mga wing mirror adaption

Well I have been busy ish, in the workshop with two unplanned for
projects. This one involved making brackets for a lovely British classic
car, an MGA. I hope that I will be able to post a picture of the mirrors
fitted as soon as the weather and the mirrors have been fitted.

The problem was that the owner, my architect Michael, couldn’t find
suitable mirrors to fit the ‘A’ posts or windscreen uprights. He didn’t want
to drill holes in the wings (and I agree totally with that!) and as he tours
to France and elsewhere he wanted the advantage that good wing mirrors
give. All the sets of mirrors he saw all had the same shortcoming, literally!
They all were too short and didn’t secure easily.

At the recent car show in Exeter, Michael found an nice set of round
mirrors. When trial fitting they also did not go away from the car enough.
I should have explained that Mikes MGA is a soft top or convertible.
Well Mike brought the car down and we looked to see what could be done
by ‘adapting’ (that means sawing parts off!) the brackets. The extension
was only two or three inches and we decided that some stainless steel of
the right size, could be machined to suit. The photo’s below show what was
done. In the middle of making the extensions I decided it would be nice to
have some flu (hence the delay in writing up the project) so yesterday I
phoned Michael to say they were ready.

The fixings used will not be the final ones, as some nice stainless steel
sealed nuts and bolts are being sourced by Mike. He really does look
after his car and also uses it. Hopefully the extensions will help in the
driving pleasure. Time will tell.

The brackets made were simple stainless steel round bar extensions with
milled flats for the bolts to sit on. However when fitted to the MGA
there was not enough movement in the mirror adjustment to allow the
mirror part to be tilted. This problem could be overcome by milling the
flats at a different angle, however they really didn't look good enough
and both Mike and myself decided it would be better to go back to the
drawing board. Rather than try to adapt the existing wing mirror
bracket perhaps we should fashion a new complete bracket and thats
what I am trying to achieve now.

Yesterday I spent a little time on making up a template for the wing mirror
brackets. Some time ago I was asked if I could make some extensions for wing
mirrors mounted on the ‘A’ post of a classic MGA sports car. The end result was
some short stainless steel rods machined to fit. However when placed on the car
they didn’t really suit the task so another solution was required. This time,
rather than adapt an existing arrangement, a new bracket all together is being
designed, and made.

The initial idea was to try and get some stainless steel sheet of sufficient
thickness to form the brackets. Failing the sourcing of the stainless steel, then
brass brackets would be made and chromed. Following a tip from the owner of
the MGA, a small local engineering firm (not a usual sight in our fishing port of
Brixham) sold some ’scrap’ stainless steel to me. Beacuse of its shape a design
was drawn in colabaration with the MGA owner, that would allow two brackets
to be cut from the steel sheet (see photo below).

Since the material was just about enough I thought it would be best to ‘practice’
on some brass of the same thickness. So a paper template was the fisrt stage in
setting out the shape of the proposed bracket which mirrored in some imensions
the original brackets. After chain drilling, the shape was achived by sanding on
the linisher working to the scribe lines.

The next stage was to bend the brackets to shape to see what allowance was
needed in the bends themselves. So the metal roller/bender/guilotine tool was
brought into use and the first bracket produced. The result was a bracket with
nice 90 deg. bends but the marks may have to be adjusted to account for the
final shape required. One good reason for ‘practice’. The template bracket will
be tested against the car itself to see what, if any, tolerance is available when
bending.

Another lesson to note from the exercise was the ‘mark’ made by one of the
bending jaws. The proper stainless steel brackets will need protection at this
point when they are made. So until the bracket is tried, little esle can be done
on this small project.

18th February 2009

As I felt well enough to go out into the garage today I thought that I would make a start on the stainless steel for the
brackets. I did take some photo's but unfortunately the SD card decided to give up the ghost and became corrupted. I have
ordered a replacement and hopefully it will arrive soon.

However today was all about getting the outline brackets cut out roughly to size, and they are now clamped together so they
will make a matched pair. Not too much has been done but a start has been made........

Friday 20th February 2009.

Unfortunately I have been a little under the weather today and whilst I did manage to get out into the workshop I didn't
trust myself to do any accurate work. After a cup of tea I decided to call it a day. The only productive work done was to put
a few tools away and clean up the stainless steel brackets for the MGA wing mirror project. I did manage to drill the ¼" hole
in the end of both brackets whilst still clamped together, also rounding off the ends and corners to suit.