Lawrie wrote in response to Kelvin:
> It's arguable that some of Kai's posts have been pretty caustic,
> but to blame him for a rusty Heritage shell...........? {VBG}
Yes, too my knowledge, I have never been responsible for causing Heritage
shells to rust ;-) But it is always good to know how well liked I am on
this list :P
Anyway, useful content time. Chuck Renner noted that the shells are dipped,
yes they are... the bodyshells were dipped in primer in the 1970s also, but
that didn't keep them from rusting.
Now the Heritage shell story that Im bound to repeat again in 6 months. A
good friend of mine restored his 1972 MGB in the early 90s. He used a BMH
shell, which he ordered through work, as the company he (and I later) worked
for was a Moss distributor. He took possession of his shell in late 1992.
Yes, they look very nice and pretty when they come out of the crate. But
when you get right down to it, his BMH shell sucked. There were numerous
discrepancies with the locations of mounting points, slight mis-alignments
that caused major assemblies to be slightly mis-aligned (specific mention
was the rear leaf spring mounts).
Since the shells are dipped as a completed shell, the sill splashguards are
in place! So the only primer that gets in there is the primer through the
drain holes. Either way, the shell was striped of all removable panels, and
all the mounting hardware had to be striped to remove the primer also.
Mis-alignments were fixed, bolt and screw locations were corrected. In the
end a further 200 hours were spent correcting the shell, repreping for
paint, trying to clean out the surface rust that was already on the sills,
and the list goes on.
The car ended up being a terrific car, and when I started work (during the
summers in HS) at the same supplier, I envied that MGB. It looked terrific,
and I knew there wasn't an ounce of filler on the entire thing, since I knew
it was a Heritage reshelled MGB. The panel alignment was outstanding, it
was a true show car. The car was even the main focus of a mid-90s Sunoco
television advertisement.
By 1999/2000 the car was showing some serious hints of tin-worm and sagging
towards the center of the car (visible because you could watch as the door
gaps grew smaller at the top of the B pillars over those two years). The
weirdest thing is, that the Heritage shell rusted in places that that I have
never seen original MGB shells rust in! The front structure of the bonnet,
the framework to which the spring pin is fastened, was completely rotted out
from the inside. Rust formed on the inside of the trunk, around the edges
where the boot floor meets the inner fenders, and of course the requisite
sill rust.
This was an everyday driven MGB, built for the purpose of showing and
everyday commuting. It had only been on the road 6 years by 2000, and the
body was practically wasted. It was garaged, it wasn't abused, and it had
waxoyl injections into the sills every other year.
We've attempted to rationalize the faults of his shell by attributing them
to inexperience with assembling the shells at the time. Even in 1992, BMH
hadn't produced a great number of new shells yet. We also thought he may
have gotten a shell which had been left around for a few years one of their
demo shells. Another idea was that the shell sat around in bare metal for a
time before it was shipped to Mayflower to be dipped (same people that
assembled and dipped the MGF bodies). Who knows, but either way he spent a
considerably large sum on a body that was billed as "better than new" by BMH
and lasted fewer years than original MGB bodies did.
Some of you may know Paul Barnes from talking on the phone with him buying
parts, or you may have seen his MGB at shows or on the road in the 90s in SE
PA. I haven't seen the car in two years now, but I cannot imagine that the
decay has ceased. The car is no longer driven, having been replaced by a
Miata (after dumping $20k into an MGB that rusted out in 6 years... I'd buy
a Miata too). Sadly, Paul also owns a 1966 Fiat 500 which was imported from
Italy in 1999... and that car also demonstrates better rust resistance than
his MGB did!
Kai
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