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MG Midget and Sprite Technical - Heritage Re-shell door fitting.

I just want to share my frustrations regarding fitting glass, winder mechanism and quarter lights into the doors supplied with a heritage shell, which in all fairness is about 10 years old so hopefully quality has improved. After much filing of holes I managed to make the windscreen fit, next the door glass! First problem the gaps in the top of the doors is not wide enough to slide the glass and runner strip through when new sealing strips are fitted, is this me being optimistic or is the door incorrect? Secondly when everything is in place the glass in the drivers door is impossible to wind fully up when all screws are tight, slackening the long nuts on the quarter light allow this to happen but still tight. Although this is not perfect it is just about useable. However worse is to follow..... On the passsenger door there is ZERO space to fit the rear glass slide, the glass actually rubs against the inner side of the door frame. Sorry to moan but can anyone suggest an easy fix as I am puling my hair out after spending four days on these doors with little progress.
Andy

>>> First problem the gaps in the top of the doors is not wide enough to slide the glass and runner strip through when new sealing strips are fitted, is this me being optimistic or is the door incorrect? <<<

Andy - I can at least comment on that part. Even on the original doors, you need to insert the glass and its bottom channel before fitting the weatherstrips, more's the pity. Much has been written about the travails of fitting the weatherstrips, but you can only do it with the glass already installed.

Sorry, I can't say much about the rest.

-:G:-
Gryf Ketcherside

Andy,

my shell is aboutb the same age as yours and it took a while to get everything to fit.
Gryf is spot on - glass first, weather strips after. You can get a special tool to pull the weather strip clips on which helps a little.
There is some adjustment at the bottom of the front glass guide. There's a bracket which can be undone and then set to match your door - I had the same problem and undoing this helped. If you try putting it all togetjer fairly loosely and then tighten everything up that should help. I found quite a few differences between the old and heritage shell but nothing which a bit (well lot really) of head scracthing and this blog, couldn't solve!
Have you tried fitting the doorseals yet? That drove me mad until someone suggested 'dressing' them with a 2lb lump hammer - that worked.
Good Luck

Jeremy
Jeremy 3

Thanks for you advice on the seals, I'll try putting the glass in first. Unfortunately the door seems to be about 5mm too small inside, I can't even get the rear glass guide in. I was thinking maybe I could grind some off the glass, does anyone know if this is feasible and if so what tools to use.
Andy

Andy,

There is a lot of good articles in the Archives about fitting the doors up.

I've just finished a Heritage rebuild - my shell would be about 4/5 years old - yes they are a b*tch.

Note the windscreen is finally aligned to the quarterlights - so they give the screen line not vice versa as i think you are saying in your original post.

Richard.
richard boobier

Andy,

Just noticed your comment re grinding the glass

Do Not !!! - it is toughened and will shatter - it has internal stresses set up in it by heating and rapid cooling the outer faces during manufacture - this gives it the strength and it cannot be reworked.

Richard.
richard boobier

Richard, you have re-confirmed what other sources have told me about the glass, it looks like the door may require major surgery to make the glass fit. As for your comments about the windscreen when first fitted the angle of the screen was not the same as the quarter lights, there was about a 10mm gap at the top, I have had to file the holes and at one point my wife was pulling the screen back whilst I tightened the bolts. Now everything seems to line up properly.
Andy
Andy

Andy,

my shell is a 94 and so is also fairly early. I found that by leaving everything pretty loose until it was all installed made a major difference. It took me an age to find out why the steering was so tight until I slackened the rack mounting bolts and allowed the column to fit easily at the right angle. Something of a doh! moment for me.
The doors are incredibly fiddly and took ages to line evrything up especially the two weather seals. Like you I thought it would be easier to fit them first and that was easy until the glass needed to be fitted. If you've tightened up the quarter lights to match the windscreen it may be an idea to slacken them off until you get the glass in, as you'll be able to wangle things around to get it to fit. the line it all up and tighten up. if you've not alred fitted them try fitting the door cappings before the glass as they're a pain to fit afterwards!

Good luck!
Jeremy
Jeremy 3

Andy,

As i mentioned there is good info in the archives - try 15April 2004 Steve Clark did a good post - sort of using Peter Birkins great little book 'Mg midget Reborn' with his experience.

Both worth a read.

Good luck

Richard.
richard boobier

This thread was discussed between 15/06/2008 and 19/06/2008

MG Midget and Sprite Technical index

This thread is from the archive. The Live MG Midget and Sprite Technical BBS is active now.