I'm strongly considering pulling the engine from my car, rebuilding it, and
painting it. The engine is of the 1978 variety. I know that they weren't
painted red by the factory. Were they painted at all? If so, what color? I
think that the red does look pretty nice, so I'm leaning towards that. What
are the steps one has to take to paint the thing? Oh, and rebuilding the
engine -- is there a kit to do this (so I can give to my mechanic) or
should I just give the whole thing to a machine shop and let them do it?
What does a rebuild cost these days? And what does it entail? The car has
been sitting since 1985 - started once or twice. When I got it running (on
starter fluid) clouds of rust flew out of the back exhaust. I'm not even
sure that it needs a rebuild -- only has 74k miles on it -- but I want to
see if it's the right course of action. The money would be better spent on
bodywork.
The second thing I need an opinion on is the bodywork. My rear drivers side
fender has some bondo on it. It looks like it's professionally done,
because the only way I knew was that the paint was a tad cracked there and
a magnet didn't stick there. It blends in fine with the rest of the car. I
am going to strip the car and paint it, but I will be doing some body work
to it. Should I have the shop cut this panel out and weld a new metal one
in, or is it okay to sand and paint over? I've never had a car with bondo
on it before so I'm not terribly familiar with it.
The third thing is the paint. I'm leaning heavily towards Damask red, even
though it wasn't an option for that year. I also looked at a two tone MGB
-- red on top, white on the bottom. It looked pretty sharp, like a baby
corvette. I was wondering if I'd get heckled out of a show if I showed up
with something like that! =) Seriously, though, I'm not sure if I want to
do that or not - it looked cool on the one that I saw.
BEN RUSET - http://www.monmouth.com/~bruset
Safety Fast & MG Cars Webring - http://www.infi-pos.com/~oasis
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