Talk Morgan Forums Community Vehicle Talk (non-Morgan) Modern Classic Cars Frontline Abingdon Edition

Looking good Chris.

Yes, happy how it is looking and Graham I agree he certainly seems to get a lot of interesting cars come into his shop. The Ferrari 330 is getting air conditioning fitted. I am not sure what the Alfa is in for but is owned by owner of the other MGB that is nearly ready.

It must be almost fascinating to see such a great rebuild of your own car!

Sorry for the delay, I had planned to take my dad a few times to see the car but both times Sydney got 150mm of rain which would not make for a nice trip. I finally took him late June and then I went to see the car again in July as I had a two week holiday in Manly, using up credit from holidays cancelled previously due to COVID.

Hopefully everyone enjoys these photos

Firstly I finished building a Telecaster using the body the painted for me. Very few parts are actually Fender, nearly everything is aftermarket and I had fun deciding which parts to use. I fitted a 4 way switch so I can get Bridge, Neck, both in parallel and both in series. Both in series sounds great. I also got the neck plate done with a MG badge. Overall the guitar is as nice to paly as any Tele I have tried in a shop and cost a bit more than the cheaper made in Mexico models. The trimmer has promised to make me a strap with left over leather once he trims the car which will make the guitar closer to the car in appearance. I think it will be nice to have a matching guitar and car.




The main reason for visiting the workshop was the trimmer had chosen some leather and carpet he thought would suit my car and they had sent a small sample that I had held near the guitar and was happy with but really wanted to see it as a big piece with the car. In this photo you can also see the handbrake that looks nicer than I was expecting. while most of his customers have it all covered with leather I am thinking about just having the bottom half covered and leaving the chrome wider part exposed, maybe it might be hot to touch but it will mean the leather not getting dirty from constantly being touched.


They were working on wiring up the dash while I was there, certainly a lot of wires.



The car was on a hoist as they had removed the diff, I had not seen under the car before as it was on the ground on my previous visits. The reason being is that the wire wheels need a skinnier hub to clear the guards and secondly the diff shop has some improvements to the LSD they said they could do while changing the hubs to the skinner size. While I was there they raised the car so dad and I could have a look underneath.

Note that the engine is on a slight angle in the donor MX5 so the bottom of the sump and drain plug are flat, but in my car the engine is straight up so the sump is not completely flat and the drain plug not at the bottom. When changing oil I plan to jack up the car and to remove and clean the wire wheels, so I will make sure I let it drain with the engine angled to get the most amount of oil out.


The main muffler has a sloped section at both the front and the back, the idea is if I scrape it on a speed bump it slides over rather than damaging the muffler.


The underneath is matt black, some customer pay a lot more to get body colour in the cabin, boot and underneath, if you look at my post from 8/12/2020 on page 6 you will see another car like that. I did not get it done for three reasons, the cost, you don't see the boot or cabin once it is all carpeted, if I do scratch underneath the car it will be easier to touch up a matt black.

Here are some photos from the visit last week, not a lot of progress in the couple of weeks since I went with my dad but good to see the diff back on the car




Note the bracket sitting on the radiator, it was holding the centre pulley in place but the workshop owner didn't think it looked neat so he made a new one to replace the one that came with the engine from Frontline in the UK. The Mazda engines are built by OMEX in the UK to their specs with the throttle bodies, cam's etc. then sent to Frontline who provides them to the workshop in Australia. I am not sure why they are not shipped straight from OMEX and whether Frontline do anything else to the engine or just package and ship it.

Looking good

Well done with your guitar Chris, lovely craftsmanship.

Good solid progress on the car too despite conditions being unfavorable.

Thanks guys.

The worst thing about building the guitar is I sourced the body from a shop right near the MGB workshop and they dropped it off directly to them so they painted it before I assembled it I had to mark and drill extremely accurately, it would have been nice to assemble it with the body unpainted so any mistakes could be filled without issues. Luckily it worked out OK but I did do measure heaps drill once.

Chris, both look fantastic, guitar and MGB. Do you have any idea when you will finally get the car?

Great to see the progress on your MGB Chris