“Frameworks” part 1

One of the benefits of homeoffice work during these Covid19 times is that I was able to start working in the garage – or actually in front of it – in the late afternoon already on two days this week. Back in April I started taking the Morgan apart. After I found the rotted left-hand sillboard and door rocker – comments from Michael R and Andre K in the German Morgan Club forum guided me to move forward with a full restoration. So this week I finally started tackling the task of get the frame back in shape.

Finding a carpenter, trying to enhance my woodworking skills (DIY) or simply ordering parts from the factory/Mogparts were the options I initially considered. If I would have seen Matthieu’s excellent videos on his channel “Atelier Passion du Bois” at that time – I might have followed the crazy idea to follow a complete DIY way. However I felt that this is beyond my woodworking skills.

So I decided to order the parts from Melyvn Rutter. The downside of this is that it really takes some time until these are made. In addition there was some form of hick-up with my order. When I checked back on the expected delivery date in the beginning or August we found out that the order has not been passed on the factory. Quite a bummer which might result in that I won’t get the car finished this year.

Regardless of what option I would have choose to replace the rotten parts – the preparation steps this week would have been more or less the same. I started by removing the rest of the “gum” on the part of the frame that connects to the bulkhead. No idea what the factory used back in 1984 – but I find it remarkable that this white paste is still somewhat flexible and soft. Recommendations from people in the TalkMorgan forum tell me that I should use Sikaflex when assembling it back together – I wonder if that is as good in 35 years as the stuff the factory used…?!

After the top scuttle rail has been cleaned I have noticed that the splice joints but also some of the halv and rabbet joints were loose. So I decided to carefully remove all of these parts which will make sanding and the woodfiller task easier anyway. From his videos I saw that Matthieu used Titebond 3 wood glue to join everything together. This is my go-to wood glue and I have it at hand – but I believe Araldite Standard might be the better option.

Before sanding I had to also clean the botton side of the right-hand sillboard which I decided to leave in place. Like the rest of the frame it is in good nick and afterall – I am doing a restauration. In the next weeks I have to replicate the same repair on the rear wheel arch that Matthieu did – just on a much smaller scale. I will try to use a piece of the old ash wood from the rocker and create an insert for the corner of the arch. This also needs to be done on the rear bottom rail and top front scuttle rail.

Last but not least I laid out all the panels that need to get dipped for painted removal and we tried to get a family decision on the future color of the car… Ok – back to the garage to get some more works done before my family will head to the UK – in not even two weeks I will be picking up all the spares as well and a lot of new parts from NewElms – feels a bit like waiting for Xmas 🙂