While I wait for my sandblaster guy to become available, I've begun to sort out my fenders. The two front fenders that came with the car were in fairly good shape, lots of bumps and bruises but no major problems. This left fender is from a 1600, (two small holes for the indicator lights). MGA front fenders tend to rust in the headlight and indicator light area, as well as, the bottom lip behind the wheel.
Someone tried to patch this rust with fiberglass. To repair this properly the rust must be cut out and new metal welded in. A new flange will be installed for the indicator lamp to make it a 1500 version.
First the rust cut out
And new metal welded in, two pieces were used to maintain the crease line. The hole and flange for the signal light will be added.
About 4 hours of panel beating, mostly with the slapper and I have a pretty decent fender. After slapping, there are slight raised spots which need to be removed before using filler or glaze. I used a auto polisher for this with 80 grit paper. The polisher moves quite slowly and therefore doesn't heat up the high spots making them worse, a shrinking disk could also be used here. After the polisher all that's left are some very small low spots, mostly rust scars, so filler will be kept to a minimum.
About 4 hours of panel beating, mostly with the slapper and I have a pretty decent fender. After slapping, there are slight raised spots which need to be removed before using filler or glaze. I used a auto polisher for this with 80 grit paper. The polisher moves quite slowly and therefore doesn't heat up the high spots making them worse, a shrinking disk could also be used here. After the polisher all that's left are some very small low spots, mostly rust scars, so filler will be kept to a minimum.
The right fender was less beaten up on the nose area, but a lot worse at the rear in front of the door. Not sure what happened here. Some kind of repair? Hopefully this will look a lot better for the next picture.
This is difficult to repair since the fender support bracket is on the backside of this crease, so banging it out will be difficult.
The flange at the bottom of this fender that holds the valance on was missing and had to be replaced, I used the other fender for a template. Two more captive nuts need to be welded on. You can also see the the proper 1500 signal light flange that needs to be added to the other fender.
