Talk Morgan Forums Morgan Sports Cars Maintenance & Servicing Dave's Diary - Spare Wheel well.

I managed to get half a day to myself, and took the luggage carrier and spare wheel off to see if I could smarten things up a bit. There's not much scope under there. The rear frame 'bonnet catches' have a wire which is supposed to run in a groove in the wood, but on mine is a bit slack. I've held it up by slotting a plastic tube behind the centre rear brakelamp bracket. All I could do was to add some thin neoprene to stop the tyre rubbing on the metal plate and cross timbers. I also blew the metal plate over with some satin black, and added a bit more wax rust proofing. I didn't take a 'before' picture, but here's the result. The neoprene shows up as four triangles, and there's a thin horizontal strip where the inner part of the wheel rests, plus a piece on each of the horizontal timbers. It's as tidy as I can make it for now.

Was it really March 09 when I did this.........
Time to add some detail I think. I've been busy tonight.....

First - on the left side cross-member there is the production spec in black marker pen. So mine is R/H - (right hand drive I suppose) - V6 - with over-riders.


Then - tucked up behind the fuel filler tube is the chassis number - it's upside down (not the photo)........


Just right of centre of this photo is the main chassis earth - bolted to the chassis, offside.


Here are the offside connectors:


Nearside:


And tucked away under the rear valance over to the nearside........


More to come..........

This picture is looking down on the rear valance inside the spare wheel well. You can just make out two slotted holes below, and to the right of the fasteners. There are three of these fasteners, (allen headed setscrews with locknuts below) and the next photo shows this better.


With those three fasteners removed, it's now clear what happened. The slotted holes were to allow adjustment, but the panel is very slightly too deep to line up, so I suspect that the compromise to make it fit was to offset the panel slightly to the right to avoid opening up the slotted hole into an over-large inverted T shape.


The effect is that the rear panel is offset slightly to the right, and my observations are that most early Roadsters seem to be the same.........
Here's the nearside gap......immediately below is the offside gap, and you can just tell the difference.



This has been niggling for a year. The remaining fasteners on this panel are four cross-head self-tappers with penny washers which locate vertically upwards into the wood frame.Two are outboard of the over-riders and two are inboard. Tonight I had then all off, and using my pin chuck to mark up, then Dremel drill, I slotted the seven holes and relocated the rear panel centrally. It was one hell of a fiddle, but now I can rest easy

The best part of this exercise though..........is still to come.............

Do you know worrit is yet???


How about now????


I've had this little project in mind for quite a while, but until now hadn't found a fix. But now I have, and what a success this is.
The pictures tell the story.This is self coloured 5mm acrylic (perspex) sheet. I tried both red and black to see which looked best.
I'll let you decide......... first the black.....




Then the red.......




I took a lot of care to get the measurements right and had these laser cut and the edges polished. They are such a good fit that you could run with them on the road as dirt barriers were it not for the heat from the brakes (and lack of air flow!!!!!)

They hold in place with (you guessed it) two small pieces of neoprene at 180 degrees on the edge.
And here's the result. I'm so pleased with this........







And that's all for now..........
Time for a cuppa....

Dave

Yet again a great post. I'm off to but some Crimson paint to copy that spare wheel look

yours

Dave

OMG you have carpet on your garage floor !

Not just carpet on the floor - look at the yellow insulation inset on the door!

thats not insulation, thats padding! Mrs W has the only key

These pictures tell more than the story don't they!!!!

Jim, the floor started out bare, then because of the constant dust, I happened upon some beige floor paint. I used it because it was cheap. Beige is a ghastly colour for most things including floors. Then I decided to paint it again, this time grey. There were two cars in there at the time, so first I rolled one out, painted the floor except for two wheel lines, then rolled it back in and painted the two unpainted bits except where the tyres were. Two days later I rolled it back a foot, and painted the four squares, and ditto for the other garage. Then I got fed up with grey, and did it a rich dark red. But it was still cold, and not 'cozy'. So I blagged some secondhand carpet tiles and tiled the whole thing. But the colours were a bit random. So then I did it again but this time green. A couple of years ago, a DIY place was flogging tiles off cheap, so I did it again, but because the numbers were limited, I had to go for red/grey/blue. I passed the green ones to 'FuSIL' - (Future Son In Law) for his garage.

The 'Padding' (HaHa) was featured on one of my neoprene related threads and has made a real difference in keeping the heat and the cold out.

All this over the last 22 years.........
Those carpet tiles are getting a bit grubby.....

Dave notes:
"The effect is that the rear panel is offset slightly to the right, and my observations are that most early Roadsters seem to be the same........."

Damn, mine is the same (2004 built 4/4 with overriders). Now I can't look at it without seeing the assymetry. Good to know what the fix is, but not sure I have the time.

Nigel