A beautiful MG in the park

A set of photo’s submitted by the owner of this beautiful 1961 MG A.

This was the first British car I have worked on, but I hope it isn’t the last.

Ready to go back for assembly

After the wet sand and polish, the body is ready to go back the owner for assembly.

I hope the owner remembers to send me some photos of the completed car so I can see it all together.

Color me red

What has a bigger grin factor than a bright red British sports car? Yeah, I can’t think of one either.

In these pictures, taken just after I sprayed on the clear, the car looks pretty good. But this MG A is getting the full High Performance Finish treatment, so pretty good isn’t good enough.

It may shine some now, but after a wet sand and polish … yeah, now you’re talking.

You can’t have too much protection

If I asked you to tell me the first thing you think of when I say, “British car,” one of the things that probably comes to mind is rust. While a problem in the past, with the materials available today, rust is no longer an issue.

I sprayed Raptor Liner, the bed-liner material we use here at JMC AutoworX, on all the interior surfaces and in the fender wells. Raptor Liner forms a tough, water proof, rust proof barrier to protect the metal from damage.

Tinted red, to match the car, the Raptor Liner coating will blend in and be almost unnoticeable.

Prime time

After all the dents are hammered out, the car is coated with an acid etching primer. The etching primer, which appears as a greenish-gold in these photos, bonds to the metal and gives the subsequent layers something to stick to.

The etching primer is followed by an epoxy primer, not shown in this series of photos. The epoxy primer binds to the etching primer and seals the car to prevent rust.

The epoxy primer is followed by a high builds primer. The high builds primer, which is gray, dries to a hard finish that is then sanded away by a process called blocking.

As the car is blocked, any slight ripples or imperfections in the metal are filled leaving a perfectly smooth and flat surface to paint over. It is the smoothness of this surface that allows a High Performance Finish, which this car will receive, to really pop.

G’day Gov’nor

The owner of this 1961 MG A is doing the bulk of the restore himself but he needed a little help with the paint. We here at JMC AutoworX are ready to help.

The car was first sent away for media-blasting to remove the old paint to give us a good foundation for laying on the paint. Media-blasting is the process of removing paint, rust and crud by spraying tiny plastic beads against a surface with a high pressure stream of air. It is just like sand-blasting except the plastic beads don’t chew up the metal the way sand would.

The body of the car is in terrific shape. After the paint was removed we tackled the little bit of metal work this car needed.