Hello all,
Well, the time has come for me and my father to make decisions critical to
the life our MG. Background first: The car needs to be stripped of paint
and repainted. As of now, the interior, exterior trim, engine, trans, fuel
tank, are seperate from the car in preparation for paint. There are a few
small rust holes in the floors, needing new panels. There is a small amount
of rust bubbling on only ONE of the four dogleg areas.
I am not sure if the car needs sill repair or not, and herein lies the tough
decision. We have talked to two people about prepping/painting the car.
The first is a guy who used to own his own body shop (closed because of
trouble with employees), and now restores american muscle cars and british
cars at his house. He does all body repair work for the local Brit car
shop, and has done e-types, mgb's etc. before. He quoted $3500 to strip,
weld, prep, paint, etc. If the sills do need doing, I think this guy would
be best.
Option 2 is a guy who my father knows personally and has done painting/body
work at his house as well, but his full time job is with Sprint and I know
for a fact he has never done MGB sill repair before. Probably around $2000
I'm guessing.
Questions: How should I investigate the need to repair the sills? The
metal seems solid when knocked on, and the car has been garaged for a number
of years. However, if I put a floor jack under one corner the body will
audibly creak and stress (I also noticed this while turning sharply back
when the car was assembled). Also, the floorpans have rusted a bit and I
thought the sills were usually the first to go.
Is it a bad idea to let someone who has never performed the operation before
tear into our car if it is necessary?
Apologies for the long wind and bandwidth, but this is not something you
want to make a mistake on.
-Dan
1972 MGB
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