Painful Surgery!

BB's body was assembled by the Pressed Steel Company near Swindon, England.  This is one of the big knocks on MGB's: they weren't produced by a "real" car company.  MG, Abington "just" assembled the parts.  In one sense, this is true.  Most car companies stamp and weld their own sheet metal.  Some would say, that it's the heart of car production.  However, Morris Garages mastered a very tough trick: how to produce a globally adored car, with investment low enough to keep the business running on, by today's standards, a quite low volume.

This clever trick was really a shared secret among all the British sports car manufacturers of the time.  They shared parts among several suppliers: Smiths Jaeger gauges, Lucas electrical systems (no snickers here, please!  BB's is remarkable after 53 years that no modern car is designed for!), and SU carburetors.  No one OEM could have afforded to develop and produce these components for their own volumes, but, as an industry, it worked very well!

It is with the Swindon area Pressed Steel Co. in mind that I write the following:

I think I have crossed the halfway point on this journey.  I've got BB's sheet metal trimmed for the new suspension and have fitted one half of the A-arms and the differential under the car.  It was quite relief to see wheels under her fenders again, even though the suspension is not connected to the body!

Some of the trimming was fairly minor:

You can see the Honda suspension below.  The visible bracket will plug into the slot I created.

Other areas were more challenging:

I included the top right image so you can see that a enterprising spider somehow got into the inside of the frame rail years ago, maybe even at the factory near Swindon?  Living things will try anything.