Progress Continues - Lots of Fettling

 Picked up the repaired starter, needed new bushing, engine turns over fine now, even started it for a short while.

Received the last parts order, we were about to run out of things to do but not a problem now!  

Darrell the body man stopped by today.  With his help, we realigned the hood from what he had done to increase the gaps at the front of the hood.  Required "C washers" that we made to space up the back of the hood on it's hinges.  Front alignment looks much better now:



Darrell also spent about an hour with me fettling the door strikers.  I had never gotten the doors to close far enough to catch the second hole in the striker.  This also left the door "proud" of the body by about 1/4 inch at the back of the door on both sides.  We ended up slightly reforming the strikers themselves (new parts), moving tap plates, and yes I may have used the sledge hammer briefly.  But eventually we got the striker alignment to where the doors catch on the second detent, and they line up much better at the rear.  Here's views looking down from above on both doors:




It does take a fair amount of force to completely close the door, but that's very typical of an MGA.

Also got the knurled nut and base plate installed on the door to allow installation of the old side curtains.  They really don't look too bad.




I had previously adjusted the trunk catch given the new rubber trunk seal.  Now it works as we like it, release the trunk release and the trunk pops up a little bit to allow you to grab it to completely open it.

Rick and Dave were also helping part of the time today.  The used brake plinths are ready for Darrell to paint.  Rick learned a lot about the complications of installing the rear brake assembly - we had planned to install the rear lights and unpainted plinths to enable driving the car to Darrell for some final painting but changed our mind after seeing how difficult the assembly process is.  May just drive car to Darrell's with no rear lights at all!



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