hyde One-Step material that I originally sprayed on the DS fender didn't work for me. Not sure whether it was a material or user error, but I didn't get good adhesion. So I sanded it all off before going with the self-etch primer.

On the PS, the fender was beyond saving. I went to eBay and found a supplier who had what I assume were Chinese fenders for $190. I figured it was a gamble, but at a potential savings of $500-600, worth the gamble. Ordered one, it came in less than a week by FedEx (all the catalogs say they must must motoro freight, but this place didn't).

It had a few minor bumps, which even a BMH fender would have. Biggest concern was a dent at the top rear that somewhat collapsed the hole that the windscreen pillar passes through. Some hammer/dolly work took care of it. I fitted it to the car, and was pleasantly surprised by the fit.

Before I was sure that I could fix the top/rear dent, I told the supplier (Andrew at Euro Auto Parts) about the problem. His reaction was that if I can't fix it, send it back and he'll send me a new one. Good to hear. Glad I didn't need to.

5/23 Prepped the PS door for reskinning. Got the door off using a #4 Phillips head on an impact driver. Worked great to remove the hinge/door screws as well as the hinge/body screws. I know it's not the right bit, but it sure worked great. Stripped the door down using Lindsay Porter's guidance (I have both of his restoration books). Polished up the vent frame, will consider re-plating that and essentially every other bit of chrome on the car.

Ordered 40 sq ft of Damplifier from Second Skin, following John Moore's journal. Will have it ready to put on the new door skin prior to reskinning. Will probably do a preventive COD reinforcement on the new skin as well (hey, once you've got a welder and know how to use it, why not?).

Spent a fair amount of time simply cleaning, wrapping, labeling and storing parts. I've got some big plastic bins, and am keeping a record of what parts I have, what bin they're in, etc. I'm keeping most of the parts in a rented storage room, to maximize availablel garage space.

Next steps:
- Test fit/mount the fenders
- Fill/sand the dents on the fenders
- remove the radiator support panel and replace it
- Fit in the fenders/radiator support/valence; basically complete the front of the car
- Reskin the PS door, mount it as a test guage for the PS sill work
- Start to work on the PS sill

That should keep me busy for a few months.

I'm in my third week of work.

5/4 - started the dismantling, stripped the interior. Started staring at the dash trying to figure out how to get it out, so I could get the windshield off, so I could get the fenders off...

5/5 - Went to my collision repair class at the local tech school. Didn't have any of my parts off to work on, so worked on another students truck, MIG welding some holes in the rim of his bed. First time to MIG - got several holes closed up, got a little better as I went.

5/6-8 - Got the dash out. 6 nuts hold it to the scuttle. Take out the glove box to get to a couple. Knowing what I know now I would take out the center vent in the future, but I couldn't figure that out. Used 2 6" extensions and a universal joint to get a socket on the nuts. Only 4 of them were used, dash must have been off at one time and they didn't bother with all 6. Hardest is just to the right of the steering column - bent the stud working that one.

5/10 - Got the LH fender off. Bottom of fender is rusted, will take it into class on Monday and strip it, work the dents out, and evaluate it with the instructor and go from there. Sills look management - rust through on the leading edge of the outer, can see that the vertical panel is rusted out at the lower edge. The inner sills look good.

5/12 - took the fender in to class, stripped it down with 40 grit paper on a rotary. Took a couple of hours. Rust through on the lower edge. Lots of filler on top (covering rust) and the front lower (a dent), with lots of holes where they screwed in an slide hammer. Evaluation was that it can be saved. Got the top dent out pretty well with a hammer and dolly.

5/14-15 - took off the front valence. Loads of filler on it, will get a new one. Also loads of filler on the radiator support panel the valence bolts to in the middle. The panel below the radiator support was shredded, apparently to give the body guy access to the panel to straighten it a bit (he didn't straighten it much). The plan is to replace both of these parts. Got to use my grinder on the valence bolts, worked great.

5/16-17 - Got the RH fender off, started stripping it. A real mess - it's been crunched, and the metal pierced. Tons of filler. I don't want to deal with this one, will look for a replacement fender.

Sill on the RH side looks identcal to the LH. Rust through at the leading edge of the outer sill, vertical panel rusted out at the bottom, inner looks ok.

5/18 - Took out the rest of the dash - wiper motor and linkage, windshield cleaner hoses, wiring harness, etc. Down to just the steering wheel.

Got the RH door off. Used an impact wrench with a #4 phillips bit with a 4 lb hammer. Worked great - three whacks on each screw and they gave in. Also had a #4 phillips in a socket, but didn't really need it.

Stripped the door. This one will get a new skin, it has the COD and rust bubbles.

5/19 - Took the LH fender to class, welded in a plug for the side marker lamps (don't like them, don't like the '72 style grill either, so I'll convert this car to a MK I exterior. I don't care about originality, I care about what I like.).

Welded up all the screw holes in the lower front. I was getting it done, but not very pretty, when the instructor pointed out that my shielding gass was turned off. Went a lot better after that....

Actually, this was a major milestone - first time anything new went onto anything on the car (in this case, new weld metal and the plug). The restoration has begun!

5/20 - polished up the chrome vent window from the RH door. Sprayed "One Step" on the LH fender, the portions that were stripped that I'll be using. It's from Mar-Hyde, owned now by Bondo. My instructor (Jeff) recommended it since there was some old rust pitting on the fender. One-step is a combination rust converter/primer that he's had good results with. A search on the web also showed good experiences. Started grinding off the outer door skin, didn't get far with that.

Completed setting up my armory of air tools. I've got a DA sander, line sander, rotary sander, 3 mini grinders (2 angled), a cut-off tool, and nibbler. A flanger/punch is on back-order from HF. The other key tool is a 4 1/2" mini-grinder. I'll probably get another - it's an $18 tool from HF, I keep switching it from a twisted wire brush to a grinding wheel, and it'd be handy to have two, especially when I'm stripping the underside.

I posted awhile back that I got back into the MG game with car # 265842. Here's what's happened since.

Car was in Nashville, I'm in Tulsa. Flew to Nashville last weekend, rented a Uhaul and tow dolly. Loaded the car up, the PO had the drive shaft already detached. Loaded a bunch of parts into the truck, including:
- LH outer sill
- RH rear fender patch panel
- new bumpers
- 5 wire wheels, primed
- new grille
- new hood
- windshield
- couple of top frames (looks like both the older types, one ubuild it and one finger-pincher)
- various mechanical parts, seals, harnesses, etc..

We put on the new hood, put a tarp over the cockpit (no top was fitted and I didn't want to mess with it) and I took off.

Drive from Nashville-Tulsa took me about 13 hours to go 640 miles. Included getting stuck in the mud in West Memphis, AR. (understimated the turninig circle of the beast). Lots of stops to check on things, retie the tarp down, etc.. Concluded at the end that whatever truck drivers earn, it's not enough.

Got eaten up by gas costs - I think I got about 6-7 mpg for the trip.

Since getting her back I've begun the disassembly process. The interior got ripped out, nothing to save there except the seat frames. I got the dash off last night - only had to fool with 3 of the attachment nuts, the others were already gone. If you ever need to get the dash off a '72, bring a 3/8" socket, universal joint, and 15 inches of extensions to the party - that's what it took to get to the toughest nut to access, just to the right of the steering column.

This weekend the plan is to get the fenders off. One of them has a dent in the top, and peeling paint over a previous dent fill job. I'm 3 classes into a autobody repair class at the local votech school, and I'll get the instructor to work with me on trying to save the fender. He knows what I'm trying to do, so I also feel confident that he'll tell me to go get a new one if this one's too far gone. We'll see.

Lots of other rust to deal with. The boot lid has rust bubbles on the exterior rim, it looks like water got trapped in the seal lip, and ate away. Not sure if that's salvageable.

The inner sills look and feel good. The castle rails seem ok. Jack mounts are solid. I expect both outer sills and vertical panels will need replacement, there's rust bubbles on the RH outer, will know more this weekend. There are rust bubbles over the LH rear fender wheel arch, so the patch panel will come in handy and I'll probably need an inner patch as well. RH looks ok, but I'll know more after stripping the paint. Heel panels and spring mounts look good. Underbody generally looks good.

The PO was proud of the "professionally installed floor panels" - well, maybe someone charged money to install them, but that was the only thing professional about the job. I've done about 15 minutes of MIG welding so far in my class, and I'm pretty sure (ok, I'm positive) that I could have done a better job on those panels. I'll be taking them out and starting over.

I plan to use chemical stripper. The car is currently red, but was originally BRG, then a nice dark blue.

The RH door gaps seem a bit tight, not sure if that's due to all the paint coats, or if there's some sagging going on. I'll post some pictures over the weekend.

The LH door was already de-hinged. Where does one find a posi-drive bit to fit?

I've got a big order of air tools from HF on the way. Already have a PC air compressor - 25 gal tank, about 6 cfm at 90.

Mechanically things look ok. No leaks or seepage from the engine, tranny or diff. The car shows 56k on the clock, but the speedo cable was disconnected. The PO claims the engine was 'rebuilt' about 10k ago, which could be true. The engine cranked well, but I didn't try to start it. I'll give it a once over once I get it out of the car, maybe plastigage one of the bearings, and go from there.

Anyway, the project has begun. People ask me 'how long', and I tell them 5 years. Maybe I can beat that.

One thing for sure, other than the body and the mechanical lumps, everything else needs replacement - anything that was vinyl or plastic or rubber is gone. I'm going to have some massive parts order to somebody.