PRACTICAL CLASSICS RESTORATION SHOW BRITAIN’S BEST RESTOS
Our MGB was in need of some serious TLC but is now fighting fit once again thanks to the efforts of various clubs and specialists at the NEC. But even getting there was a challenge...
1972 MGB GT
I've never actually exhibited one of my cars at an NEC show during my 40-plus years involved in the classic car world so I was very pleased when the organiser of the MG Car Club’s MGB Register stand, Andrew Vigor, invited me to bring GAF along to the restoration show. I accepted immediately and team and I came up with a realistic list of jobs possible within the limits of a public arena in a Zoom meeting – no spraying or welding, then.
A frantic week of preparations followed, collecting all of the parts and tools needed, then realising that they wouldn’t all fit an MGB GT and having a re-think on both fronts. The car finally got packed late on Wednesday night, in the dark, something that was to come back and bite me on the Saturday…
Typically, getting to the event, which is less than 40 minutes from my home, proved more difficult than expected. GAF suddenly lurched right and slowed as I was pulling off the A45 and slowing down to enter the queue into the NEC complex on the Thursday morning. There was nowhere to pull over but I could hear a distinct swishing noise. A burning smell became obvious shortly afterward and then the brake pedal started to get really soft. I had no choice other than to push carefully on into the event because we had a time-slot to enter, fully expecting to arrive with a destroyed front offside brake disc and keeping my distance from the glorious pre-war Riley in front of me.
The brake issue meant that the job list had to be thrown out of the window and the first task on Friday morning was now to get the car jacked up and the front brakes inspected. Luckily there didn’t seem to be any issues, although the offside disc had a clear 8mm-wide score mark in it so it must have just picked up some debris that then got spat out when I reversed inside the hall. However this meant that we could get started on the first job – replacing the damaged door cards, slotting new speakers into them and lining the inside of both the inner and outer skin with Dynamat sound deadening – something that’s impressed me in other cars.
Andrew Vigor and Chris Cockram got on with the difficult bit, carefully measuring the hole for the speakers in each with a combination of saws and Stanley knives and a cutting matt that I’d packed on the floor. If you ever get asked to exhibit and work on your car at the NEC Restoration Show, pack kneepads!
I stripped the old card off the offside door, removing the winder, speaker and so o
